The bar was set high for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s new exhibition centered around the work of Colorado artists, and timed to coincide with the state’s sesquicentennial celebration.
Every important gallery in town is marking the moment and the efforts have been, by and large — and thank you very much — exceptional. Hats off to the Arvada Center and the Denver Art Museum, in particular, for presenting shows that put regional art front and center in thoughtful ways at a crucial moment of pride and self-reflection.
The challenge was on for the MCA, which came a little late to the game and was something of an outsider since it has focused heavily on national and global artists for the past several years, relegating would-be stars in its own backyard to second string. That started to turn around in meaningful ways this spring with career-enhancing solo shows by Ana Maria Hernando and Sammy Seung-min Lee.
“Colorado Currents,” which runs through Nov. 1, makes that homecoming complete. It is a welcome mat of an exhibition, and a must-see for anyone interested in where Colorado art is in 2026 and where it is headed in the future — at least through the eyes of museum curators. The show is comprehensive, tasteful and, in some ways, surprising.
By opening up the content across media and pushing its geographies beyond the well-traveled urban art zones along the Front Range, the show reframes Colorado as a place deserving of wide recognition. It is difficult to get pure boosterism like this right, but co-organizers Leilani Lynch and Miranda Lash did their research, found the talent and put it all in perspective. Instead of pandering, they chose artists whose work rises to the national level that the MCA has made its standard.
Because of its credibility as the region’s top contemporary art presenter, “Colorado Currents” establishes a new bloc of painters and other object makers as the state’s standard bearers.
Among them are Ronald Real, an architect by training whose recent work has been falling somewhere between tech-driven building design and pure sculpture. His “Coyota” is the centerpiece of the entire exhibition and he made it on-site, putting actual adobe mud mixture through a 3D printer and creating a human-scaled structure that looks something like a small house or hut.
By using this age-old building material in a hyper-contemporary way, the work connects past to present. It serves as a reminder about time-honored social practices in the San Luis Valley where Real grew up, while recognizing the impacts of the changing political and environmental landscape in the West.
There is a corresponding theme in works by JayCee Beyale and Chelsea Kaiah, who transform traditional customs and motifs of various Native American peoples into conscious objects that fit into present-day definitions of contemporary art. Their work and intentions are distinct, no doubt, but both connect then to now in creative ways that speak directly to this part of the country and its tangled history.
In all, there are 28 artists in the show, and the works that stand out bridge time in similar ways, recognizing the traditions that established this Rocky Mountain region (which, of course, go back beyond 150 years) but calling out who and where we are now.
Maeve Eichelberger does this in the cheekiest of ways with her plexiglass series of sculptures, titled “The Utilitarian.” The pieces resemble the square, red bandanas associated with cowboys but replace their usual paisley design with a new pattern that includes symbols of water use — faucets and water droplets. The objects argue for conservation of a precious resource without making combative demands. It speaks in the direct but genteel language of the West that most people here understand.
Other works cross time. A large-scale landscape by Esteban Cabeza de Baca depicts the 2026 terrain around Aspen, but from viewpoints that range from ancient to cosmic, thanks to his use of indigo and cochineal dyes, long-employed by Indigenous artists in this region. The painting has a sense that evolution has no clear direction — things can shift and shift back over the ages.
Another landscape painter, Erika Osborne, creates oil-on-canvas pictures of outdoor spaces that have been impacted by forest fires. Her scenes show destruction — felled logs, burnt stumps — but also regeneration — new plant growth, filtered sunlight. They carry a narrative of neglect but also hope.
Pulling the entire show into the present are works by artists who explore more 21st-century sensibilities — Caleb Hahne Quintana’s moody investigations of masculinity and beauty; Lydia Farrell’s depictions of the mysteries that mingle with the perceived normalities of suburban tract hosing; Marcus Correa and Felipe Romero Beltrán’s 2026, on-the-street photo portraits that capture this moment in fashion against the backdrop of a city (Denver) in flux; Kristopher Wrightap takes on rural life that reflect a respect for the land but also a deep consciousness of the way humans inhabit it.
While the intent of “Colorado Currents” is to show what Colorado artists are thinking about now, the exhibit equally captures the way the contemporary art museum world is structured at this particular moment and the prevailing ideas embraced by the curators who run it. Its politics lean left, though not radically; it embraces technology, but only reluctantly; inclusivity is paramount.
It will be up to museum visitors to decide how accurately this assemblage mirrors the whole of this state, the variety of its makers, the depth of its creative interests and expressions. There is a lot to consider in contentious times, when art can be a bridge not just between a place with 64 counties but also between a community with countless personal ideologies, faiths, attitudes, digital savvy and tastes in art. Some will see the show as an insider view; others less so, and that is a fair way to evaluate its success.
“Colorado Currents” succeeds in the way that it introduces new faces into the fold. Even folks deeply immersed in galleries here will likely encounter names they do not already know — artists with unique viewpoints and engaging and entertaining ways of presenting them.
The show makes a powerful argument that Colorado is a place that matters in the wider art ecosystem, merits more attention than it gets, and is a state that just might surprise you.
“Colorado Currents” continues through Nov. 1 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 1485 Delgany St. Info: 303-298-7554 or mcadenver.org.
