Lectures and Talks

Photographer Alexey Titarenko explores the character of a city and its people, blending the reality of a moment with metaphor. By using long exposure times and darkroom techniques, he makes photographs that evoke a mood and the passage of time.

Titarenko grew up and studied photography in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia). He first made collages and photomontages commenting on the oppressive communist regime but after the fall of the Soviet Union, he shifted focus. Inspired by literature and music, he began making pictures that poetically express the feelings and the stories of the lives of people in St. Petersburg. Alexey Titarenko took this approach to photographing other cities including Venice, Italy, Havana, Cuba, and New York City, where he lives and works today.

Following this talk, there will be a book signing of the new expanded edition of The City is a Novel (2025).

This program is presented in connection with the photography exhibition What We’ve Been Up To: People, February 8 – September 29, 2026.

Photographer and educator Zora J. Murff creates pictures of people and the urban and natural environments that surround them. For some projects, he also incorporates appropriated imagery to reflect on his own experiences and to examine social and racial injustices. His work considers minimized histories, experiences of being a Black person in America, and the ways visual culture shapes and is shaped by us.

Zora J. Murff’s monograph True Colors (or, Affirmations in a Crisis) was published by Aperture in 2022 and he received a prestigious Infinity Award from the International Center for Photography in 2023. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of Photography at University of Oregon.

This program is presented in connection with the photography exhibition What We’ve Been Up To: People , February 8 – September 29, 2026.

Jaye Rhee explores how we navigate physical and virtual spaces, constructing ambiguous environments and imaginary worlds through video, photography, and performance. In her practice, Rhee engages with images and their production, reflecting the way visual culture mediates identity, memory, and perception.

Rhee has shown her work at various international venues, including the Bronx Museum of Arts, New York; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, South Korea; La Triennale di Milano, Italy; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Norton Museum of Art; Queens Museum of Art, New York; and Seoul Museum of Art.

She has participated in artist residences at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Changdong International Studio Program, Palais de Tokyo Workshop, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Rhee received a BFA in 2001 and an MFA in 2003 from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives and works in New York and Seoul.

Rhee’s multi-channel video installation Voiceless Song (2025) is currently on view in the Arts of Asia Galleries on level 5 of the Martin Building.

Andrea Carlson imagines in-between spaces of dislocation and belonging, destruction and reclamation, domination and liberation. Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe and European settler descent) considers how the land is an embodiment of a people’s histories and memories, creating intense and deeply introspective landscapes comprising prismatic layers of color, text, flora, fauna, and cultural objects.

As an Indigenous futurist, Carlson contemplates “deep time” and cycles of the natural world, using multiple sheets of paper to suggest the movement of objects, landforms, and other characters. Her dynamic compositions reference issues of ecology, challenge colonial narratives in the US, and envision a future of long-lasting Native resilience, knowledge, and survival.

Born in 1979, Carlson earned her BA in 2003 from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and MFA in 2005 from Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Her honors include fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and United States Artists Fellowship and awards from Artadia and Creative Capital. Carlson has had solo exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor. Her work is included in permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum; Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Carlson is the co-founder of the Center for Native Futures, an art space dedicated to the work of Native artists in Chicago, and lives and works in Minnesota.

Carlson joins Rory Padeken, Vicki and Kent Logan Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, in a conversation about her process, inspiration, and influences.

David Huffman creates "social abstractions," large-scale paintings combining social and political themes with inventive abstract mark-making. Influenced by progressive Black politics, Afrofuturism, Pop art, basketball, and the television shows Star Trek and Astro Boy, Huffman layers these references to reflect on the African American experience.

In his paintings, Huffman transports us to celestial realms where images of basketballs float like planetary bodies while the circuitous netting of hoop chains ground his work in the urban environment of his youth. His current work recalls NASA’s Cold War-era space race and Sun Ra’s hypnotic sonic experimentations to envision a world where Black Americans may freely prosper.

Huffman joins crystal am nelson, assistant professor of African Diasporic Visual Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, in a conversation about his almost three-decade-long practice as an artist.

Didier William uses vivid colors and bold patterns to evoke memories of growing up in Miami as an immigrant from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Inspired by Haitian history, language, and mythology, and personal experience, William unpacks the legacies of colonialism, social resistance, and the struggle for political agency. Incorporating traditions from painting, collage, wood carving, and printmaking, he materially visualizes the intersections of identity and culture.

Powerful, faceless figures appear in William’s otherworldly, electrified landscapes. Their bodies, covered with carved eyes conscript the viewer into a flamboyant narrative made deliberately queer by refusing explicit sex and gender signifiers. “It’s a way for the figures in my paintings to return the curios gaze,” comments Williams. “Not just with their eyes, but with every square inch of their skin.”

Rendering his figures with larger-than-life anatomies, William transforms them into supernatural beings or what he calls “Titans.” His humanoid forms touch, wrestle, and embrace as they seek out tenderness, care, and belonging. They often appear to float or at least try to overcome the forces of gravity as they aim for higher realms.

Enrique Chagoya’s prints, drawings, paintings, and codices in the tradition of satirical cartoons have brought him international recognition. Chagoya skillfully combines contrasting images sourced from secular and religious iconographies and popular culture to address colonialism, inequality, and international conflicts with biting humor. Using familiar pop icons such as Superman and Mickey Mouse, he creates deceptively friendly points of entry for a discussion of US hegemony and colonialism.

