GLENN LIGON: Mapping America
e Pinnacle of Waterfront Elegance
FOUNDER | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
SARAH G. HARRELSON
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
MARA VEITCH
HAMPTONS EDITOR
JACOBA URIST
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
JULIA HALPERIN
FASHION EDITOR-AT-LARGE
ALI PEW
SENIOR EDITOR
ELLA MARTIN-GACHOT
ASSOCIATE DIGITAL EDITOR
SOPHIE LEE
ASSISTANT EDITOR
SAM FALB
SOCIAL EDITOR
KRISTIN CORPUZ
ART DIRECTOR
CHAD POWELL
JUNIOR ART DIRECTOR
HANNAH TACHER
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
JAMESON BALDWIN
COPY EDITOR
EVELINE CHAO
CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
CARL KIESEL
VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES, ART + FASHION
LORI WARRINER
DIRECTOR OF BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
DESMOND SMALLEY
PUBLIC RELATIONS
ETHAN ELKINS, DADA GOLDBERG
MARKETING COORDINATOR
HAILEY POWERS
PREPRESS/PRINT PRODUCTION
PETE JACATY & ASSOCIATES
I’M INCREDIBLY EXCITED TO PRESENT CULTURED’S second annual Aspen edition. Last year was a summer of firsts—we debuted a broadsheet issue dedicated to the Roaring Fork Valley’s rich art scene, and I curated Anderson Ranch’s beloved Summer Series for the first time. This year, we’re back for more on both fronts—it is an honor to produce a print magazine that celebrates the enduring vitality of Aspen, and a privilege to shape the program of an institution that has organized some of my favorite art world conversations.
This Aspen edition features interviews with many of the season’s best and brightest—the inimitable artists Glenn Ligon and Solange Pessoa, the Aspen Art Museum’s visionary director Nicola Lees, and a selection of dedicated collectors and cultureshapers who call the mountain town home. The Internet phenomenon that is the Gstaad Guy injects a lighter note; in these pages he provides a deliciously caricatural guide to Aspen’s customs and characters. Satire aside, it’s an exciting time to be here; under Lees’s leadership, the AAM has launched the first iteration of AIR, a new summit of artists, writers, and scientists that culminates in four days of immersive programming with some of our era’s most intrepid minds.
From the trails to the museum halls, there’s plenty to do this year—and it’s all in these pages. Here’s to another art-filled Aspen summer.
20 THE ART DIET
As Aspen heats up, so does its cultural calendar. CULTURED compiled 10 cultural happenings that are keeping things interesting this season.
22
INSIDER TRADING
Nine of the mountain town’s most beloved devotees share their insider guides to navigating Aspen at high season.
24
AWAY FROM THE NOISE
Andrea Jenkins Wallace reflects on how Anderson Ranch Arts Center has sustained its place as a petri dish for creation over the years—and what working there reveals about her own imagemaking practice.
26
STUDIO FREQUENCIES: JOTA MOMBAÇA
Ahead of their participation in the inaugural air festival, the Brazilian artist offers a first look at their three-part opera—and the studio practice that fostered it.
28
WHERE TO SEE AND BE SEEN THIS SUMMER
Aspen’s plethora of new openings poses one difficult question: how will you make time for it all?
30
ASPEN REAL ESTATE WITH MELANIE MUSS
From Snowmass to Red Mountain, the veteran broker unpacks what today’s buyers are looking for and where they’re closing deals.
32
INSIDE ASPEN’S MOST ARTFUL ADDRESS
Casa Tua’s collector co-founders return to Aspen this summer with a bold exhibition of photographer Anastasia Samoylova’s works and a fresh vision for their creative enclave.
34
THE GSTAAD GUY’S ASPEN GUIDE
The alpine antihero and internet phenom offers CULTURED a crash course.
36
GUCCI HITS THE MOUNTAINS
The Italian house’s ode to warmweather dressing sticks a landing in Aspen—just in time for summer.
36 LIBERTINE LOVES ASPEN
Libertine touches down at the Hotel Jerome this summer for a pop-up filled with handmade pieces and one-of-akind exclusives.
38
RIDING HIGH: FASHION FOR AN ASPEN SUMMER
From artfully distressed denim to equestrian-inspired accessories, the rugged spirit of the American West is galloping into the season with charm.
40
ALWAYS AN HOUR AHEAD
Nicola Lees opens up about what motivated the biggest swing of her career.
42 AN ASPEN NEWCOMER DOUBLES IN SIZE
The Aspen Art Fair returns with nearly twice as many galleries and a special display partly inspired by Miranda July’s cult novel All Fours.
43
BOLDFACE NAMES BRING THE HEAT TO AN ICY FAIR
Intersect Aspen Art + Design Fair returns with its most ambitious edition yet.
44
CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER WHISTLES IN THE DARK
The artist brings a sonic installation and memento mori to the streets of Aspen for the inaugural AIR Festival.
46
BETWEEN MATTER AND MEMORY
Solange Pessoa’s solo exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum brings together four bodies of sculptural work.
48
WELCOME TO THE ART FARM
In Aspen, culinary investor and collector Allison Rose has found her latest venture.
52
GLENN LIGON’S AMERICA
The artist evaluates America’s shifting institutional structures, including that of the museum where he is soon to show.
54
YOUNG COLLECTORS 2025
Plenty of people buy art. Fewer dedicate themselves it. Take a peek at the next generation of art collectors.
56
NOT YOUR MOTHER’S READING LIST
We asked a handful of Aspen Ideas Festival speakers to reveal how—and what—they read.
Allison Rose at McCabe Ranch in Aspen
Glenn Ligon photographed by Naima Green in 2025. Portrait courtesy of the Aspen Art Museum.
The Art Diet:
10 Cultural Happenings Keeping Aspen Busy This Season
“SHERRIE
LEVINE: 1977–1988”
Where: Aspen Art Museum
When: June 6–Sept. 29
Why It’s Worth a Look: Sherrie Levine, a key figure in the Pictures Generation movement, has made art history her central subject for over five decades. By appropriating everything from Marcel Duchamp’s urinal to Walker Evans’s portraits of Dust Bowl families, she prompts audiences to ask big questions about what authorship really means.
Know Before You Go: This show takes a close look at Levine’s early work. The oldest piece, Shoe Sale, 1977, documents the sale the artist arranged of 75 pairs of identical, store-bought children’s shoes at a Manhattan art gallery.
“ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA”
Where: Casa Tua Aspen
When: Summer 2025
Why It’s Worth a Look: The Russian-born, Miami-based photographer made waves last year when the Metropolitan Museum of Art paired her images of Florida with those of Walker Evans for an unusual two-person exhibition. This mini-survey at Aspen’s private club brings together some of the image-maker’s lesser-known series.
Know Before You Go: The presentation offers a sneak peek at the artist’s forthcoming “Atlantic Coast” series, which is inspired by the American photographer Berenice Abbott’s epic road trip from Florida to Maine in 1954.
“THE PALE THRESHOLD” BY ENRIQUE MARTÍNEZ CELAYA
Where: Baldwin Gallery
When: June 20–July 20
Why It’s Worth a Look: In this latest display of work by Enrique Martínez Celaya, the artist brings together portraits of individuals on the cusp of adulthood and depictions of stairs. What unites the two disparate topics is an interest in evolution. With a visual language both pondering and communal, viewers are given the opportunity to explore the fragility of these transitional states.
Know Before You Go: “My own interest lies in the poetry and fragility of this liminal space,” the artist notes, “where ascension and descension coexist with anticipation, self-invention, discovery, and memory.”
INTERSECT ASPEN ART + DESIGN FAIR
Where: Aspen Ice Garden
When: July 29–Aug. 3
Why It’s Worth a Look: The longest running commercial art fair in Aspen returns to the Ice Garden with a bigger lineup than ever.
Know Before You Go: Highlights of Intersect’s 15th edition include a solo presentation of street artist Shepard Fairey via Aspen’s 212Gallery and photography and sculpture by R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe presented with Atlanta’s Jackson Fine Art.
SHERRIE LEVINE, PRESIDENT COLLAGE: 6, 1979. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA, BREAKFAST WITH IRVING PENN, NEW YORK, 1947, 2017. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND CASA TUA.
ANDERSON
Where: Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village
When: July 9–Aug. 7
Why It’s Worth a Look: An intellectual retreat for artists, Anderson Ranch has been a cradle for creative exchange since 1966. This summer, CULTURED Editorin-Chief Sarah Harrelson has returned to organize the center’s conversation series
ASPEN ART FAIR
AIR FESTIVAL
Where: Aspen Art Museum
When: July 26–Aug. 1
for the second year in a row.
Know Before You Go: Don’t miss a dialogue about art, music, and creativity between painter Issy Wood and CULTURED Co-Chief Art Critic Johanna Fateman. Another highlight: 2025 International Artist Award recipient Titus Kaphar in conversation with actor André Holland, who played an artist in Kaphar’s debut narrative feature film.
ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL
Where: Aspen Institute
When: June 25–July 1
Why It’s Worth a Look: If AIR is the new kid on the block, the Aspen Ideas Festival is the OG summer think-in. This year, the festival celebrates the institute’s 75th anniversary with speakers including the architect Shigeru Ban, vulnerability guru Brené Brown, and statistician Nate Silver.
Know Before You Go: A festival must: sitespecific art tours, guided nature walks, espresso-bar debates, and, of course, a nightcap or two.
Where: Hotel Jerome
When: July 29–Aug. 2
Why It’s Worth a Look: Founded by a former director of Intersect and a local art dealer, the fair gave a jolt to the scene during its debut last year. Hotel Jerome’s luxurious, funky rooms offer a delightful backdrop for art.
Know Before You Go: Returning exhibitors include Perrotin, Galerie Gmurzynska, and Southern Guild, alongside newcomers Marianne Boesky Gallery, Sean Kelly, and Vielmetter.
UP IN THE SKY MUSIC FESTIVAL
Where: Buttermilk Aspen
When: Aug. 8 and 9
Why It’s Worth a Look: Aspen’s newest music festival blends the ethereal and the ecstatic, pairing Kacey Musgraves’s cosmic twang and Glass Animals’s warped psych-pop sound—at a show-stopping venue smack in between Snowmass Village and Aspen Mountain.
Know Before You Go: The debut lineup also includes Rüfüs Du Sol and Suki Waterhouse.
Why It’s Worth a Look: Aspen Art Museum’s new flagship initiative—part think tank, part public artwork, part festival—explores how artists can offer the world a new model for leadership. Designed as a year-round platform for site-specific commissions and boundarycrossing collaborations, it culminates each summer in a week of closed-door conversations and action-packed public talks and performances.
Know Before You Go: Featuring keynote performances by Matthew Barney and André 3000, the festival is inspired by the legacy of Aspen’s interdisciplinary historic International Design Conference.
“SCULPTING THE ENVIRONMENT: THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL ART OF HERBERT BAYER”
Where: Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies
When: June 10–April 18, 2026
Why It’s Worth a Look: The German-born Colorado transplant Herbert Bayer (1900–1985) played a key role in bringing the Bauhaus movement to the United States. This exhibition offers the most sweeping look yet at Bayer’s philosophy of creating a “total environment.”
Know Before You Go: Bayer moved to Aspen in 1946 and left his mark all over town. He renovated the Hotel Jerome and designed Aspen Mountain’s leaf logo, a version of which is still used today.
ANDRÉ BUTZER, UNTITLED 3 PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
TASCHEN.
