{"id":2443699,"date":"2019-05-02T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=304392"},"modified":"2019-05-02T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T22:00:00","slug":"spring-flurries-highs-lows-on-the-culture-scene-from-winter-2018-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/spring-flurries-highs-lows-on-the-culture-scene-from-winter-2018-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Flurries: Highs & lows on the culture scene from winter 2018-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lil Wayne performing on stage at X Games in January.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was the winter of unending powder days, the ski season that gave us something other than a hole at Base Village, the winter of the Ikon Pass, the winter of Bauhaus, Justice for New Year\u2019s Eve, Lil Wayne for X Games. The 2018-19 season gave us the bittersweet final run of The Temporary at Willits, a 70th anniversary toast at Toklat Gallery and Hank Willis Thomas\u2019 lift tickets.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a dizzying run on the arts beat from Thanksgiving through Shortsfest. As Aspen catches its breath this offseason before Food & Wine and lanyard season and the Music Festival opens next month, here\u2019s a run-down of the highs, the lows, the odds and the ends of Aspen\u2019s winter 2018-19 in arts and culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NOVEMBER<\/p>\n

The Aspen Art Museum\u2019s \u201cLost Without Your Rhythm,\u201d inspired by the Judson Dance Theater,<\/a> kept us moving with a playful group exhibition that included a playground swing hanging from the ceiling and a climbable mountain. Along with the zombie-themed show that opened in December, it injected a heavy dose of fun and whimsy into the museum\u2019s galleries.<\/p>\n

The history of Aspen Highlands finally made it between two hard covers in ski instructor John Moore\u2019s indispensable book \u201cA History of Aspen Highlands,\u201d<\/a> which also asked pointedly \u201cWhere have all the characters gone?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Skye Gallery continued its phenomenal run of zeitgeist-y and can\u2019t-miss exhibitions, bringing The Jealous Curator in to put together a five-woman show that opened Thanksgiving weekend<\/a> and included biting and funny work by art stars like Ashley Longshore. The gallery followed with another hit: the furry, funny world of Spencer Hansen\u2019s \u201cPlease Play\u201d in January.<\/p>\n

DECEMBER<\/p>\n

The blues-folk trio The Wood Brothers gets better with each of their annual returns<\/a> to Belly Up, this time coming with free-wheeling songs from \u201cOne Drop of Truth,\u201d which was nominated for a Grammy two days before the Woods headlined the local club.<\/p>\n

The Wheeler\/Stallard Museum in the West End was the center of the Aspen art world this winter as the world began celebrating the centennial of the Bauhaus art school and movement<\/a>. Its tightly curated \u201cbayer & bauhaus\u201d show unearthed treasures from Herbert Bayer\u2019s vastly influential decades in Aspen, from his original designs for the Sundeck to his 1940s Hotel Jerome stationary and sketches and studies for his iconic ski posters. (If you haven\u2019t made it there yet, what are you waiting for? You must make it there! The show is up through next year.)<\/p>\n

The superstar DJ Dillon Francis<\/a> capped a creatively fertile and sometimes controversial 2018 with a big Belly Up show and family snowboard trip to Aspen that came amid an incredible run of high-grade electronic shows in the music club. With Francis, NGHTMRE, Cedric Gervais, Diplo, Justice, Emancipator, Above & Beyond and Steve Aoki all playing in a two-week span around the new year, Belly Up\u2019s lineup rivaled any EDM club and any music festival on Earth.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard a lot from climber Tommy Caldwell in the past few years, including a 5Point film talk, two 2018 documentaries and the memoir \u201cThe Push.\u201d But his exhilarating and honest revealing conversation with Penn Newhard at Aspen Winter Words somehow broke new ground about Caldwell\u2019s inner life as he transitions out of sensational mountaineering feats and into dad life.<\/p>\n

Magician Mike Super roped the Aspen Times editor David Krause into his show at the Wheeler Opera House, correctly predicting one of our headlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Aspen Art Museum\u2019s extraordinary 24-artist group show \u201cZombies: Pay Attention!\u201d<\/a> managed to be popular and populist \u2014 and downright fun \u2014 without compromising its curatorial integrity. Works ranged from the Piotr Uklanski\u2019s grisly massive blood-red abstract sculpture to Will Boone\u2019s painting of a mangled face and Sue de Beer\u2019s photo print \u201cof a woman sliced in half from head to waist,\u201d but the text works proved the most arresting: Rashid Johnson\u2019s neon \u201cRun\u201d and Bruce Nauman\u2019s \u201cPay Attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen Film, Anita Thompson and Bob Braudis toasted the 20th anniversary of the film adaptation of \u201cFear and Loathing in Las Vegas\u201d<\/a> at the Wheeler, bringing the town together to celebrate Hunter S. Thompson\u2019s darkly comic, politically incisive gonzo journalism masterpiece. And Braudis regaled the crowd with wild tales of going on the road with Johnny Depp and Thompson.<\/p>\n

