A sky-high public artwork is ready for its close-up at Colorado Convention Center more than five years after it was approved as part of a $233 million new wing.
The $1.8 million piece, by California artist Cliff Garten, is a 145-foot-long, mixed-media sculpture suspended about 70 feet above escalators and the ground floor in the western-facing wing. It can now be seen from all levels of the convention center — including from above on the mezzanine — and when lit, is visible at night from as far as Speer Boulevard to the west.
It’s a major new addition to Denver’s visual fabric, said Rudi Cerri, the city’s public art manager. And it will be large and distinctive enough to show up in the helicopter shots of the city that run during NFL games and other big events.
“We’ve had some issues, because hanging a piece that high above the ground takes awhile to engineer,” Cerri said, noting that the convention center is rarely empty long enough to allow for the installation of an artwork of this size. “But it really fills the space and adds volume, and it feels wonderful to bring it to life.”
“The sculpture’s form is based on a scale model of a 120-mile section of the topography of the Rocky Mountains, which can be seen in the distance from the lobby,” according to Garten’s website. “This landscape is translated into a diaphanous, transparent veil of aluminum topographic lines of mountains and blue, glass rivers moving through the topography.”
The way the sculpture “engages” light, whether it’s from the western exposure or multi-colored interior lighting that flickers to life at night, creates an ever-changing profile and shadows that mimic the view of the mountains, Cerri said.
At 145 feet long and 41 feet wide, the piece is massive even by Denver’s larger-than-life public art standards, dwarfing visitors who move underneath it on escalators and on foot. The sculpture joins renowned, sometimes infamous pieces in Denver’s public art collection, including artist Luis Jiménez’s 32-foot-tall “Mustang” (a.k.a. Blucifer) outside Denver International Airport, and Lawrence Argent’s 40-foot-tall “I See What You Mean” (The Big Blue Bear) on the 14th Street side of the convention center.
Artist Garten is well known for his monumental, flowing, mixed-media sculptures across the U.S., including at Denver’s National Western Center and elsewhere in Colorado. His 20-foot-long “Taking Stock” bronze sculpture debuted last year at the National Western Complex main campus, just before the 120th anniversary National Western Stock Show.
However, “Mountains and Rivers Without End” has had no official opening event, and no public-art tours have visited it yet as Denver Arts & Venues officials look for a totally clear weekend. They’re also peering into the future of other projects there with the money left over from the 1% for Art ordinance funding for the new wing.
“We may be starting a new project, but we’ll see,” Cerri said. “It could be a tapestry or fabric art to soften the space a little more.”
“Mountains and Rivers Without End” was paid for by known as the 1% for Art program. Approved by Denver Mayor Mayor Federico Peña in 1988 and Denver City Council in 1991, it directs 1% of any city-funded capital improvement project over $1 million to be available for the inclusion of art, according to Denver Arts & Venues.
In this case, the cost of the convention center’s new rooftop expansion had already ballooned to $233 million from an original estimate of $104 million, giving Denver Arts & Venues and the selection committee more money to offer artists.
Denver’s public art program currently includes more than 400 pieces of art throughout the city and more than 50 projects in progress, Arts & Venues said.
Work officially began in 2020 when Arts & Venues’ Public Art Program began commissioning new pieces with funds from the convention center’s renovation and construction project, Cerri said. A 14-member panel that included community members, an artist and art professional, and Councilmember Candi CdeBaca, then selected Cliff Garten and Associates Inc., he said.
“We have the iconic blue bear on the 14th street side, so we wanted something that would balance it out on the other side of the building,” Cerri said. “I would say 90% of the artwork in the convention center is inspired by a Colorado theme, with mountains and fauna and natural (imagery). This fits in perfectly with that.”