Chagoya began making political cartoons in the 1970s for union and student newspapers while studying economics at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Me?xico in Mexico City. He later directed rural development projects in the city of Veracruz, an experience that ignited his burgeoning interest in transnational politics that would eventually become the subject of his art. Chagoya employs a process which he calls “reverse anthropology,” depicting contemporary events on Amate, a type of paper used in traditional Central American bookmaking, folded like an accordion and read from right to left. His subjects range from revisionist histories of British and Spanish settlement in the Americas to challenging racial stereotypes.

Hayv Kahraman paints graceful and commanding women in intertwining and seemingly impossible poses. They appear like translucent apparitions with inky halos of hair and silken skin rendered delicately in layers of oil paint and adorned in geometric Islamic patterns. Together they form a collective of Middle Eastern women, a motif Kahraman employs to celebrate her cultural identity, once repressed by violent assimilative and colonial forces.

Kahraman draws from her experience as a refugee in exile from her native Iraq, weaving ideas of narrative, memory, and diaspora. The body as object and subject play a central role in her practice, functioning as both a self-portrait and embodiment of a larger whole. Her recent work has addressed the devasting impact on vulnerable communities as a result of war, the parallels between medical terminology and military metaphors, and ecological disasters.

In the two decades following photography’s invention around 1839, a group of French painter-photographers embraced and advanced the new medium’s artistic potential. This formative generation, which included Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègres, and Eugène Cuvelier, elevated the craft and critical dialogue swirling around photography, a medium many felt was better suited to science, industry, and commerce than art. This lecture by Dr. April M. Watson, Senior Curator, Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, will explore the significance of these artists and the debates they sparked as they helped set the stage for the radical innovations brought about by Impressionism.

In the two decades following photography³ invention around 1839, a group of French painter-photographers embraced and advanced the new medium³ artistic potential. This formative generation, which included Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègres, and Eugène Cuvelier, elevated the craft and critical dialogue swirling around photography, a medium many felt was better suited to science, industry, and commerce than art. This lecture by Dr. April M. Watson, Senior Curator, Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, will explore the significance of these artists and the debates they sparked as they helped set the stage for the radical innovations brought about by Impressionism.

With Pissarro's Impressionism as a springboard, the Perspectives on Pissarro program series offers a fresh take on the exhibition, the artist, and his world.

Join curators, art historians, and a horticulturalist as they share insights into Pissarro's work and the natural landscapes that inspired him. Register for individual sessions or enjoy a discount for the full series.

Please note that this link is for purchasing tickets to livestream recordings of the lecture series so that you can watch from home. To purchase in-person tickets, please click here.

With Pissarro's Impressionism as a springboard, the Perspectives on Pissarro program series offers a fresh take on the exhibition, the artist, and his world.

Join curators, art historians, and a horticulturalist as they share insights into Pissarro's work and the natural landscapes that inspired him. Register for individual sessions or enjoy a discount for the full series.

The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) is known as one of the greatest artists of all time. But why is that? What makes Rembrandt different from others? What makes him so special? In this lecture, Rembrandt expert Epco Runia discusses the areas in which Rembrandt excelled. Topics covered include Rembrandt's experimental painting style, exciting lighting, lively portraits, and ability to convey deep emotions. His captivating portraits and biblical stories will be discussed, as well as his largest masterpiece, The Night Watch. A crash course in Rembrandt, for anyone who finally wants to know what makes Rembrandt such a unique artist.

Art historian Epco Runia is Head of Collection and Research at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. He is a lifelong fan of Rembrandt and enjoys sharing his observations and ideas about the artist in exhibitions, publications and lectures.

Please join the Denver Art Museum’s Native Arts and Provenance departments, along with special guest Mr. Olugbile Holloway, Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) of Nigeria, for a special evening discussing the recent repatriation of a plaque from the Kingdom of Benin. We are pleased to host Mr. Holloway for a lively panel discussion focused on the significance of repatriating Benin Bronzes with Nigeria and the importance of fostering international relationships that go beyond the return of objects. We will also discuss the importance of provenance research and the role it plays in returning objects to rightful countries of origin.

The Denver Art Museum has held a long-standing relationship with the government of Nigeria, the Oba of Benin and the NCMM for over five decades. This partnership has been dedicated to the respectful identification and repatriation of cultural artifacts, including the repatriation of the Benin Bronze plaque in the DAM’s collection, now on view in the Arts of Africa gallery, after the agreement of a five-year loan from the Nigerian government. Repatriations like this reflect the DAM’s commitment to ongoing collaboration with African communities, working to build trust and repair wrongs of the past.

Join us for the world premiere of The Stars Watch From Long Ago, followed by a discussion with filmmakers Stacey Steers and John Romano and Rory Padeken, Vicki and Kent Logan Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

A small house spins through outer space. Onboard is silent film actor Lillian Gish, drifting alone through cosmic vastness. Here, climate instability and the existential threat of wildfires emerge as a prominent theme. Meticulously crafted from thousands of handmade paper collages, this short film comprises archival images from early silent films and other sources that explore personal relationships, science fiction, the natural world, and cinematic language, along with fragments of 18th and 19th century engravings and illustrations. From acclaimed Colorado filmmaker Stacey Steers along with John Romano, and sound design by Udit Duseja, The Stars Watch From Long Ago is a surreal meditation on wonder, loss, and longing.