ANDRÉ 3000. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIAN KLINCEWICZ AND COURTESY OF ANDRÉ 3000.
INSIDER
JENNA BLAKE
How does Aspen play into your design inspiration?
Because Aspen is such a big part of my life, and because I design pieces that I would want to wear myself, I envision myself wearing them in Aspen. To me, the Aspen lifestyle is the perfect balance of casual elegance, which I am always trying to achieve in my pieces.
What do you love most about Aspen?
I love how multifaceted Aspen is. You are surrounded by nature while being able to be active, social, and cultured all at once. Aspen has the best of everything, including peace and calmness, style, and sophistication—all rolled into one place.
Do you dress differently when you’re in Aspen? If so, how?
I always maintain a certain level of eclecticism in how I dress, but in Aspen, it’s less structured and a bit more relaxed.
Your favorite seasonal indulgence in Aspen?
In the summer, I love how late the sun sets and that I can be out walking or hiking until 7:30 p.m. at night.
LESLEY SLATKIN
Where is your full-time residence and when do you go to Aspen?
We live in Los Angeles and come to Aspen mostly from the end of June to the end of August. I am not a huge winter person (probably because I am a horrible skier), but we also come for several weeks in the winter.
When you arrive in Aspen after some time away, what’s the first thing you like to do?
We typically drop our bags and dogs and go to Silverpeak Grill (which we still refer to as 520 Grill) for fish tacos and the best sweet potato fries in town!
Best spa or workout spot?
It depends on the class, but I love both O2 and Aspen Shakti.
How do the rhythms of your life shift when you’re there?
Life slows down the second we arrive in Aspen for the summer. My friends and I joke that the first session of camp has begun! The time I spend with family and friends has a different quality. We spend hours on our porch, sit and play games, do puzzles, and take in the beauty of the mountains.
MARIANNE BOESKY
GALLERIST
How do the rhythms of your life shift when you’re there?
The Aspen rhythm suits my natural rhythm so well—up early, busy all day in nature with friends and family, and early dinner in the evenings. I love being in my cozy house so much, and I have a great kitchen, so I cook a lot more at home in Aspen than I ever do in New York.
Name your favorite hike?
There are so many. If I have to choose one, I’d say I really love Midnight Mine.
Your favorite place for an evening drink?
In the summertime, I love the little outside area at Casa Tua for a cocktail. In
MEREDITH DARROW
ART ADVISOR
Your favorite seasonal indulgence in Aspen?
Powder Cat tours on the backside of an Ajax.
What do you love most about Aspen?
You have to be really intentional to live in Aspen, as it’s a challenge. People work hard and play hard. Everyone is really engaged in all aspects of the community, from the arts to athletics to their work.
The best meal in town?
Cache Cache is my favorite.
Best spa or workout spot?
Rachel Hansen’s Pilates class.
Do you dress differently when you’re in Aspen? If so, how?
I lean into the Western vibe for sure. Lots of denim and suede. It’s fun to embrace it.
AS ASPEN TRANSITIONS INTO ITS HIGH SEASON, THE CITY’S DEVOTEES SHARE WHAT MAKES THE SUMMER SO SPECIAL.
the winter, my favorite spot for a drink is by the fire at the Little Nell. They have the best hot chocolate and are dog-friendly too, so Dino loves to join!
The best meal in town?
Ooh, that’s a hard one. I would have to say that it’s [collector] Bruce Berger’s homemade brick-oven pizza that he makes from scratch and fires up in his and Barbara’s backyard!
TRADING
RICHARD EDWARDS
GALLERIST
What do you love most about Aspen?
I love that Aspen is a small town with the heft of a large city. During the summer, there are a plethora of activities involving intellectual life, the arts, and physical activity in a setting of outstanding beauty. It’s a wonderful place to live, with great people and a robust community spirit.
ELEANORE & DOMENICO DE SOLE
COLLECTORS AND CHAIRMAN OF TOM FORD INTERNATIONAL
What scents, sounds, and textures do you associate with Aspen?
The physical beauty is what has always caught our attention: blue skies, snowcapped mountains. In the summer, the afternoon storms start building and the winds pick up. This guarantees the rustling of the aspen trees in our yard with the quivering and shimmering of the branches and leaves.
What do you love most about Aspen? The town is filled with so many accomplished and cultured folks. One is never short of having an engaging conversation. And you can’t beat having so many friends who share our love of art… we are all obsessed! When we come to Colorado, we get on our bikes—electric now—and hit the road for a couple of hours. Like so many others, we hike the many beautiful trails.
Your favorite place for an evening drink? Out on our terrace overlooking Burnt Mountain and the Continental Divide, in the direction of Hunter Creek.
When you arrive in Aspen after some time away, what’s the first thing you like to do?
The first thing that I do upon my return is head to the gallery and the office to check on how things are going—then I take my dogs for a walk. We tend to walk from town on the Rio Grande Trail before we cut across the river behind the Music Tent and walk back through the West End.
The best meal in town?
My favorite place both for a drink and dinner is the Caribou Club. I may be biased, but it has a relaxed and convivial atmosphere, delicious food, incredible
Your favorite seasonal indulgence in Aspen?
For summer, it’s Sunday concerts at the Music Tent.
staff, and has earned its status as an Aspen classic.
Do you dress differently when you’re in Aspen? If so, how?
I basically wear the same clothes wherever I am. It may be a little formal for Aspen, but I usually wear a jacket and jeans, or a casual suit in the evenings. Aspen has many excellent opportunities for shopping. On my return, I am looking forward to seeing the newly remodeled Dior and Zegna stores—our neighbors at the Baldwin Gallery.
ALBERT & HOLLY BARIL
COLLECTORS
Name your favorite hike?
People take hiking rather seriously in Aspen, and everyone has their favorite. Mine is Difficult Creek (which isn’t actually difficult) because I enjoy its serenity and shade. Albert’s, however, is American Lake, which is more of a challenging hike.
When you arrive in Aspen after some time away, what’s the first thing you like to do?
The first thing we like to do is take a walk up Smuggler Mountain. Because it is such a popular destination, we affectionately refer to it as “social climbing.”
Best spa or workout spot?
The best workout spot in town is Higher Terrain Aspen. Kaytlyn Shepherd’s Pilates class always has a waitlist! To recover from a multi-sport day, we love to unwind at the St. Regis’s RAKxa Wellness Spa. Its relaxation lounge offers supplemental oxygen to help locals acclimate to the altitude.
How do the rhythms of your life shift when you’re there?
Summer in Aspen turns into “camp for
grownups.” Between amazing outdoor activities, cultural events such as the Aspen Music Festival, Ideas Festival, Theatre Aspen, and the Food & Wine Classic, along with numerous social gatherings, it’s hard to find some downtime. During the winter, though, the days become shorter, things slow down, and we get to spend more time at home with our family.
Away From the Noise
ANDREA JENKINS WALLACE REFLECTS ON HOW ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER HAS SUSTAINED ITS PLACE AS A PETRI DISH FOR CREATION OVER THE YEARS—AND WHAT WORKING THERE HAS REVEALED ABOUT HER OWN IMAGE-MAKING PRACTICE.
Snowmass Village, a tiny hamlet outside of Aspen, has been a pilgrimage site for artists big and small since the mid1960s. They don’t flock there for the hiking trails and ski resorts—though the alpine environs don’t hinder the pull either—but for Anderson Ranch Arts Center, founded by pioneering ceramicist Paul Soldner as a nonhierarchical nerve center for artistic creation.
Andrea Jenkins Wallace made her own way there 17 years ago. After a decade spent in academia, she was looking for a place to reinvent her life, both as a photographer and a newly single mother. “Anderson Ranch represented a unique opportunity,” she tells CULTURED. “It offered the chance to raise my child in the natural beauty of the mountains, while still being connected to a vibrant cultural community.” As the vice president of artistic affairs and artistic director of photography and new media at Anderson Ranch, Jenkins Wallace has turned the center into a veritable incubator for image-making practices, leading her own workshops and inviting esteemed visiting artists like Catherine Opie, Jess T. Dugan, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya. Alongside her community-facing work, she’s continued to develop a suite of personal photography projects; her latest documents altar boys across the United States. In the midst of the center’s high season, she caught up with CULTURED to discuss what continues to set Anderson Ranch apart, year after year.
What has your time at Anderson Ranch taught you about how to create a generative environment for creativity and experimentation?
My time at Anderson Ranch has deeply shaped my understanding of what it takes to foster a truly generative environment for creativity and experimentation. One of the most important lessons is that creativity thrives where there is a balance between structure and freedom. You need a strong foundation—clear values, supportive infrastructure, and a culture of respect— but within that, people need space to take risks, make mistakes, and follow unexpected paths.
Another key ingredient is community. Being surrounded by people who are passionate, curious, and open to dialogue—whether they’re artists,
students, or visiting thinkers—creates a kind of cross-pollination that fuels innovation. At the Ranch, we’ve always emphasized interdisciplinary exchange, and that has led to some of the most exciting breakthroughs I’ve seen.
Generosity is also essential: generosity of spirit, of knowledge, of time. When people feel safe, supported, and seen, they are far more willing to be vulnerable and experimental in their work. Finally, the natural environment itself plays a role. There’s something about being in the mountains, away from the noise, that clears space for deeper thought and more intentional making. It’s a reminder that creativity isn’t just about output—it’s also about reflection, rest, and connection.
“When people feel safe, supported, and seen, they are far more willing to be vulnerable and experimental in their work.”
—ANDREA JENKINS WALLACE
What was one of the most surprisingly revelatory workshops you’ve experienced or programmed at Anderson Ranch?
There have been so many remarkable workshops at the Ranch over the years, but one that stands out as especially revelatory was co-teaching a photography workshop with Catherine Opie. Cathy is not only a master artist but also an incredibly thoughtful and generous educator. Her approach to image-making, and her ability to talk about content, visual language, and the layering of meaning within a photograph was deeply inspiring—not just for the students, but for me as well. I learned so much from working alongside her.
What was so powerful about Cathy’s teaching was the way she met each student where they were. She pushed them—gently but firmly—both conceptually and technically, helping them elevate their work while also giving them practical tools they could carry forward. The transformation in the room was palpable. It was one of those rare experiences where the energy, learning, and growth were mutual—students and instructors alike came away changed. It was a vivid reminder of what makes Anderson Ranch so special: the possibility for real, meaningful transformation through art and community.
What unexpected places has your own photography practice taken you?
As a documentary photographer, I’ve had the privilege of spending years working on projects that explore unique and often underrepresented communities. I’ve spent time with women who live along the Alaskan pipeline and worked in ranching
communities in Colorado, capturing intimate and powerful narratives that reflect the complexities of their lives.
Currently, I’m working on a new series that focuses on altar boys, which has taken me across the country. This project involves creating portraits and conducting interviews with them about their experiences and their thoughts on Catholicism. It’s been an incredibly rewarding and eye-opening journey, as I explore themes of faith, identity, and the intersection of tradition and personal belief. The series is not just about the individuals themselves, but also about how their stories reflect larger cultural and societal shifts.
Each of these projects informs my work at Anderson Ranch as well, reminding me of the deep value in giving voice to marginalized or overlooked groups, and the power of visual storytelling to reveal complex truths.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Studio Frequencies: Jota Mombaça
AHEAD OF THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE INAUGURAL AIR FESTIVAL, THE BRAZILIAN ARTIST OFFERS CULTURED A FIRST LOOK AT THEIR PLANETARY THREEPART OPERA—AND THE STUDIO PRACTICE THAT FOSTERED IT INTO EXISTENCE.
