The Denver Art Museum, artist Phil Bender and community activist Veronica Barela are the 2011 winners of the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.
The awards, which have been distributed annually since 1986, recognize individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the arts in the city and county of Denver.
Mayor Michael Hancock will present the awards at a ceremony and reception 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature performances by the Colorado Symphony, Opera Colorado and Colorado Ballet.
Here’s a look at the awardees:
American Indian galleries, Denver Art Museum. The DAM was among the first art museums in the country to collect American Indian works and recognize their aesthetic value. In January, it gained national attention for an innovative reinstallation of its Indian galleries that put unprecedented emphasis on the artists who created the works. The newly configured spaces contain about 700 works, 650 of which have never been shown before, and abound with contextual aids.
Phil Bender. Not only is Bender among Denver’s most inventive and accomplished artists, he has also put a considerable mark on the area’s art scene as the founder of Pirate: Contemporary Art. Though not the oldest artist cooperative in Denver – Spark predates it by about six months – Pirate remains the most important and widely known more than three decades after its establishment in 1980.
Veronica Barela. Barela was among the first to envision Santa Fe Drive as an ideal location for an arts district. In the early 1990s, with funding from the Anne E. Casey Foundation, she began the PODER Project, which brought together businesses, neighborhood groups and arts organizations for the betterment and redevelopment of the area. Now, Santa Fe Drive is home to one of the largest concentrations of art galleries in the the city, as well as theaters and businesses related to its independent music scene.
