Lectures and Talks

In a career spanning over four decades, photographer Flor Garduño (Mexican, b. 1957) has continuously explored, through her poetic pictures, connections to the natural world, history, and Indigenous beliefs that are a part of the people and places she photographs in Mexico, Central and South America.

Garduño studied visual arts at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City where she was particularly inspired by her teacher Kati Horna. She went on to work under renowned photographers such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Mariana Yampolsky, as she continued to develop her own style. Today, Flor Garduño is a leading photographer of her generation in Mexico.

Please join us for a conversation with the artist to learn more about her work, process, and inspiration. This conversation will be facilitated by a Spanish interpreter.

Filmmaker, photographer, and poet, Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, b. 1984) uses moving images, photography, sound, and language to explore forms of storytelling. Ideas of Indigenous homeland and landscape and language as containers of culture are at the center of his work.

Sky Hopinka’s photographs and films are widely collected and exhibited, his collection of writings, essays, and calligrams entitled Around the Edge of the Encircling Lake was published in 2018, and he was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

During this 90-minute event, the artist will discuss his work, process, and inspiration, which will include screening of examples of his film and video work

Join us for a presentation by Tim Clayton who will talk about his 2023 Berger Prizewinning book, James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire.

James Gillray (1756-1815) was late Georgian Britain’s funniest, most inventive and most celebrated graphic satirist and continues to influence cartoonists today. His brilliant drawing, matched by his flair for clever dialogue and amusing titles, won him unprecedented fame as a political satirist; his sophisticated designs parodied artists of the day such as William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds, while he borrowed and wittily redeployed celebrated passages from William Shakespeare and John Milton to send up politicians in an age – as now – where society was fast changing, anxieties abounded, truth was sometimes scarce, and public opinion mattered.

Tim Clayton’s definitive biography explores Gillray’s life and work through his friends, publishers – the most important being women – and collaborators. Clayton’s compelling narrative reveals the tensions between artistic independence, financial necessity and the conflicting demands of patrons and self-appointed censors in a time of political and social turmoil, also recreating the networks that invented satirical prints and the emerging markets for them.

In celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AANHPI), poet and activist Katerina Jeng will be reading poems from their debut poetry book, Gospel of a Whole Sun. The book chronicles Katerina journey of self-discovery as a queer Asian American femme, and encourages us to reflect on artmaking as a path to self-actualization and liberation.

This program is designed to build a space for individuals who identify as AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander) to come together through guided prompts and community discussion and reflect on their own personal and creative journeys. Participants will also tap into the senses, energy, and support of the elements in the museum's Sensory Garden to create our own pieces of writing that reflect on the seasons of our lives, and celebrate how we've bloomed into who we are today.

This program is included with general admission to the museum.

Inspired by comic book imagery and iconography from South Asia, Chitra Ganesh creates wondrous animations, bold and colorful paintings, and mixed media works that center women and queer perspectives. Rejecting traditional gender roles, Ganesh depicts female archetypes such as witches and goddesses that reimagine representations of femininity, sexuality, and power. Ganesh references ancient mythology, queer politics, old Bollywood poster and songs, and the erasure of South Asian history in her works.

This lecture is presented by the department of Modern and Contemporary Art.

This is an in-person ticket.

To purchase a virtual ticket click here.

Join us for a lecture led by Lori Illiff, Senior Provenance Researcher at the DAM, in association with International Provenance Day (observed on April 10, 2024).

What do a Zuni war god, a Dutch painting, an Indian sculpture, and a Benin bronze plaque all have in common? They were all deaccessioned from the collections of the Denver Art Museum and were returned, or are in process of being returned, to individuals, communities, or countries of origin. The Denver Art Museum has a history of cultural repatriations and restitutions that dates back nearly forty-five years.

These four important works have powerful stories to tell. From their origins to landing in the Museum’s collection, and back home again, the journey of these works shows how collecting practices and legal and ethical standards have evolved over the last half century and how cultural patrimony concerns continue to engage Museums, provenance researchers, and public interest today.

We take art for granted but what purposes does it serve? What roles does it play in our lives and societies and, if these have changed over time, how? In this three-session course, join Giulia Bernardini, art historian and founder of art travel company Wonderfeast, to explore the place art occupies in our world and what the questions we ask about it ultimately tell us about ourselves. With the gallery as our playground, optional reading and viewing materials at hand, and lively group discussion, this participatory experience will leave attendees with a new perspective on the question: Why Do We Art?

Giulia Bernardini holds master’s degrees in art history and in museum studies and is a regular guest lecturer on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art as well as the Parisian Belle Époque. She is the founder of Wonderfeast, a boutique art travel company that specializes in unforgettable on-site seminars in her native Europe for small groups of inquisitive art-, food-, and culture-lovers.

This is a virtual ticket.

To purchase an in-person ticket click here.

Join us for a lecture led by Lori Illiff, Senior Provenance Researcher at the DAM, in association with International Provenance Day (observed on April 10, 2024).

What do a Zuni war god, a Dutch painting, an Indian sculpture, and a Benin bronze plaque all have in common? They were all deaccessioned from the collections of the Denver Art Museum and were returned, or are in process of being returned, to individuals, communities, or countries of origin. The Denver Art Museum has a history of cultural repatriations and restitutions that dates back nearly forty-five years.

These four important works have powerful stories to tell. From their origins to landing in the Museum’s collection, and back home again, the journey of these works shows how collecting practices and legal and ethical standards have evolved over the last half century and how cultural patrimony concerns continue to engage Museums, provenance researchers, and public interest today.