In less than a decade, Jota Mombaça has cemented themself as one of the global art landscape’s most urgent voices. Fusing critical theory and a reservoir of media (among them drawing, poetry, installation, and performance), the Brazilian artist charts the life cycles of gendered, racialized, and environmental traumas like the Transatlantic slave trade or evolving climate catastrophes—and the tactics humans have developed to weather them. Waterways have been a recent channel for this expansive inquiry: Mombaça’s current cycle of performances examines how, from the canals of Venice to the swampland origins of Berlin, water can be a life-giving force, an agent of destruction, and a path to power—or all three at once.
The natural world also serves as inspiration in the multidisciplinary artist’s latest work, The Muted Saints. Commissioned for the Aspen Art Museum’s AIR Festival, the three-act opera will be performed at the Hallam Lake Nature Preserve on July 29. Inspired by a 2023 short story by Mombaça about a protagonist who transitions from human to geological form, the ambitious commission radiates outwards from its Colorado surroundings, which Mombaça visited earlier this year, to “speak of the interconnectedness of planetary existence.”
Ahead of its premiere, CULTURED caught up with Mombaça about their creative process, the occupational hazards of working with water, and what they would change about the art world.
Where does the story of your AIR performance, The Muted Saints, begin?
The Muted Saints begins in the wake of a catastrophe. This is not explicit in the work, but it’s an important aspect of its composition. The muted saints are entities wounded by the imperative transformation of the planet; they are learning how to act and feel and listen, for they were turned into ghosts or rocks or gusts of wind. The performance is not
concerned with what they are becoming, but with the possibilities of their transition. What does it mean to sing as a rock, to feel as a current, and to listen as a ghost? In a way, these questions are where the story begins.
The opera will be performed in a nature preserve in Aspen. How much time did you spend in the region to tap into the local environment?
I spent four days in Aspen for the site visit. The composition was already in motion when I got there, so it was more about letting the environment teach me how to hold the ideas I was working on. I was there in the early spring, and there was still a lot of ice and a pervasive whiteness. Things will change before the activation of the work in July. Many of my works have site-responsive qualities, but with time, I have learned to also see places as a set of arrangements and connections to which we can relate in transformative ways.
What or who did you surround yourself with while making The Muted Saints?
A friend gifted me a river stone they brought from an island we both love in the Amazonian region, and I have been keeping it close. Another friend reminded me of a beautiful poem by Ursula K. Le Guin that ends with a couple of verses about “the long language of the rock.” My mentor and friend Denise Ferreira da Silva sent me her text on dark matter and what she brilliantly calls “material aesthetics,” which has also informed the composition. Of course, I am also surrounded by brilliant collaborators and interlocutors on this project.
What do you think AIR offers the art world that we’re lacking right now?
I feel we are currently enclosed by a suffocating political hyperrealism on a global level. There are several manifestations of violence, which are making their way to the most intimate corners of our lives. On the face of it, AIR presents us artists with a
beautiful possibility. The idea of a retreat that leads to a public festival is important in a moment when we need space to collectively engage with our wounds, but also with our radical imagination. It is a much-needed air pocket in a rarefied environment.
What’s the first thing you do when you enter your studio?
I hide my phone, change clothes, make a coffee, put some music on, and then I wait for the work to become clear to me.
What’s on your studio playlist?
Shabaka Hutchings, Cátia de França, and Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru.
What’s the biggest studio mishap you’ve experienced?
In 2022, I still had my studio in Amsterdam, and I had just returned from Venice, where I presented a performance titled In the tired watering. In this project, I left 50 meters of textile in the Venetian lagoon to be retrieved during the performance. It was returned to my studio after drying, and I decided to unfold it in my 40-square-meter studio. I did not expect the material to release such an excessive amount of dust, brought from Venice to Amsterdam. When I realized what was happening, I was already within
the dust cloud. It was uncomfortable, potentially hazardous for my respiratory system, and definitely a mess to clean. However, it was precisely that moment that I figured out what I was calling into life with this practice of sinking materials: The previously sunken textile was now a ghost, with the power to haunt and take over the spaces with its dust.
Have you ever destroyed a work to make something new?
I do it so often that it has become a method.
Is there a studio rule you live by?
There is this Pope.L interview where he says something like, “Knowing what you are doing is overrated.” This expresses my core belief when it comes to studio work. So I made a rule out of it: “Do not dwell too much on what you know. Allow yourself to feel lost. The work emerges at the limit of our knowledge of things, not at its core.”
If you could change one thing about the art world, what would it be?
Everything.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in your studio?
My own work.
Jota Mombaça, Thus we disappear (Así desaparecemos), 2019 (Performance Reenactment Still).
Jesse Mockrin
Echo
Art Gallery of Ontario | Toronto
Opening September 13, 2025
Drawings
James Cohan | 52 Walker Street, New York
Opening October 9, 2025
Where to See and Be Seen This Summer
ASPEN’S PLETHORA OF NEW OPENINGS POSES ONE DIFFICULT QUESTION: HOW WILL YOU MAKE TIME FOR IT ALL?
BY SARI ANNE TUSCHMAN
One thing you can always expect in Aspen is change. With each season comes a new array of boutiques and eateries to while away the time. This summer is no exception.
SHOPPING
Aspen has always been an alpine athlete’s paradise, of course, but it is also a lesser-known haven for those whose interests veer more sartorial. Dior recently reopened its doors on the corner of South Galena and Hopkins Avenue after a long renovation, revealing a much larger space filled with men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes, and accessories—all while paying homage to the boutique’s mountainous surroundings with a stone fireplace, custom-made furniture, and timber paneling.
TWP, too, arrives on Hopkins Avenue this season, bringing its chic mix of fine tailoring and accessible luxury to the mountain range. Founder and designer Trish Wescoat Pound redefines the feel of American sophistication with a lineup of pieces that can be seamlessly paired and layered alongside an existing wardrobe. The storefront’s earthy tones and textures—seagrass, rattan, and dark wood—invite visitors to both shop and stay a while.
This summer, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop opens its doors to a permanent boutique in Collins Block. The store will reflect Goop’s highly curated selection of all things fashion and wellness. Expect a range of the buzziest clothing brands— including GP’s own line, G. Label—and an array of jewelry, beauty products, and lifestyle pieces.
With a focus on fabrics first and foremost, Vuori has become a beloved performanceapparel brand for those who love to move as much as they love to lounge in comfort. The California-based company brings its mix of functionality and simple everyday style to town with a store on the Cooper Avenue Mall this summer.
Not since Donna Karan’s reign has a fashion line had more impact on busy women’s closets than Veronica Beard. Started by sisters-in-law Veronica Swanson Beard and Veronica Miele Beard, the lifestyle brand’s new Aspen boutique, also on Cooper, will be stocked with its much-loved blazers (and the vast selection of dickies they can be paired with), as well as the line’s seasonal collections, denim, footwear, handbags, accessories, and more.
DINING
Coming on the heels of Aspen’s new Sant Ambroeus restaurant, located on Main Street, is its cozy, next-door lounge, Il Baretto. With stone floors, a serious cocktail program (not to mention bar snacks), and a casual feel, it’s the perfect complement to the white-tablecloth restaurant. A spot in the courtyard promises to be one of the summer’s most coveted seats.
Yuki —the brainchild of legendary chef Nobu Matsuhisa—will soon be serving up a fusion of flavors on Galena Street. It’s located below the new, much-anticipated, and super hush-hush members club Am7 The private space will offer a mix of topnotch dining and entertainment, thanks to the combined forces of live music venue Belly Up Aspen and C3 Presents, out of Austin, Texas.
LOCATED BENEATH SWAY ON HOPKINS, HAI SI TAKES ITS NAME FROM A COMBINATION OF THE JAPANESE AND SPANISH WORDS FOR “YES.”
Another option for Eastern cuisine comes to Aspen in the form of an underground mountain izakaya: Hai Si, by chef Yoshi Okai. Located beneath Sway on Hopkins, the eatery takes its name from a combination of the Japanese and Spanish words for “yes.” The unexpected pairing of Japanese delicacies and Spanish influences ensures a truly unique dining experience.
And, the historic Hotel Jerome presents a new concept in its sunny Garden Room, where guests can enjoy breakfast, an afternoon cocktail, or simply a place to soak in the mountain light. A mix
of plaids, florals, antique mirrors, and high-backed vintage lounge chairs create a sophisticated yet comfortable atmosphere that may make it hard to leave.
As is always the case in Aspen, choosing where to go and where to dine may be summer’s most difficult decision. The good news is that the options are as plentiful as they are excellent, giving you few ways to go wrong.
Hotel Jerome, Garden Room
330 E MAIN ST, ASPEN, CO 81611
Dior
406 E HOPKINS AVE, ASPEN, CO 81611
Sant Ambroeus
201 E MAIN ST (RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE) & 520
HYMAN AVE (COFFEE BAR), ASPEN, CO 81611
Veronica Beard
400 E COOPER AVE, ASPEN, CO 81611
Market, Mindset, Momentum
FROM SNOWMASS TO RED MOUNTAIN, THE VETERAN BROKER
UNPACKS WHAT TODAY’S BUYERS ARE LOOKING FOR AND WHERE THEY’RE CLOSING DEALS.
For seasoned Aspen broker Melanie Muss, the local market’s most important currency isn’t just square footage or price per acre, it’s the lifestyle it affords. With years of experience navigating the industry’s ever-competitive terrain, Muss has a clear-eyed view of what continues to drive demand in the Roaring Fork Valley.
Yes, certain neighborhoods remain perennially sought-after—as is the rule in most major hubs—but what changes in Aspen is the remarkable variety of the lineup: riverfront parcels, ski-access homes, and ranch-style retreats all offer proximity to both nature and culture.
In recent years, off-market deals have accelerated, and the region around Aspen proper has seen newer residents moving into Snowmass, Basalt, and Carbondale. Throughout it all, Muss remains a trusted advisor, guiding her clients not only toward investment-worthy properties, but the life they’ve been seeking all along. Below, she shares her read on the region’s market pulse, neighborhood trends, and what a smart buyer should keep on their radar right now.
In your view, how has the Aspen real estate market shifted in the past five years?
Aspen real estate has always been in
high demand. We’ve seen a tremendous influx of buyers in the last five years, and demand, especially for unique properties, remains strong. Pricing is a big topic of conversation, with records on a priceper-square-foot basis frequently being broken. Aspen has also seen a growing trend toward off-market activity, with a lot of properties selling before being publicly marketed.
What is the current market temperature in the region?
One thing that makes Aspen’s real estate market so unique is that there is such a limited amount of land, so our supply is forever limited. We aren’t expanding out, and we aren’t going vertical. Buyers feel like this valley is a good place to put their resources. While there is conversation about what is happening in the world in terms of market forces, Aspen remains somewhat immune, as the decision to get into this market is often lifestyle-driven.
Could you highlight a few key neighborhoods of interest?
There is always a lot of focus on the Core, Red Mountain, and the West End. Some others include Highlands Mountain, Snowmass, and river properties.
Are you seeing people buy farther out from Aspen proper? If so, where and why?
Aspen Real Estate with Melanie Muss
Our buyers are smart and sophisticated, and they are also open to exploring the different and special parts of our market. Ranches are in demand and in low supply. Ski-access properties are really appealing.
What kind of buyer is each one attracting right now?
