The Aspen Art Museum (AAM) will open the doors of its new, 33,000 square-foot Shigeru Ban-designed building on Saturday, August 9, 2014, with a free, 24-hour celebration. The new AAM is located at 637 East Hyman Avenue in downtown Aspen. It opens during the AAM’s 35th year of presenting internationally important contemporary art, with a dynamic slate of exhibitions in six gallery spaces throughout the four-level building. The 24-hour public grand opening on August 9 follows the Museum’s 10th annual ArtCrush summer benefit on August 1, and a members’ opening on August 2.

The new AAM’s inaugural exhibitions will be led by Yves Klein and David Hammons [Galleries 2 & 3— Street/Ground Floor Level], an unprecedented coupling of two of the most significant artists of our time. Shigeru Ban: Humanitarian Architecture [Gallery 1—Second Level] will present four full-scale examples of Ban’s groundbreaking designs for humanitarian relief, allowing the viewer to walk around as well as enter these structures. Tomma Abts [Galleries 4 & 5—Lower Level] will explore the artist’s drawing practice, and include new works created specifically for this exhibition. Rosemarie Trockel [Gallery 6—Lower Level] will offer a focused look at the artist’s groundbreaking and multifaceted engagement with the medium of ceramics. Jim Hodges [Street-level Plaza—Exterior of AAM] presents a new installation called With Liberty and Justice For All in the plaza outside the Museum. Cai Guo-Qiang [Roof Deck Sculpture Garden] is developing a new project for the AAM’s sculpture garden.

Aspen Art Museum Nancy and Bob Magoon CEO and Director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson: “I am thrilled, as we proceed toward the scheduled summer 2014 grand opening of our new Aspen Art Museum facility, to announce our inaugural AAM exhibitions. In this penultimate moment of preparation for our most important institutional endeavor, I am proud and humbled to look ahead to every promise our new facility holds in providing these and other expanded future opportunities for mission-vital contemporary arts programming for our community.”

Aspen Art Museum Board of Trustees Co-President John Phelan comments: “Since 2005, the Aspen Art Museum has made it one of its institutional priorities to construct an architecturally significant venue in the Aspen core for presenting contemporary art—a building that would further the AAM’s trajectory of programming the most innovative, intriguing, and important art of our time. As we stand on the cusp of accomplishing this endeavor, Co-President Paul Schorr and I are proud to serve on the AAM Board and to acknowledge the commitment of our fellow Board of Trustees and National Council members, staff, artists, and the many within our community who have contributed to providing this opportunity. We thank them for their support of the AAM and the arts in Aspen.”

Aspen Art Museum New Building Committee Chair Paul Pariser adds, “As a member of the AAM Board of Trustees and National Council, and Chair of the New Building Committee, I am extremely excited as we move steadily forward in writing this chapter in the museum’s history. I look forward to the debut of these first memorable and historic exhibitions within what I know will be one of Aspen’s most vitally important cultural landmarks.”

About the New Aspen Art Museum
Located on the corner of South Spring Street and East Hyman Avenue in Aspen’s downtown core a few blocks from Aspen’s main skiing/snowboarding mountain, Ajax Mountain, the new AAM is Shigeru Ban’s first U.S. museum. Of its design, Ban states: “Designing the Aspen Art Museum presented a very exciting opportunity to create a harmony between architecture and Aspen’s surrounding beauty while also responding to the need for the dialogue between artwork, audience, and the space itself.”

Ban’s vision for the new AAM is based on transparency and open view planes—inviting those outside to engage with the building’s interior, and providing those within the opportunity to see their exterior surroundings as part of a uniquely Aspen Art Museum experience. The new Museum features 12,500 square feet of flexible exhibition space in six primary gallery spaces spread over the museum’s four levels—more than tripling the amount of exhibition space in the museum’s current facility. The galleries have a ceiling height of fourteen feet, most infused with natural light.

Visitors will enter the new AAM through a main public entry on the north side of the building along East Hyman Avenue, which allows access to the main reception area, as well as the new AAM’s two ground floor galleries. From there, visitors may choose their path through museum spaces—ascending to upper levels either via Ban’s “moving room” glass elevator in the northeast corner of the new facility, or the grand staircase on the east side of the facility perpendicular to South Spring Street. The grand staircase—an interstitial three-level passageway situated between the building’s woven composite exterior grid and interior structure—is intersected by a glass wall dividing the stairway into a ten-foot-wide exterior space, and a six-foot-wide interior space. The unique passage allows for the natural blending of outdoor and indoor spaces and will feature mobile pedestals where art will be exhibited.

After climbing the grand staircase to the roof deck sculpture garden, visitors will enjoy unparalleled, sweeping vistas of Aspen’s internationally recognized environment. This will be the only unobstructed public rooftop view anywhere in town of the iconic Ajax Mountain. The roof deck will also be an activated exhibition and event space, with a café and bar and outdoor screening space. Shigeru Ban envisioned that visitors would navigate the new AAM the way a mountain is navigated when skiing or snowboarding—by proceeding to the very top of the building and descending from floor to floor. Other features of the museum’s architecture include: “walkable” skylights that will assist in illuminating the single main gallery on the second level; two galleries, an education space, bookstore/museum shop and on-site artist apartment on the ground floor; and, on the new AAM’s lower level, three galleries, art storage, and art preparation spaces.

About The Building Project
The meteoric growth of the AAM in recent years has meant a 115% increase in operating budget, a 110% increase in annual visitorship, and a 1,140% increase in the number of students served through the AAM’s ambitious educational outreach programming. A longstanding strategic goal for the AAM—the expansion of its facility and relocation to the downtown Aspen core—became a necessity. In 2007, the AAM appointed an Architect Selection Committee, which included ASC chair Frances Dittmer, then acting Secretary of AAM’s Board of Trustees; 2007 serving AAM Board of Trustees President Nancy Magoon and AAM Board members Larry Marx and Gayle Stoffel; and AAM National Council members Stefan T. Edlis and Diane Halle. After an international search, it was the committee’s unanimous decision to select celebrated architect Shigeru Ban (Shigeru Ban Architects) for the project.

In August 2010, the AAM moved forward with the acquisition of property at the corner of South Spring Street and East Hyman Avenue. A groundbreaking event was held on the new site on “Aspen’s Day” 8/16/11, and construction began in October 2012, with international construction team Turner Construction in the leading role and a goal of completion established for summer 2014.

Construction of the new AAM facility is 100% privately funded. The AAM continues fundraising as part of an overall Capital and Endowment Campaign with a goal of $65 million, including the $45 million building project budget as well as $20 million for the Museum’s endowment. To date, $58 million has been raised, including the $20 million for the Museum’s endowment, and $38 million toward the building project.