{"id":85921,"date":"2025-09-26T02:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T02:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/85921\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T02:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T02:25:12","slug":"how-aspen-art-museum-is-looking-to-redefine-itself-for-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/85921\/","title":{"rendered":"How Aspen Art Museum Is Looking to Redefine Itself for Next Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn a late July afternoon in Aspen, I stood in the living room of a private home with mountain views streaming through a trio of nearly floor to ceiling windows on one side and, on the other, a major painting by Julie Mehretu looming over the stone fireplace. Down the hall hung a stunning Grace Hartigan, all chunky blocks of green and burnt sienna with muscular swoops of gray. This wasn\u2019t part of the Aspen Art Museum<\/a>\u2019s official Art Week circuit of collector visits; it was a private visit to the home of a gracious host with a fondness for rowdy dogs, popcorn, and world-class paintings. In fact, there were no collector home visits on the museum\u2019s itinerary this year. Last year there were three, and collector tours were a regular feature in previous years.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"View<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a town where, since the pandemic, home values have soared\u2014last year, casino magnate Steve Wynn and discount stock mogul Thomas Peterffy co-purchased a $108 million home there\u2014the Aspen Art Museum\u2019s annual fundraiser week used to radiate wealth, culminating in a glitzy wine-tasting party at a collector\u2019s home and, the following night, the museum\u2019s equally glitzy gala.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut since Nicola Lees<\/a> took over as director, in 2020, the strategy has shifted to something more cerebral. A few miles away from the home I visited, the Aspen Art Museum was preparing a keynote presentation by German filmmaker Werner Herzog to be introduced by art world \u00fcber-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist under the banner of its inaugural AIR festival<\/a>\u2014a 10-year, $20 million, artist-led interdisciplinary program\u2014and, if you listen to the new messaging, the future of the institution.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat contrast\u2014the wealth on the walls and the ideas onstage\u2014says a lot about where the museum finds itself in 2025. Twenty years after founding its gala, ArtCrush, in a town where an apartment can run north of $4 million, the museum is attempting a sharp shift toward being a global institution and away from its renown as a collector\u2019s clubhouse.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe question is whether that\u2019s even possible. Can Lees keep the money flowing to the museum while at the same time taking the emphasis off Aspen\u2019s deep pockets? Can a Kunsthalle tucked away in a tony hamlet become a beacon of the international art scene even as the surrounding area grows increasingly expensive and is, to be kind, easy to get to only if you can afford it, and impossible to reach if you can\u2019t? (For the sake of equity, the museum has been free since 2008, thanks to Amy Phelan and her husband, John, who, in March, became Secretary of the Navy under President Trump. But that hardly diminishes Aspen\u2019s reputation for turbulence-racked flights or the four-hour drive from Denver.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Nicola<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNicola Lees, the Aspen Art Museum\u2019s director since 2020, at this year\u2019s ArtCrush gala.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Jason Sean Weiss & Zach Hilty\/BFA.com<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Aspen Art Museum was never <\/strong>supposed to be quiet. When former director Heidi Zuckerman took over in 2005, she inherited a scrappy regional institution in a town better known for its apr\u00e8s-ski than its programming. By 2014, she had rebranded it entirely\u2014securing a $45 million Shigeru Ban\u2013designed building in the center of town, backed by a formidable group of donors whose art collections doubled as investment portfolios.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis museum, in this setting, with this architect would not have existed without Heidi\u2019s vision, her tenacity and the group of supporters she had around her,\u201d one source told me in the 50 minutes bookended by a talk between artist Adri\u00e1n Villar Rojas and novelist \u00c1lvaro Enrigue titled \u201cHistorical Fictions, Future Myths\u201d<\/a> and a keynote by the Pritzker Prize\u2013winning architect Francis K\u00e9r\u00e9. Larry and Susan Marx, John and Amy Phelan<\/a>, Bob and Nancy Magoon, they built this place, she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tBuilding the museum was no easy task. When Zuckerman started, she needed more than funding: She needed armor. \u201cHeidi had the thickest skin of anyone I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d Larry Marx told me. \u201cMost people would\u2019ve folded their tent and left town.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Three<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFormer Aspen Art Museum director Heidi Zuckerman (right) at the museum\u2019s groundbreaking ceremony in 2011, with then-trustees Nancy Magoon and John Phelan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Riccardo S. Savi\/WireImage<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, the museum planned to build on city-owned land. But the site required a public referendum, and in a town that saw the museum as a playground for the wealthy, the optics proved toxic. \u201cIt was voted down two-to-one,\u201d Marx recalled. \u201cPeople said, \u2018You\u2019re just a bunch of elites.