Highlands is known as the locals’ favorite mountain, and being moments from downtown, I see properties at Highlands appealing to a wide range of buyers. The ski access is great, and the size of the homes is also really appealing to multigenerational users. You can satisfy so many wants in terms of views, proximity to town, and privacy.
Everyone thinks of Snowmass as being the great winter spot for kids, and now it has so much happening in the summer, too. Home to Anderson Ranch and some of the best hiking and biking, property here was always a value proposition. Now, with the final buildings happening at Base Village and a finite number of on-mountain houses, Snowmass has really come into its own.
“We aren’t expanding out, and we aren’t going vertical. ”
STANDOUT PROPERTIES
761 Moore Drive
Special for its size and phenomenal floor plan, which includes 10 interior fireplaces, two offices, and proximity to town with ski access and views.
Aura at Base Village in Snowmass
An example of the new construction being offered, with ski access and proximity to restaurants and shops.
143 N. Conundrum Creek Road
A special river home in a wooded setting.
761 Moore Drive
143 N. Conundrum Creek Road
Aura at Base Village in Snowmass
INSIDE ASPEN’S MOST ARTFUL ADDRESS
CASA TUA’S COLLECTOR
CO-FOUNDERS RETURN TO ASPEN THIS SUMMER WITH A BOLD EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHER
ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA’S WORKS AND A SEASONED VISION FOR THEIR CREATIVE ENCLAVE.
As the co-founders of Casa Tua—a hospitality concept with outposts in Miami, Aspen, New York, and Paris— Miky and Leticia Grendene have refined their precise blend of art, community, and elevated living. The couple outfits each of their well-trafficked locations with a rotation of exhibitions—partially sourced from their own decades-spanning, photography-focused collection—that reflect their evolving personal tastes.
In Aspen, where they once lived full-time and continue to return each season, the pair have grown the local Casa Tua into a year-round cultural anchor—finished with a rustic edge, intimate library, chef’s-table dining, and, of course, singular trove of artwork. Here, they tell CULTURED about their latest discovery: a collection of images by Anastasia Samoylova coming to Casa Tua this summer.
How did Aspen first become part of your life, and what keeps you coming back each season?
We’ve always loved Aspen—we started going years before we had kids and returned often once they were born, spending many special holidays there. When we opened Casa Tua in Aspen, we moved our family and lived there yearround for the first five years. It was always our dream to raise our children close to nature and to build something that would become a lasting tradition for our family and the community. Aspen is iconic, but what makes it truly special is the local community that have become lifelong friends, and its deep connection to nature, which has influenced our perspective on quality of life. That’s what drew us in then, and it’s what keeps bringing us back.
Over the years, how has your relationship to collecting evolved—both personally and through the Casa Tua spaces?
We have been collecting art for 30 years; we decided to focus on photography for its versatile nature, accessible price
point, and the mere fact that you can form an in-depth collection by knowing one medium very well. Within photography, our collection has a vast variety, from Edward Weston and Diane Arbus to Roe Ethridge, Vera Lutter, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Seydou Keïta, just to name a few. It was the perfect place to start—I say this to our members and clients who begin their collections with us. Over the last few years, we’ve begun to explore new
mediums, with an interest in sculpture and painting. Focus in life is good, but curiosity is far more interesting. We’ve become curious collectors. When we opened Casa Tua, the concept was to make it an extension of our home. Of course, this encompassed our love of photography. We asked galleries to consign us photography to expose on our walls, available for sale to our audience. At first, people thought we were crazy, but once our friend Gert Elfering, a major photography collector,
trusted us with his Irving Penns, Richard Avedons, Horst P. Horsts, and a few sales occurred, everyone else became more open to the idea.
What summer rituals anchor your time in Aspen?
Summer in Aspen is such a special time for us. We love getting outside—road biking, mountain biking, and foraging for porcini mushrooms, especially when we can share them with friends and family.
We’ve found a few secret porcini spots over the years, and returning to them always feels like coming home.
In what ways have your children influenced your collection, or perhaps begun to build a visual language of their own?
Art is not something we ever set out to teach—our children have embraced it organically. They’ve developed their own eye and now take photographs using
“WHEN WE OPENED CASA TUA, THE CONCEPT WAS TO MAKE IT AN EXTENSION OF OUR HOME.”
—MIKY & LETICIA GRENDENE
everything from digital cameras to film. It’s been beautiful to watch them build a visual language of their own, shaped by their curiosity, our travels, and the artistic world they’ve grown up in.
What first drew you to Anastasia Samoylova’s work? Was there a particular piece or moment that sparked the conversation?
It was Rashid Johnson who put us in touch with Anastasia and suggested we tour her exhibition at the Met. As soon as we met her, we were blown away. What was supposed to be a 10-minute tour turned into a two-hour conversation on life, photography, Miami, irony, beauty, and history. Her work is intuitive and layered. Initially, living in Miami, the theme caught our attention, but it was really the fact that each image made us slow down and look again. The photos are familiar and foreign to us at the same time, and it’s the mystery in the known that draws us in.
Looking back on your path as collectors, how has your taste in photography shifted or remained consistent? Are there core values or instincts that have stayed with you throughout?
The key is curiosity, which has led us to find incredible artists. We have always sought out the path less followed.
Other than Anastasia, which photographers are you currently most excited about? And where do you go to discover new artists?
Although he isn’t a photographer, I’m excited by the work of Álvaro Urbano; there’s a simultaneous delicacy and magnitude to his work I really appreciate. Roe Ethridge has always been a favorite. We have his photography installed at Casa Tua New York, and he recently came to take photos of our iconic dishes, placed alongside toy boats and cars in a classic Ethridge composition, for CULTURED’s Art + Food issue. Great art is everywhere, if you’re looking.
FROM THE MET TO THE MOUNTAINS
In this fireside chat with Russian-born, Miami-based artist Anastasia Samoylova, CULTURED learns more about the world-building of her whimsically shot photographs. The artist, who alternates between photography and painting, most recently shared her imagery in a dual exhibition alongside the late Walker Evans at the Met: a showcase of two differing visions of Florida. Now, at Casa Tua, she’s elected to share a different kind of pairing: the work of her idols and early morning rituals, all captured within the same shot.
This show will include works from your rarely shown “Breakfasts With” series, which blends breakfast food with photo books from notable creatives. How did that series develop?
I had just left a tenured position teaching photography. To ground myself, I started giving myself quiet assignments with the books. I’d photograph my simple breakfast alongside works by the artists I admired most. I tuned into a rhythm—responding to the visual languages of others, then letting my own emerge. Both “FloodZone” [2016–ongoing] and “Floridas” were born from that daily practice: mornings spent looking closely, thinking freely, and moving forward without overthinking.
Can you describe the process of matching the food with the artwork in “Breakfasts With”? Was there any particular artist who you struggled to find a match for? The pairings were more intuitive—thinking about how the vibrancy of a [William] Eggleston might sit next to a French toast, or how a mess of berries might hold their own against a Horst P. Horst. The hardest one was probably Barbara Kasten, a major art crush of mine. It took a while to find a breakfast that didn’t feel fussy or overdone next to her incredible work. In the end, a cut mango was the answer. Sometimes the light bulb moment is realizing you’ve been overdoing it—spontaneity is key.
Your work has a way of disorienting the viewer and making it impossible to first determine the foreground versus the background, and the real versus the fake. How do you achieve that effect technically, and why are you drawn to it? Technically, I rely on flattened space, reflections, overlays, and juxtapositions that mirror our overstimulated visual environment. My photographs are always made with an acute awareness of how photography functions in the world. We live in a mediated reality, and photography is our dominant visual language. So I see image-making not just as aesthetic, but as cultural critique.
Anastasia Samoylova, Window, Key Largo, 2020.
Anastasia Samoylova, Breakfast with Irving Penn, New York, 1947, 2017.
Anastasia Samoylova, Breakfast with Horst P. Horst, 1939, 2017.
Anastasia Samoylova, Breakfast with Barbara Kasten, 1983, 2017.
Miky and Leticia Grendene in Aspen
THE GSTAAD GUY’S GUIDE TO FITTING IN— AND STANDING OUT—IN ASPEN
THE ALPINE ANTIHERO AND INTERNET PHENOM SERVES UP A DELICIOUSLY CARICATURAL CRASH COURSE IN THE LINGO, DRESS CODE, AND ADDRESSES THAT RHYTHM THE DAILY LIVES OF THE CITY’S WELL-HEELED DEVOTEES.
The man better known as the Gstaad Guy has made a career out of the Internet’s obsession with status, cultural gatekeeping, and plain old wealth. Since 2018, he’s tapped into this seemingly unwavering appetite and fed it back to us in the form of bite-sized do-ordon’t videos. What began as a cheeky impression of a posh friend in the Alps has since evolved into a compulsively hate-watchable persona, complete with alter egos Constance and Colton, a jewelry line, a wine brand, and a millions-strong following that includes the billionaires, royals, and fashion crowd he first parodied.
That same wry charm now fuels his self-titled podcast, where he interviews cultural custodians like Chef Daniel Humm and GQ Editor-in-Chief Will Welch. Like any deep-pocketed jet-setter, the Gstaad Guy is no stranger to the Aspen lifestyle. A series of videos this winter saw him touch down in the “Gstaad of the West,” and he’s back this summer with an exclusive cheat sheet for CULTURED readers. Aspen veterans and ingenues alike are sure to find some fodder for conversation, if not bona fide inspiration, below.
DRESS CODE
Loro Piana linen shirts and “Into the Wild” hiking gear. Understated to most, but a statement to those who know.
A very, very large hat. Aspen ladies fear sun damage.
A Poubel bracelet. Add some fun to an otherwise elegant and understated look. Ideally picked up from Performance Ski in Aspen.
ESSENTIAL ETIQUETTE
Silence. Winter Aspen visitors will practice après-ski screaming and spraying, while summer visitors practice après-hike silence and gratitude. Or at least I hope they do.
No name-dropping. No matter how badly you may want to.
Don’t wear a Kemo Sabe hat if you can’t comfortably trot on a horse.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
“Isn’t summer here just so much better than winter?”
“How many 14ers have you climbed this summer?”
“When are you hiking to Crested Butte?”
“Did you get a table at ArtCrush?”
PLACES TO BE SEEN AT
• Aspen Saturday Market
• Casa Tua patio for lunch
• Cache Cache for dinner
• Aspen Music Festival for fine classical music
• The new Sant Ambroeus
• Madame Ushi
• Probably best to avoid Caribou Club
RECOMMENDED MODE OF TRANSPORTATION
E-bike, of course.
REQUIRED READING
Just Good Manners: A Quintessential Guide to Courtesy, Charm, Grace, and Decorum by William Hanson. Everyone in Aspen should be reading this.
EXERCISE REGIMEN
• Early morning Pilates or yoga
• Mid-morning ride up the Bells and Castle Creek
• Lunch: to yap, not to eat
• An afternoon hike up the Ute if you are soft, and all the way to the top of Aspen if you know what you’re doing
• Pickleball at Maroon Creek Club
• Afternoon sauna and cold plunge at North Star Preserve
• Evening meditation before a soirée and a dinner at someone’s home
DIETARY RESTRICTIONS TO ABIDE BY
• A delicate balance of Aspen tap water and Matsuhisa sushi is ideal.
• Most people in Aspen don’t eat and microdose Ozempic instead. Don’t be like them.
“Don’t wear a Kemo Sabe hat if you can’t comfortably trot on a horse.”
