Contemporary Art? Priceless

By Stewart Oksenhorn

Courtesy Aspen Art Museum

Five dollars isn’t much. But if an Aspenite were down to his last five-spot, and the choice was between downing a beer or seeing a cutting-edge video installation ... well, that’s another picture of Lincoln likely to end up in Cooper Street’s register. Fortunately, brew-swilling art fanatics are no longer faced with that painful dilemma. With a gift from art-collecting part-time Aspenites John and Amy Phelan, admission to the Aspen Art Museum has been lowered from $5 to zero for the next decade. Museum director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson says freeing the art takes down one barrier that separates people from the potentially mystifying realm of contemporary art. So take the five bucks and celebrate the new policy with a cold one—but only after seeing artist Phil Collins’ film, inspired by Aspen, Mexico and the Jean Genet play “The Maids,” now showing at the museum.

This article appears in the Midsummer 2008 issue of Aspen Sojourner

Did you like what you read here? Subscribe to Aspen Sojourner »