\u2019\u201d (Ultimately, the museum acquired a plot of privately owned land.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe criticism turned personal, and some in the community attacked Zuckerman\u2019s income. She earned around $850,000 in 2013<\/a>, which was closer to her New York counterparts at MoMA and the Guggenheim than it was to similarly regional institutions like the MCA Denver and moCa Cleveland. \u201cIt was nasty,\u201d he said. \u201cYes, her income was very high that year, but she saved us a fortune. She raised $70 million. What she made was a lot cheaper than if we had hired consultants to go out and raise the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBy that time, ArtCrush, the annual summer fundraising gala, had become the marquee event, earning the museum millions. The Phelans hosted its more private counterpart, WineCrush, at their home (people still gab about the Walead Beshty cracked mirror floor in their living room<\/a>); Sotheby\u2019s and J.P. Morgan sponsored the affair. The ticketed event became a legendary spectacle of big bottles and bigger egos. Museum directors mingled with Kardashians. There was fine dining, sommelier pairings of vintage wine, and an afterparty during which, I\u2019m told, guests wound up in the pool, with or without clothes. The last WineCrush was in 2019, one year before the museum\u2019s current director, Nicola Lees, took the captain\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut for all the absurdity, the institution was undeniably successful. The museum raised money, drew big names, and planted its flag in a resort town where visibility mattered as much as credibility.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"People<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tUntil 2019, John and Amy Phelan hosted the WineCrush fundraising party at their Aspen home.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Clint Spaulding\/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Heidi Zuckerman built the museum,<\/strong> Nicola Lees has tried to redefine it. When she took the helm in 2020, Lees inherited not just a building, but an identity\u2014one forged in the gala era, driven by collectors, and occasionally haunted by the very visibility it craved. Her challenge was not to raise $70 million or survive a referendum, but to remake the museum\u2019s image.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe AIR program<\/a> is the clearest articulation of that mission. Structured like an Aspen Ideas Festival for the art world, it offers talks, workshops, and collaborations aimed at reframing the museum as a center for thought leadership rather than a staging ground for social capital.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s more intellectual,\u201d said one longtime patron. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to move away from the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe shift goes beyond programming. Zuckerman curated splashy solo shows; Lees delegates\u2014to guest curators, artists, and rising stars like Daniel Merritt, now chief curator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs one collector put it: \u201cI don\u2019t know what she likes. I couldn\u2019t tell you what her taste is. But I can tell you she\u2019s extremely intelligent\u2014and good at mending fences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Candid<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCurator Hans Ulrich Obrist (left) and architect Francis K\u00e9r\u00e9 at the Aspen Art Museum\u2019s inaugural AIR festival.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Matt Weinberger<\/p>\n

\n\tThat diplomacy matters. After years of scorched bridges\u2014Zuckerman had sharp teeth, one museum benefactor told me\u2014Lees has restored calm, even while experimenting with new PR, a quieter gala, and more thoughtful messaging. \u201cWhat\u2019s so fascinating to me is that Heidi did exactly what she needed to do to build the museum, and Nicola is doing exactly what she needs to do,\u201d a director at a powerful global gallery told me. \u201cIt\u2019s a totally different vision, wildly different in style.\u201d And it\u2019s working. At a post-AIR dinner, I overheard one of the guest artists saying that Lees was building \u201cone
of the most culturally important destinations in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe irony, of course, is that the effort to downplay exclusivity requires extraordinary control\u2014of message, of optics, of who gets in the room. Unlike previous years, press were not invited to the ArtCrush gala, which a museum representative said brought in $4 million, right in line with what it\u2019s raised since 2021. (Between 2015 and 2019 the fundraiser brought in an average of about $2.5 million a year.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked about the exclusion of press, Lees told me that, yes, it was intentional. Given the length and intensity of the programming during Art Week, she thought it was more exciting for members of the press to focus instead on the AIR bill of fare\u2014including Matthew Barney\u2019s TACTICAL parallax, an odyssey that involved fighting rush-hour traffic to get to an offsite location for a performance that included horses, a sled dog team, and, per a pamphlet given to attendees, the \u201cuse of a firearm that discharges blank rounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Three<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMatthew Barney, TACTICAL parallax (production still), 2025. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Maria Baranova\/\u00a9Matthew Barney\/Courtesy the artist and Aspen Art Museum\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, sources say the museum was fuming after last year\u2019s coverage, largely positive, framed the event as a lavish summer camp. In these pages, I described it<\/a> as a place where \u201ceveryone is invited to everything, with the caveat that you have to make it there first.\u201d If the goal is to change the narrative, pulling the press from the gala was a bold first step.<\/p>\n