—THE GSTAAD GUY
Gucci Hits the Mountains
THE ITALIAN HOUSE’S ODE TO WARM-WEATHER DRESSING STICKS A GRACEFUL LANDING IN ASPEN— JUST IN TIME FOR SUMMER.
In a flurry of wildflowers and grassy alpine greens, Gucci’s Lido collection has touched down in the Aspen landscape. The ready-to-wear collection, inspired by Italian summers, offers signature handbags rendered with nods to warmweather breeziness (that’s raffia, wicker, and crochet) at the house’s South Galena Street boutique in the Historic District. Also expect to shop silk scarves, swimsuits, and lightweight sets designed for reclining poolside.
As soon as temperatures drop and treks to snowy peaks begin, locals will be able to return to the boutique’s sweeping stone facade and tuck into the Gucci Après-Ski collection, which will arrive alongside specialty products exclusive to Aspen. No matter the season, the Italian house is on standby to outfit you for a day in the mountains.
Libertine Loves Aspen
LIBERTINE TOUCHES DOWN AT THE HOTEL JEROME THIS SUMMER FOR A POP-UP FILLED WITH HANDMADE PIECES AND ONE-OF-ONE EXCLUSIVES.
This summer, Libertine will settle in the mountains for a pop-up that promises to offer the brand’s signature playfully irreverent art-infused ready-to-wear. Nestled in the iconic Hotel Jerome from July 27 through August 2, the fleeting occasion will feature everything from oneof-a-kind pieces handmade at founder and creative director Johnson Hartig’s Los Angeles atelier to special glimpses of the Fall 2025 collection and a few Aspen-only exclusives.
The brand, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year, has occupied a
carefully calibrated niche among creative crowds since its founding. (Libertine’s founder even dabbles in art-making himself—”JH Gouache,” one of the Fall 25 collection’s hero patterns, is pulled from a gouache painting that Hartig made years ago and re-encountered last year while sifting through a drawer.) Known for his fixation on handcraft, Hartig has something of a cult following among Aspen’s like-minded art lovers. “We are thrilled to be back in Aspen this summer. The town has been an integral part of our brand for the past 20 years,” Hartig says. “We love Aspen, and Aspen loves us.”
JOHNSON HARTIG IN HIS LOS ANGELES STUDIO
Erwin Wurm , Mind Bubble Leg Up , 2024. Aluminum, 941/2 × 551/8 × 63 inches
PRESENTS 761 MOORE DRIVE, ASPEN
ALWAYS AN HOUR AHEAD
NICOLA LEES, THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CEO OF THE ASPEN ART MUSEUM, OPENS UP ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATED THE BIGGEST SWING OF HER CAREER.
AFTER SPENDING MUCH OF her professional life in art-world hubs like New York and London, curator Nicola Lees took a leap of faith when she accepted the job of director at the Aspen Art Museum in 2020. As it turns out, the remoteness of the institution—along with its tightknit community of artists, thinkers, and patrons—is its greatest asset. During her tenure, Lees has launched experiments that might not fly in more traditional museum environments, drawing leading artists to the Colorado mountains for projects that can last as long as two years. Her biggest swing yet might be AIR, a new ongoing initiative focused on cultivating artists as leaders that blurs the boundaries between festival, think tank, and public artwork. Ahead of the weeklong kickoff event, which begins with a closeddoor session for artists, scientists, technologists, and cultural leaders and ends with citywide programming from July 29 to 31, CULTURED spoke with Lees about how her work in Aspen has changed her understanding of what a museum can do.
What does a day in your life look like?
Most mornings start early with coffee and calls before the sun hits the mountains. (Our curatorial team is spread between the U.S. and Europe.) Then I walk my dog, Lutz Barker. From there, anything can happen. A site visit with Matthew Barney, a board meeting, and sending Allison Katz’s book to print can all occur on the same day. Being in Aspen feels like a reset. You arrive at the museum through trees, sky, and silence. It changes how you see—and how you listen.
As an institution, the Aspen Art Museum has such a strong foothold in the local scene. How are you thinking about what the Aspen art ecosystem needs more of?
Since I took tenure in 2020, my focus has been on building connections—across local institutions, schools, and the wider community of the valley. One early example was “Precious Okoyomon: Every Earthly Morning the Sky’s Light Touches Ur Life is Unprecedented in its Beauty”— our first garden project, conceived for the museum rooftop. It was also a way for us to test a durational model for a project. Through repeated visits over nearly two years, Precious spent significant time in Aspen, working alongside local growers. What we need more of is the space to tell our own story as a cultural destination— with deep roots, and a future that’s being shaped by artists and thinkers who come here with intention.
You assumed the directorship of the museum during the onset of the Covid pandemic. What lessons did you learn from those early months, and how have your priorities changed since?
When I came to Aspen for my interview in December 2019, I already had a clear—if still unspoken—vision. The last five years have really been about articulating that vision through exhibitions, relationships, and long-term collaborations. Taking on the role in the earliest days of the pandemic
taught me just how much a museum can hold. I began to think about how the museum could support artists not just in showing work, but in returning, repeating, revising—taking time. Aspen’s geography became an unexpected asset. We are remote, yes—but still deeply connected to a global community. My priorities haven’t changed: artist-centered programming, in-person dialogue, a museum shaped by presence. There was a moment when Aspen existed in a time zone that was one hour ahead of the rest of Colorado—a strange, poetic detail that stuck with me. It’s also the title of a book by my predecessor, Dean Sobel, which traces the nonconformist culture surrounding the founding of the museum by artists in 1979. That sense of being slightly out of sync, slightly elsewhere, still feels true to the museum. It gives us permission to do things differently.
Is there a particular cultural moment you look back to often for inspiration?
We live in dynamic, fast-moving times, and our focus is firmly on what a museum can do today and in the future. That said, Aspen’s history teaches us a lot about community and connection. The International Design Conference in Aspen, for example, was about building relationships across disciplines, something we’re very much still invested in. I think of Italian designer Gaetano Pesce, who first came to the U.S. to attend this conference and developed a lasting love for the Rockies.
You’re steering the museum through an exciting moment with AIR. What does launching a flagship program of this scope mean to you at this stage of your career? AIR is built around the principle of artists as leaders. Launching something of this scale feels both vulnerable and vital. AIR is not just a festival but a yearround program rooted in collaboration. Something that makes Aspen unique is that you can’t just dip in and out—the journey to get here and back is long. That slowness, that commitment, changes how people relate to each other. With this awareness, we’re trying to champion
experiences and conversations that could not happen anywhere else. AIR grew from a desire to build something that could carry the rigor of a think tank, the energy of a festival, and the emotional depth of a public artwork. That hybridity isn’t a concept; it’s a reflection of how artists are working today. So, rather than starting with a fixed format, we wished to open with a set of values: experimentation, generosity, slowness, and a belief in artists as central to our lives and futures. The structure emerged out of those values—and a lot of conversations!
The AIR Retreat gathers 35 thinkers behind closed doors to design frameworks for artists to influence new technologies. What kind of impact do you hope this retreat has, beyond AIR itself?
The AIR retreat is designed to ripple outward, and we hope its impact will go well beyond the days spent together in Aspen. We are bringing together a multidisciplinary group—artists, scientists, technologists, writers, policymakers—to explore a concrete, near-future question. These conversations are prompted by needs that will soon become very pressing for our society, such as imagining new forms of identity authentication in a world where forms of human and artificial intelligence increasingly coexist. Some of this year’s outcomes will be tangible—for example, a special issue of E-Flux Journal will expand the retreat’s ideas into public discourse. But the deeper impact is often harder to quantify.
What artists and curators are on your AAM wish list? What upcoming shows are you most proud of?
I tend not to think in terms of a wish list, but in terms of dialogues. Glenn Ligon is someone I deeply admire as a painter, writer, and thinker. He’ll speak at AIR this summer, and we’re thrilled to be presenting his solo exhibition this winter, as well as honoring him at our annual gala on Aug. 1. I’m also excited about our upcoming project with Adrián Villar Rojas in 2026. It will be the first time we
transform the galleries into fully immersive environments. Adrián and I have known each other for nearly two decades, but this is our first collaboration.
How do you think about the many financial challenges facing museums? Are there things you might consider doing now that would have been outré a decade ago? We’re a small, non-collecting museum, which means we can stay nimble and take risks. That’s where collaboration comes in. It’s not just a value, it’s how we work, whether that’s co-commissioning a project or hosting another institution’s curatorial department. We’re even exploring new models with brands like Audemars Piguet. None of this would’ve felt possible a decade ago, but now it’s essential.
You’ve long championed artists whose practices challenge dominant narratives. How has your own experience as a leader shaped the kinds of programs you choose to platform?
I’ve always been drawn to artists who move between disciplines or come into visual art from unexpected angles. I think that reflects something of my own path. I trained as an artist at Goldsmiths before becoming a curator or institutional leader, and I’m grateful for that. It gave me a different lens—one that embraces not knowing as part of the work. Aspen has allowed me to bring all those strands together. It’s a place where I’ve been able to think through what a museum can be— something unfinished, alive, in motion. Being an unconventional leader comes with real challenges. One has to be willing to sit with uncertainty, to invest in what we don’t know yet.
“Being an unconventional leader comes with real challenges. One has to be willing to sit with uncertainty, to invest in what we don’t know yet.”
—NICOLA LEES
Nairy Baghramian, Jupon de Corps, 2023. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHEL ZIEGLER
Gaetano Pesce, My Dear Mountains, 2022. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADRIANNA GLAVIANO
An Aspen Newcomer Doubles in Size
THE ASPEN ART FAIR RETURNS WITH NEARLY TWICE AS MANY GALLERIES AND A SPECIAL DISPLAY PARTLY INSPIRED BY MIRANDA JULY’S CULT NOVEL ALL FOURS.
BY KARLY QUADROS
This summer, the Aspen Art Fair is back with its sophomore edition—at twice the size.
With nearly 40 dealers on board, the event is still smaller than many of its peers in the industry, but the fair’s founders are betting that this intentionally boutique approach will engage Aspen’s contingent of well-heeled and notably discerning art collectors. And that’s not the only thing that gives the newcomer an edge. AAF has traded in the typical convention center setting for the Hotel Jerome, an 1880s construction that’s been hosting guests since Colorado’s silver rush.
“I like to call it ‘art fair summer camp,’” says co-founder Becca Hoffman, who previously oversaw Aspen’s first major art fair, Intersect, before striking out on her own alongside Hexton Gallery founder Bob Chase last year. “We have hikes, cold water plunges, [and] some great panel discussions planned.” Also on the schedule: collector home tours and a series of dinners that promise to be a magnet for insiders and patrons alike
during the fair’s run from July 29 to Aug. 2.
Inside the historic hotel, exhibitors will range from the established to the emerging, with specialties spanning secondary market, design, and wet-paint contemporary. Returning from last year are Perrotin, Galerie Gmurzynska, and Southern Guild, alongside newcomers like Marianne Boesky Gallery, Sean Kelly, and Vielmetter. Galleries will display their work in the Jerome’s bedrooms, harkening back to beloved American art events like the Gramercy International Art Fair in New York.
This year, one suite in particular is sure to spark fair chatter. Advisor Wendy Cromwell based the curation for her eccentric “booth” of design, paintings, and ceramics on Miranda July’s recent hit novel All Fours and Virginia Woolf’s 1929 classic A Room of One’s Own. Other highlights just a few doors (or floors) down include dipped paintings by artist and writer Oliver Jeffers with Praise Shadows Gallery and, out in the hotel garden and courtesy of Marianne Boesky, the Haas Brothers’s surreal interpretations of street lamps. So much to take in, so little time.
