Final Friday February

Last night I went to the Denver Art Museum (the DAM) for Untitled Final Fridays, held the last Friday of each month (except November and December).  This time I was finally able to see the Mi Tierra exhibit, which took almost five months to install and features the work of Hispanic artists depicting their place in the American Southwest.  It was interesting to see and the art was good, although I'm not sure why it took five months to install.  The painting on the left is part of a series called Lupita by artist Ramiro Gomez, who lives and works  in West Hollywood.  Lupita is a janitor at the Denver Art Museum, and Ramiro features her in an effort to see people above and beyond their occupations.  I was expecting most of the artists to be from Denver, but many are from other parts of the western United States, as well as Mexico.  It is definitely worth a look.

It didn't take long to tour the Mi Tierra exhibit, and so I thought I would check out the photography exhibit in the North Building.  I pushed the elevator button for the 7th floor, but it didn't work.  Then I saw the sign that the 7th floor was temporarily closed.  What is it about the DAM closing entire floors? Will the 7th floor be closed for 5 months, too?  In any case, I went to the 6th floor instead and eventually wound up in the Pre-Colombian exhibit, where there was to be a "performance."  It turned out to be "slam poetry" reading, which I am not fond of, and so I toured the gallery instead and saw the earthenware female figure on the right, which was placed in a tomb as a substitute for human sacrifices and made between 1100 to 1400. Is it just me, or is this statue wearing goggles?  Did the museum have this thing authenticated before buying it?  In any case, in another part of the gallery were older objects from the Aztecs, and the sign said that the Aztecs had a daily human sacrifice to the Sun/War God to appease it, so the sun would rise the next day.  That does not sound nice to me.  It seems like they were as ruthless as the Spanish, which is saying something.  And so I learned something on this visit.  A first!