\n\tLees doesn\u2019t exactly reject the premise of trying to change the museum\u2019s reputation as collector-built, but she doesn\u2019t engage with it much either. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve tried to change it \u2026 they hired me knowing who I was,\u201d she told me over a Zoom call joined by Merritt. Before Aspen, she held roles at the Serpentine Galleries in London and NYU\u2019s 80WSE Gallery.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Aspen Art Museum, Merritt pointed out, was founded by artists in the 1970s, \u201chippies and radicals\u201d who came to Aspen in search of space and freedom. Lees agreed, saying the town itself was \u201cfounded by thinkers,\u201d and that the museum\u2019s role today is to keep that intellectual legacy alive, despite the shift in economic realities.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"View<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cSolange Pessoa: Catch the sun with your hand,\u201d 2025, at Aspen Art Museum. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Paul Salveson<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the museum\u2019s identity has shifted<\/strong> under Lees, its support base has started to shift with it. Some longtime donors and board members have taken a step back. \u201cYou have to let the museum evolve,\u201d said Larry Marx. \u201cThat\u2019s part of why I was happy to get off the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their place, a quieter, younger generation has taken up the reins. Amnon Rodan, of the Rodan + Fields fortune, is now board president. He and his wife, Katie, are part of a group that includes Melony and Adam Lewis, and Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul\u2014collectors with deep philanthropic experience and little interest in spectacle.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the crowded caf\u00e9 adjacent to the Hotel Jerome, collector Holly Baril said the new guard in Aspen \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to be front and center.\u201d Baril and her husband, Albert, helped found the Emerging Art Fund at MOCA Los Angeles; they weren\u2019t very involved until Lees arrived, but love the path Lees is taking. \u201cNicola\u2019s created something people want to be part of. A strong community that doesn\u2019t feel performative,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year\u2019s ArtCrush cochairs embody that shift: Sarah Arison, MoMA board president; Jen Rubio<\/a>, cofounder of Away luggage and Whitney Museum trustee; and Charlie Pohlad, of the Minneapolis-based Pohlad family, reflect a network of emerging collectors more aligned with Lees\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Sarah<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe cochairs of this year\u2019s ArtCrush fundraising gala, from left: Sarah Arison, Charlie Pohlad, and Jen Rubio.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Jason Sean Weiss & Zach Hilty\/BFA.com<\/p>\n

\n\tPart of that mission is rooted in the museum\u2019s structure: It has no permanent collection. For Albert Baril, that\u2019s the key. \u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a platform for discovery. They\u2019re not hitting us up to raise another hundred grand to buy this or that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAspen is a place defined by scarcity\u2014of land, housing, access. \u201cAspen has always been expensive,\u201d said realtor Riley Warwick. \u201cBut now it\u2019s almost embarrassingly expensive.\u201d Pre-pandemic, it was $1 million per bedroom. Now? \u201cCloser to $2 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, Lees and her team have found ways to root the museum in the local community. \u201cWe work with every single school in the valley,\u201d she said. \u201cWe see 3,000 children come through our doors in the spring for the Youth Art Expo<\/a>.\u201d That kind of outreach may not dominate headlines like ArtCrush, but it reflects a deep investment in Aspen\u2019s intellectual and creative future\u2014regardless of the housing market.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat kind of museum it becomes may depend less on its intentions than on its surroundings. Aspen is not a blank slate; it\u2019s a wealthy enclave with a magnetic pull and a hefty price tag. Even the most daring programming must contend with the place\u2019s reality: who can live there, who can stay long enough to care, and what kind of culture flourishes in the rare air between exclusivity and access.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA version of this article appears in the 2025 edition of the annual Top 200 Collectors issue, under the title \u201cA Little Place Called Aspen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a late July afternoon in Aspen, I stood in the living room of a private home with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[11845,365,362,363,364,56681,366,18,117,19,17,56682,56683],"class_list":{"0":"post-85921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-artnews-top-200-collectors","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-aspen-art-museum","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-nicola-lees","20":"tag-top-200-2025"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}