Math Bass, Eye Level, 2024.
Gregor Hildebrandt, Maude Fealy Kasten, 2024. Patrick Bongoy, CY15 (Detail Shot), 2023.
Artwork by Salvador Dalí (Detail Shot). André Butzer, Untitled 1
Boldface Names Bring the Heat to an Icy Fair
SET IN A TRANSFORMED ICE RINK IN THE ROCKIES, INTERSECT ASPEN ART + DESIGN FAIR RETURNS WITH ITS MOST AMBITIOUS EDITION YET.
BY GIULIANA BRIDA
There’s a certain kind of alchemy that happens when you step into a hockey rink in the heat of July—especially when that rink is outfitted with wares from a litany of international art and design galleries. Intersect returns to the Aspen Ice Garden for its 15th year with its largest number of exhibitors to date from July 29–Aug.
3. Although the broader art market is experiencing a bit of a slump, the elite Colorado enclave offers dealers plenty of opportunity to connect with
knowledgeable collectors. “Aspen includes a unique art-loving collector community that moves without the financial restraints of some other areas,” notes the fair’s CEO, Tim von Gal.
But the fair’s reach is sure to extend far beyond the region’s veteran arts patrons. Boldface names taking up residence in the 16,000-square-foot venue include the beloved street artist Shepard Fairey, who will be the subject of a solo presentation
at first-time exhibitor 212Gallery of Aspen, and Michael Stipe, the legendary voice behind R.E.M., who will present photography and sculpture with Atlanta’s Jackson Fine Art.
An industry-spanning panel moderated by curator Carrie Scott will bring together Heidi Zuckerman, who just announced her departure from the Orange County Museum of Art, and photographer Maryam Eisler to discuss the latter’s recent
publication, an ode to the American West. And don’t miss an immersive installation by Donna Isham, a recent artist-in-residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, courtesy of London’s Varvara Roza Galleries. With her husband, composer Mark Isham, the artist offers up a blend of sound and pigment that delivers an arresting multi-sensory landscape. For a second, it might rival the one you’ll see when you step outside the hockey rink back into the crystalline Aspen air.
Intersect Aspen’s 2024 VIP Opening.
CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER WHISTLES IN THE DARK
THE ARTIST BRINGS A SONIC INSTALLATION AND MEMENTO MORI TO THE STREETS OF ASPEN.
VISITORS TO ASPEN this summer may hear a confounding chorus while walking through the streets of downtown. The din is a work by Cannupa Hanska Luger, the New Mexico–based artist and current darling of the biennial circuit. To create Volume, he sculpted clay whistles in the shape of animal skulls and programmed them to produce sound every hour using sensors and mechanical breath.
The installation is Luger’s contribution to AIR, the Aspen Art Museum’s inaugural retreat and festival that asks its participants to consider the role of art in our era of rapid technological transformation. For Luger, technology is not a product of any kind of industrial revolution, but of humans’ ongoing partnership with nature. In video, sculpture, and a variety of other media, he explores the legacy of extinct animals, the creative potency of Indigenous thought, and an expansive approach to thinking about time that might just be key to our survival.
Before he shipped out to Aspen, Luger spoke with CULTURED about his relationship to scientists, the history of whistles, and why no one can read his work wrong.
This year’s AIR presentation riffs on the theme “Life As No One Knows It.” What does that mean to you?
It takes its title from Sara Imari Walker’s book of the same name, which I interpret as a declaration on how inanimate objects, minerals, or other materials can be transformed by life, and so are in fact life itself. As an Indigenous person, I see this as an acknowledgment and recognition of deep-time Indigenous knowledge systems. We’ve always
understood that objects produced by culture carry life, carry essence, carry proof of, and therefore are life. So the AIR program feels validating; perhaps scientific rigor is finally aligning with our ancestral ways of knowing.
What made you choose the whistle as the subject of your work, and what possibilities does it unlock that sculpture alone can’t?
I chose this object because of its ancient and cross-cultural development and technology. We are in a living relationship with our environment—we are the objects we create. A handful of clay is sculpted into the form of a small whistle, and as a sculpture, it can only take up the space that a handful of clay can take up. But when activated with air, with breath, or with wind, suddenly this small handful of clay can fill an entire landscape.
If we closed our eyes in downtown Aspen, what sonic topography would your whistles sketch in the air?
The installation, called Volume, sounds throughout each day as an auditory time-keeping device. When activated, the whistles will both disrupt and harmonize, creating new sonic landscapes in collaboration with the environment. Each whistle presents its own unique tone, and together they become a piercing chorus, which I hope may disrupt people enough to change their focus and build their curiosity. If a person follows the sound, they will find small, hand-built clay whistles representing various vertebrate skulls. This artwork is a memento mori, a reminder that life is fleeting, time goes on.
These aren’t typical whistles. Can you trace their lineage—clay body to firing method to cultural resonance?
Globular whistle technology has been maintained for over 6,000 years and has hundreds of variations—ocarina, xun, tsuchibue, and gemshorn, to name a few. The general transformation from clay to ceramic is a record of humanity throughout time, and so I used a stoneware clay body and fired these objects using multiple techniques: pit fire, wood fire, and electric kiln fire. The clay forms depict skeletal remains of a fox, ocelot, vulture, armadillo, and turtle. I chose these small vertebrate skull forms as a metaphor for what it means to add life (breath) to something that may be considered dead (object)—to think deeply about what we consider to be alive.
Your work often invites participation and communal activation. Will festival-goers become co-performers in this aural landscape?
The audience, whether consciously or subconsciously, is always a participant in the experience of art. Every single person who comes across this installation, regardless of their attention or interest, becomes part of the creation of this work. A piece produced in a vacuum is not necessarily art—it must be a shared experience.
You’ll be showing alongside some other incredible artists. How have their contributions inspired you?
Clay whistles from Cannupa Hanska Luger’s “Volume (Fox, Ocelot, Vulture, Armadillo, Turtle)” installation, 2025.
As an artist who often utilizes performance and works in opera at times myself, I am inspired by Jota Mombaça’s site-responsive opera The Muted Saints Moving across musical genres and working with the breath, I am also inspired by André 3000’s live performance of New Blue Sun accompanied by multi-instrumentalists Carlos Niño and Nate Mercereau. I am inspired by all the AIR participants to jointly address the myths of our histories and relate generative paths forward collectively.
“We are in a living relationship with our environment—we are the objects we create.”
—CANNUPA HANSKA LUGER
From “Future Ancestral Technologies” to your billboard caravans, you fold Indigenous storytelling into speculative futures. Where does this project extend—or subvert that?
My series of creative projects titled “Future Ancestral Technologies” describes the time-space continuum and in this ethos, I am not imagining futures, I am participating in the creation of futures, just like every single human being on the
Volume looks back to ancestral knowledge and technologies, tracing the transmutation of riverside clay into vessels, whistles, sound, communication, technology, art. Each object participates in reinforcing humanity’s ancestral wisdom while presenting narratives about our collective future visions. The installation I have created further reinforces and is participatory in future ancestral technologies.
“A PIECE PRODUCED IN A VACUUM IS NOT NECESSARILY ART—IT MUST BE A SHARED EXPERIENCE.”
AIR’s lineup is thick with A.I. theorists and neuroscientists. Where do handcrafted ceramics—and the breath that animates them—fit into today’s hyper-digital discourse? Working with a team, I have generated a mechanical breath for the ceramic whistles using time-based sensors to produce a sound composition on the hour, every hour. The ceramic whistles themselves are a record of human experience, and that is the baseline for artificial intelligence machine learning. These objects are the record of a long and deep timeline of trial and error, and ultimately proof that success was accomplished. This is exactly how artificial intelligence is trained. And so, these whistles are very much a part of this narrative. I would dare say these ceramic objects represent the base code for machine learning. I don’t see a separation between a craftsperson developing something as simple as a ceramic whistle and the development of satellite communication systems or A.I. It is all communication and technology.
planet. And not just human beings; plant life, water, air, fire, and all other elements are generating futures by drawing on knowledge from the past. This work rests in a reality outside of concepts of linear time, outside of concepts dictated by scientists and biologists and theorists.
In your broader practice, you talk about art as a rehearsal for real-world action. Are these whistles instruments of warning, wayfinding, celebration—or all three at once? Art, at its core, is communication. Artists throughout time have been mirrors to take hyper-complex ideas and transform them into objects that the population can comprehend. What is interesting to me is that audience participation is a variable that is nearly incomprehensible, because every individual’s experience will mold and shape the communication that an artist produces. To some, the work I am presenting with AIR will be an alarm or warning; to others it will be a sonic tool for way-finding; and to others still, it will bring about feelings of ecstatic joy. Each perspective is valid. I cannot tell you what this work is about. You must experience it and decide for yourself, so this is a call to action.
BETWEEN MATTER AND MEMORY
SOLANGE PESSOA’S SOLO EXHIBITION AT THE ASPEN ART MUSEUM BRINGS TOGETHER FOUR BODIES OF SCULPTURAL WORK TO PROMPT NEW QUESTIONS AROUND EROSION, HERITAGE, AND MEMORY.
BY CLAUDE ADJIL
Solange Pessoa is renowned for evocative and poetic works that contemplate and intersect nature, the human body, and the forces that shape existence. Her practice often delves into the realms of the organic and the metaphysical, with a focus on the materiality of life. The Brazilian artist’s work is influenced by her surroundings, particularly the natural environment of her home region of Minas Gerais, where
mining is a prevalent force. As such, Pessoa’s output is rooted in the telluric relationship between the landscape and the body, revealing hidden aspects of the earth. Through her dreamlike installations, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, and paintings, she entwines the geological with human consciousness to reveal the connection between material and memory. Since the 1980s, Pessoa has explored
the transmutation of organic matter and bodily fluids such as blood and human hair to recount the cycles of life and death. According to Pessoa, “materials exist in connection with thoughts and intuitions. They call us and choose us, they attract our perception and curiosity, and their untransferable nature and mysteries require research and close observation.”
To mark “Catch the sun with your hand,”
her new Aspen Art Museum exhibition on view through Oct. 26, I spoke to the indelible artist about the parallels between Aspen and Minas Gerais, her stone collection, and the sense of incompleteness at the core of her work.
In 1879, rich silver veins were discovered in the Roaring Fork Valley, setting off a mining boom. At its peak, Aspen produced
Solange Pessoa at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2022. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIRO KUZMANOVIC.
one-sixth of the nation’s silver. You often speak of growing up in Minas Gerais, which translates to “General Mines.” How has that landscape shaped you?
The landscape of Minas Gerais has shaped me in ways both mythic and dramatic, somber and troubling. Countless immense, irreversible holes have been dug there, and in recent years, serious environmental disasters have pushed this tragic dimension to the fore. For centuries, the earth has been removed and shipped to distant parts of the globe, and the emptiness left behind provokes disquieting reflections. The great poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade—who was born in Itabira, a city whose mountain was eaten away by mining—once said that the landscape becomes nothing more than a photograph on the wall.
On the roof of the Aspen Art Museum, we are showing seven carved soapstone (pedra sabão) sculptures. How do you treat inside versus outside?
In Aspen, crystals and silver inside the museum converse with soapstone sculptures outside, engaging the snow-covered mountains in an almost dreamlike register—
“For centuries, the earth in Minas Gerais has been removed and shipped to distant parts of the globe, and the emptiness left behind provokes disquieting reflections.”
—SOLANGE PESSOA
opacity with brilliance, textures with colors, forms with transtemporal conditions.
Many of your pieces evolve over years and in stages. Could you speak to the processbased nature of your work?
Installations grow slowly, and I often feel a sense of “incompleteness,” a constant expansion. Certain works remain “open,” always in motion. I still think about pieces from the 1990s—about enlarging their scale, adding or subtracting elements. They behave like germinative nuclei, or cells that replicate, aggregate, and expand their biological nature.
When I visited your studio in Belo Horizonte, I was struck by the stones you collect. When did that begin?
As a child, I collected small stones, some of which I still have. I never stopped collecting them, or observing, feeling, and trying to listen to their silences. It is my “subjective geology.” In my new studio, I hope to organize the collection more thoughtfully. I regard it as a work in progress.
Bags, 1994–2025, recomposed here in Aspen, functions as an archive containing material and symbolic extracts from various temporal layers. How are those disparate
memories, substances, and emotions held together?
Because Bags is a vast archive that houses multiple temporal and symbolic dimensions, its conceptual nature contains memories in fragments.
Stored and processed by the collective unconscious, it is, metaphorically, a grand psychic apparatus of the natural world.
On the museum’s lower level, we have installed Deliria Deveras, 2021–24: 22 metric tons of crystal studded with silver. The piece emanates light, in contrast to Bags. How do you see the two works in relation to each other?
Both installations are telluric and carry the memory of the natural world. Bags is all about the ground and soil—earth, mineral, animal, vegetal, and human realms. Deliria Deveras brings to the surface a luminosity that was subterranean and hidden. The crystals and silver—the entire material and radiant intensity—were once underground. It is delirium!
Solange Pessoa, Bags – Bregenz version, 2023. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARKUS TRETTER AND COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MENDES WOOD DM.
WELCOME TO THE ART FARM
Allison and Dan Rose’s Aspen ranch seems to have been destined for their stewardship. In 2021, the couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with a trip through the mountain town before heading off into Utah and Wyoming. But Aspen, they both admitted, held a particular draw. “Over the next two years, we came back six more times,” recalls Allison. “We were completely enchanted.” Looking for a way to put down roots in Colorado, the pair stumbled upon a working cattle ranch for sale, located on none other than Rose Spur Road in Snowmass. “It felt like a little wink from the universe,” Allison tells CULTURED
The investor is known for an expansive restaurant portfolio that features some of the West Coast and Hawaii’s most welcoming eateries, including California’s Michelin-starred Birdsong, Protégé, and Selby’s, as well as Hawaii’s trio of farmto-table destinations, Merriman’s. But her commitments expand far beyond the culinary world. With her husband, an Amazon and Facebook veteran and current chairman of tech fund Coatue Ventures, Allison first purchased a ranch along the slopes of Mauna Kea in Hawaii before expanding their agricultural interests to the Roaring Fork Valley. In the Bay, she maintains her local ties with a seat on the board of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum and has extended that service to the Aspen Art Museum as she delves further into the community. Here, she gives CULTURED a tour of the animals and artwork that fill the Rose Spur Road ranch.
Describe the ranch. What was your vision, and how has it evolved?
My husband teases me that once the kids left home, I started replacing them with animals. On our ranch in Hawaii, I’ve slowly built a full menagerie—18 horses, cows, sheep, goats, mini donkeys, chickens that lay pastel eggs, and bees that make the most delicious kiawe honey.
Old Snowmass has been a slower build (partially because we have to be a little more mindful of predators—yes, wolves). But it’s every bit as magical. We’ve restored a beautiful old barn and begun creating our own whimsical herd: six miniature Highland cows, three miniature donkeys, and Pop Tart, our beloved mini horse. I already imagine future grandchildren falling in love with these animals just as I have.
We’re now in the early stages of building a greenhouse, and I hope to begin raising cattle in the future. There’s something deeply rewarding about growing food and sharing it with family and neighbors.
Introduce us to some of your animals. What are their names? How would you describe their personalities?
Pop Tart, our mini horse, is pure charm. He’s a perfect gentleman and has everyone wrapped around his hoof. Thea and Teddy are our inseparable Highland cow twins— sweet and always side by side. Oreo is our handsome little stud who we hope will help us grow the herd next year. Then there’s Smokey and The Bandit—our magnificent draft horses who are a dream to ride on
IN ASPEN, CULINARY INVESTOR AND COLLECTOR ALLISON ROSE HAS FOUND HER LATEST VENTURE: A SERENE RANCH THAT CEMENTS HER TIES TO THE MOUNTAIN COMMUNITY.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TREVOR TRIANO
Allison Rose at McCabe Ranch in Aspen.
the polo field. They have such calm, noble energy.
What is the Aspen culinary scene missing? Aspen is ripe for a three-star Michelin restaurant. I truly believe it would thrive here.
Best dinner reservation in town? What do we order?
For brunch, I love the Little Nell—their freshsqueezed mimosas and huevos rancheros are a perfect start to the day. For lunch, I often head to the Aspen Art Museum rooftop for the kale crunch salad at Swedish Hill Cafe—it’s become my go-to. And for
dinner, the steak frites at Parc Aspen (especially in the bar) are a quiet gem. Don’t miss the railroad fries!
What does a typical Aspen day look like for you? How does raising animals shape that?
My days in Aspen begin with a peaceful walk on the ranch alongside our two white Labradors and a quick check-in on the minis—there’s always a small moment of joy waiting out there. From there, I often head into town for lunch and to see what’s new at the Aspen Art Museum, where I’m proud to serve as a board member. That rhythm—moving from the quiet of the land to the vibrancy of culture—is one of the
“My husband teases me that once the kids left home, I started replacing them with animals… We’ve restored a beautiful old barn and begun creating our own whimsical herd: six miniature Highland cows, three miniature donkeys, and Pop Tart, our beloved mini horse.”
—ALLISON ROSE
things I cherish most about life here.
What was your biggest influence in fostering your passion for art?
When my husband and I were designing our first home in Palo Alto, we turned to our dear friend George Roberts for advice on starting an art collection. At the time, our walls were mostly filled with family photos. George introduced us to Mary Zlot of Zlot Buell, and that introduction truly changed our lives. Mary encouraged us to slow down and immerse ourselves in experiencing art firsthand. She taught us the value of building “eye miles”—training our eyes by seeing as much art as possible—before
making significant purchases. Over the past decade, our tastes and our collection have grown immensely under her thoughtful guidance.
What is the strangest negotiation you’ve had with an artist or dealer?
One of the most unexpected moments happened with the artist Tara Donovan. We had just acquired one of her incredible “Drawing (Pins)” pieces when we happened to meet her at a party in Silicon Valley. In conversation, I mentioned that my kids and I were moving to Hawaii so they could attend school on the Big Island. She lit up and said she was headed there too—on vacation—
and had just rented Mark Zuckerberg’s house. I paused and gently let her know that Mark, whom my husband had worked with at Facebook for over a decade, didn’t actually have a home on the Big Island. After a brief moment of confusion, we realized she had rented the house my husband and I were in the process of buying! It was a surreal, hilarious twist of fate—and one of the most memorable “negotiations” I’ve ever stumbled into.
What piece of advice would you give someone who wants to get into collecting?
Start by buying what you truly love. When I began collecting with the guidance of Mary
Zlot, she introduced me to some bold, conceptual work in New York—art that challenged me in ways I wasn’t quite ready for. Instead, I found myself naturally drawn to pieces that evoked a sense of calm and joy. I wanted our home to be a place of serenity, not just for me, but for my family and friends. Once our home in Palo Alto was fully curated, my dear friend Akiko Yamazaki came to visit. Walking through the space, she looked around and said, “Allison, I didn’t realize you collected Asian art!” I hadn’t either—until that moment. But there it was: works by [Hiroshi] Sugimoto, [Lee] Ufan, Zhang [Huan], [Kishio] Suga, Chung SangHwa, and other contemporary Asian artists.
I realized I had been instinctively drawn to a particular visual language that embodied the stillness I craved.
That visit led to an unexpected and deeply meaningful chapter—Akiko invited me to join the board of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where I served for three years and helped support the creation of their new contemporary wing. It all began with simply trusting my eye and following the art that moved me.
Every collector makes a rookie mistake. What was yours?
Early on, I fell in love with a video work by
“ASPEN IS RIPE FOR A THREE-STAR MICHELIN RESTAURANT. I TRULY BELIEVE IT WOULD THRIVE HERE.”
—ALLISON ROSE
Christian Marclay titled Straws—it’s smart, compelling, and beautifully executed. But I quickly realized that video art can be tricky to live with, especially in a home designed to feel quiet and serene. To this day, Straws has never been installed.
I’ve always believed that art should be lived with, not stored away. That’s something I deeply admire about the Aspen Art Museum—it’s a non-collecting institution that offers artists and audiences the chance to experience work in the present moment, without the pressure of permanence. Maybe Straws is still waiting for its perfect temporary home.
GLENN LIGON’S AMERICA
ON THE CUSP OF BEING HONORED AT THE ASPEN ART MUSEUM’S 2025 ARTCRUSH GALA, THE ARTIST EVALUATES THE UNITED STATES’S SHIFTING INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES, INCLUDING THAT OF THE MUSEUM WHERE HE IS SOON TO SHOW.
FOR DECADES, Glenn Ligon’s work has prodded at the fault lines of identity and how we articulate it. The New York–born and –based artist siphons this inquiry through words, whether pithily arranged in neons, obscured or underlined on canvases, or fleshed out in essays considering his contemporaries or those who came before him. This year, a 52 Walker show paired his work with that of the late composer Julius Eastman, while his most recent solo exhibition saw him take over Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum with a suite of site-specific interventions. A world away from the neoclassical
trappings of the latter, Ligon’s next institutional exhibition will open at the Aspen Art Museum this winter. Before then, he’ll stop over in the mountain town for ArtCrush, where he will receive the 2025 Lewis Family Art Award this August, joining the ranks of indelible artists like Nairy Baghramian, Gary Simmons, Mary Weatherford, and more.
Before he takes the stage to accept the honor, CULTURED spoke with Ligon about textual defamiliarization, the evolving relationship between museums and artists, and the state of the American psyche.
Your work has long held a mirror up to America’s psyche. When you look in that mirror today, what’s staring back and how do you plan to communicate that at ArtCrush?
I will be giving a five-minute speech at the gala, which isn’t enough time to unpack the horrors of the American psyche, but in general, I think we are at a critical juncture in American history, where the whip of the state is out and no one can predict whose back it will land on. As artists and as citizens, we must resist the normalization of authoritarian impulses. We must also remember that in the past, it was much,
“Language, like paint, clay, or any other medium, is there to be played with.”
—GLENN LIGON
much worse for people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people in this country, and with protest, struggle, and sacrifice, it got better.
What feelings come up when being recognized by an institution with such an artist-driven origin story?
I am always interested in institutions that were started by artists, because that founding DNA still permeates the institution. As long as the Aspen Art Museum is mindful of its roots and prioritizes artists’ wishes, it will continue to be a vibrant, cutting-edge institution.
Glenn
The Aspen Art Museum is presenting a solo show of your work this winter. Any hints you can drop?
The show is focused on self-portraiture, a long-time theme in my practice that has played out in prints, drawings, and paintings. The show also looks at my use of text across bodies of work and strategies of erasure, annotation, and repetition.
What excites you most about working with the museum’s team? Was there a moment or conversation that sealed the collaboration for the upcoming show?
There was an early meeting I had with Daniel Merritt, the curator of the show, where we were throwing out ideas about the checklist and possible directions for the exhibition, but we weren’t getting very far. That meeting was on a Friday, and on Monday morning he sent me an email with the outline of a perfect exhibition. He had brainstormed an amazing show on his days off.
Language—fragmented, repeated, erased—has always been central to your practice. What’s a word or phrase you’ve been fixated on lately?
“People forget that artists run small businesses. I am not only supporting myself from the proceeds of my work, but I am also supporting a staff of assistants that help me make that work.”
—GLENN LIGON
I have been fixated on the word “America.” Language, like paint, clay, or any other medium, is there to be played with, and I have done several works which play with the word: inverting it, scrambling it, or rendering it in neon and making it blink off and on in an annoying manner. This is all about defamiliarizing a word that we think we all know the meaning of, but one whose definition we actually don’t agree on.
Artists at this year’s auction can retain a percentage of sales. What does that kind of shift in institutional giving-back mean to you, especially as someone who’s always
asked us to rethink systems of value? I appreciated the offer, because I think people forget that artists run small businesses. I am not only supporting myself from the proceeds of my work, but I am also supporting a staff of assistants that help me make that work. Artists can’t always be the ways museums fill budget gaps, so I am thrilled that the museum has acknowledged that there can be more equitable models for fundraising.
Ligon, Untitled (Condition Report for Black Rage), 2015
CARL GAMBINO
39 / NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, AND MIAMI / GAMBINO GROUP FOUNDER
The real estate investor once flirted with the idea of becoming a flipper—and then resolved to buy art for keeps. His collection represents a who’s who of up-and-coming painters, as do the exhibitions he supports, including a showing of LaKela Brown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
Every collector has made a rookie mistake or two. What was your most memorable?
I was at a dinner in France with some clients and friends, and everyone at the table had bought [work by] this artist who was getting tons of buzz. The gallerist was also there, and I felt pressured to buy a piece even though I didn’t love it. I was afraid to miss out and bought for speculation. It felt terrible, made me sick to my stomach. I have never done that again.
Who do you credit with teaching you how to navigate the art world?
I am mostly self-taught, but I was originally guided by Kim Hastreiter of Paper magazine
“I felt pressured to buy a piece even though I didn’t love it. I was afraid to miss out and bought for speculation. It felt terrible, made me sick to my stomach. I have never done that again.”
and Marsea Goldberg of New Image Art. They taught me to buy only what I love.
Tell us about the journey to a particularly hard-won acquisition.
I pursued an artist named Alejandro Piñeiro Bello for two years. I called, texted, emailed, and DMed his dealer, Katia Rosenthal of KDR.
I showed up at the gallery and all their events until I finally got the opportunity to buy an incredible painting from a museum show. Alejandro has since become a dear friend of mine, and I own multiple works.
What area of collecting are you excited to dig deeper into?
My collection is mostly made up of
paintings, but it includes many styles of painting. The artists are from all over the world. Lately, I find myself drawn to older landscapes. Excellent landscape works move me in a way I cannot describe.
Name three artists you are particularly excited about right now.
Cynthia Talmadge, Tianyue Zhong, and Dennis Miranda Zamorano.
If you could sit down for lunch with one artist, living or dead, who would it be? Why? David Hockney. I love and respect him and his work so much.
Do you see collecting as an extension of skills you’ve honed in your day job, or an escape from them?
Collecting uses all the practical and soft skills I have honed in my real estate career. It’s about gaining access, building relationships, being tenacious, and, ultimately, negotiating a sale.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK FRANCES
The Siberia-born aerospace entrepreneur founded the Lyra Art Foundation to support artists making boundary-pushing work. As a collector, she also seeks out creatives who experiment relentlessly.
Which work in your collection provokes the most conversation from visitors?
Yoko Ono’s Painting to Hammer a Nail In (Bronze Age). The original work is an example of her groundbreaking participatory art. It is important to me to support overlooked voices and to recognize artists who are forging new paths, both historically and in the present day.
Name three artists you are particularly excited about right now.
I recently learned about the incredible work of Sylvia Sleigh and acquired a beautiful example, Felicity Rainnie Reclining, 1972. Jenny Saville is an artist I have long admired, and I look forward to [seeing] her important exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Finally, Dominique Fung—I am excited she is receiving the attention she deserves, especially leading up to her ICA San Francisco show with Heidi Lau opening in January 2026.
What work in your home have you spent the most time staring at?
Sarah Lucas’s Bunny Gets Snookered #8,
“Collecting is an extension of my skills as an entrepreneur, investor, pilot, and aircraft builder. I love seeing the possibilities of something in its early stages and helping grow and develop it to itsgreatest potential.”
1997. It is a very provocative, sexy work. I like its joking, tongue-in-cheek humor, and the way the work’s meaning is not completely clear or resolved. It raises more questions than answers.
If you could sit down for lunch with one artist, living or dead, who would it be? Why?
Agnes Denes is a true visionary and an important, underrecognized voice of our time. Her ideas about nature, mankind, and the evolution of civilizations presaged so many things we are grappling with as
TANYA FILEVA
34 / SAN FRANCISCO / ENTREPRENEUR, INVESTOR, AVIATOR
a society. She tackles diverse subjects, including philosophy, psychology, science, and math, to explore humanity’s past, present, and future. We would have so much to talk about.
Do you see collecting as an extension of
skills you’ve honed in your day job, or an escape from them?
Collecting is an extension of my skills as an entrepreneur, investor, pilot, and aircraft builder. I love seeing the possibilities of something in its early stages and helping it grow and develop
to its greatest potential. Through my foundation, I hope to bring innovative and unexpected partnerships to life to offer something truly new and ambitious, fostering creativity in all forms and promoting women’s voices in business, art, and culture.
BY JEGOR ZAIKA
Not Your Mother’s Reading List
JOHN PALFREY
PRESIDENT OF THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION
Describe the type of reader you are in three words. Eager. Overly ambitious.
If you could press one great book into someone’s hands, what would it be?
I think everyone needs to read Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny if they haven’t already.
One book you return to when you’re starved for inspiration?
Any biography of Winston Churchill. I read at least one Churchill book a year, and I look forward to it.
One book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?
The last few years have given rise to many options, but I’ll give the “highest impact” award to Isabel Wilkerson for Caste
One book that ruined you, in the best possible way?
The Brothers Karamazov. It rocked my
world, so much so that I tried taking Russian in college so that I could read it in the original and not in translation. That goal still eludes me.
One book your childhood self loved?
I can still hear Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows read by one of my parents.
“I read at least one Churchill book a year, and I look forward to it.”
SAM FRAGOSO
WRITER, FILMMAKER, AND HOST OF TALK EASY WITH SAM FRAGOSO PODCAST
Describe the type of reader you are in three words. Purposeful, animated, amused.
What’s one book that helped you understand the world we live in right now? Has right now ever changed more frequently than it is right now? On protest
EACH SUMMER, THE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL GATHERS DOZENS OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE’S MOST IMPACTFUL, INQUISITIVE, AND RELENTLESS MINDS FROM ACROSS DISCIPLINES IN THE MOUNTAINS. WE ASKED A HANDFUL OF THEM HOW—AND WHAT—THEY READ.
and polarization, I turn to Citizen by Claudia Rankine and Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein.
One book that ruined you, in the best possible way?
My mother lent me The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes in college. When she asked for it back, I had to go to the bookstore to get her a new copy that wasn’t water-damaged.
One book you reference often in your work?
Life Itself by Roger Ebert.
HEIDI ERWIN
SENIOR GAME DESIGNER AT THE NEW YORK TIMES
How do you find your next book? I make a weekly podcast, Talk Easy, that tends to feature authors. The next book finds me.
One book you return to when you’re starved for inspiration?
This has become a favorite of most artists I know— A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.
“I make a weekly podcast, Talk Easy , that tends to feature authors. The next book finds me.”
If you could press one great book into someone’s hands, what would it be?
The Little Prince. It spits such facts. Something from this book comes up at least once a month in my mind. Most recently: the idea of loving one rose the most despite the many roses that look identical to it. Because that’s your rose.
What’s one book your childhood self loved?
Matilda. There’s something real about the idea that your creative energy can trouble you if you don’t find an outlet for it, and how that same energy can be magical when you do.
How do you find your next book?
When there’s a topic plaguing me, I search the Internet for books that I hope will shift how I’m thinking about it. I trust books to bring new ways of
thinking into my life—and I have faith that those new ways of thinking can be everything.
Describe the type of reader you are in three words. Save me, perspective.
“I trust books to bring new ways of thinking into my life—and I have faith that those new ways of thinking can be everything.”
PORTRAIT OF HEIDI ERWIN.
PORTRAIT OF JOHN PALFREY. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION.
PORTRAIT OF SAM FRAGOSO. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JENNA JONES.
NORA LAWRENCE
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CHIEF CURATOR OF STORM KING ART CENTER
Describe the type of reader you are in three words.
First, anxious and distracted. Once I get immersed in something, obsessive.
How do you figure out whether or not you like a book?
I just start. I also never read reviews until I’m done, but I read many after I finish.
What’s one book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?
Helen Phillips’s Hum, a terrifying but extremely readable book about parenting, A.I., and our potential (and devastating) near-future.
One book that taught you something new about your own industry?
Svetlana Alpers’s The Art of Describing was formative for me.
One book you return to when you’re starved for inspiration?
I turn to poetry in those moments: Ones that come to mind right away include Seamus Heaney’s “Oysters,” Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Dirge without Music,” and Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do.”
One book you stopped reading in the middle and never finished?
I am not a completionist about reading— there are so many good books out there that I really don’t feel bad about putting one down if it doesn’t move me.
“I never read reviews until I’m done, but I read many after I finish.”
YANA PEEL
PRESIDENT OF ARTS, CULTURE & HERITAGE AT CHANEL
Describe the type of reader you are in three words.
Adventurous. Demanding. Eclectic.
What’s one book that helped you understand the world we live in right now?
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild made clear a politic that was both far removed from my life in London and simultaneously urgent around the world.
One book that ruined you, in the best possible way?
At nearly 150 years old, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina —about a woman who wants, but cannot have—is a timeless tragedy. Night by Elie Wiesel must also be mentioned. No explanation needed.
One book that taught you something new about your own industry?
William Middleton’s biographies of Karl Lagerfeld (Paradise Now) and the de Menils (Double Vision). Both are incredible stories about art, culture and creation.
One trashy book to wedge in your vacation bag?
Anything by Truman Capote—or about him: Swan Song, Capote’s Women, Party of the Century… Read them all.
One book you stopped reading in the middle and never finished?
Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, because of its unconventional narrative structure— but Mrs. Dalloway, annotated by Merve Emre, is a favorite.
If your bookshelf could talk, what would it say?
Thanks for making me look so good with the full set of “Yves Klein blue” Fitzcarraldo Editions. But please organize me in a logical manner!
“At nearly 150 years old, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina—about a woman who wants, but cannot have—is a timeless tragedy.”
PORTRAIT OF NORA LAWRENCE. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERIN BAIANO AND COURTESY OF STORM KING ART CENTER.
PORTRAIT OF YANA PEEL. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CHANEL.