The Red Brick Center for the Arts added a solo exhibition space to its gallery<\/a>, beginning with a photo show by Aspen artist Gary Gleason. It\u2019s a small space but a huge opportunity for local artists to showcase their work. As the downtown galleries show fewer and fewer artists from Aspen\u2019s stacked ranks, the Red Brick\u2019s West Gallery is going to be an indispendible launchpad.<\/p>\n

How many songs did Lil Wayne play in his fierce and frigid X Games show<\/a> at Buttermilk? By my count, it was 28 (!) in little over an hour (!) as a rejuvenated Weezy \u2014 hot off the release of \u201cTha Carter V\u201d \u2014 again made a case as the greatest rapper of all-time in the best performance X Games has hosted during its five year run of festival-style outdoor shows.<\/p>\n

FEBRUARY<\/p>\n

Please tell me the Crystal Palace Revue\u2019s rapturously received return<\/a> to the stage at the Wheeler Opera House means that the Palace players are back for good and that this will be at least an annual reunion.<\/p>\n

If Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Colson Whitehead<\/a> ever needs a side hustle, he ought to pick up some stand-up comedy gigs. He\u2019s got the chops, as evidenced in Whitehead\u2019s hilarious Winter Words talk \u2014 which also managed to weave in a dramatic reading of \u201cThe Underground Railroad\u201d and incisive reflections on American history \u2014 where he gave the audience a laugh-a-minute experience with self-deprecating tales of his journey as a writer.<\/p>\n

The Wheeler hosted a historic and intimate Leftover Salmon performance as the hugely influential Boulder-based jam band celebrated its 30th anniversary<\/a> and reminisced about its early days barnstorming around Colorado\u2019s ski towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree Solo\u201d won the Oscar for Best Documentary. It\u2019s easy to be cynical about awards ceremonies, but this is absolutely a watershed moment for adventure films and filmmakers on The Meeting-5Point-Mountainfilm circuit. If Hollywood is embracing dirtbag stories and outdoor movies, it means more opportunity for the mountain filmmakers we love, more money for directors who might be able to stop pimping sponsors on-screen, more of our stories being told and more movies like \u201cFree Solo\u201d in front of more eyeballs in more theaters around the world.<\/p>\n

Jim Gaffigan sold out two Wheeler shows<\/a> in February with new material \u2014 included an extended and somehow-fabulous bit on horses \u2014 as the theater and its Aspen Laugh Festival staked its claim as a tour stop for comedy\u2019s best. The season also brought Melissa Villasenor, Tig Notaro, Kathleen Madigan, Jo Koy and Marc Maron to the Wheeler in a stand-up season that\u2019ll be tough to top.<\/p>\n

MARCH<\/p>\n

CORE and Anderson Ranch teamed for \u201cImagine Climate,\u201d bringing local, regional and international artists together<\/a> to tackle global warming including artist-of-the-moment Justin Brice Guariglia, whose road sign-styled work starkly warned \u201cClimate Change at Work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The beloved Aspen-based author Bruce Berger \u2014 author of \u201cThe Complete Half-Aspenite\u201d and the Aspen Music Festival history \u201cMusic in the Mountains\u201d \u2014 finally got his due from the publishing industry in the Farrar, Straus & Giroux hardcover collection \u201cA Desert Harvest.\u201d<\/a> And Aspen paid homage in a packed signing at Explore Booksellers.<\/p>\n

The jamtronica giants STS9 filled Belly Up for three nights<\/a> of wild shows and brought along its passionate fans from far and wide in one of the major musical events in ski country this winter. Always looking to break new ground, the band also staged an art show at the Skye Gallery, making Soundribe weekend a venue-hopping party that ran all weekend.<\/p>\n

After fretting and freaking out on his \u201cWTF\u201d podcast about coming to Aspen for what he thought might be a disastrous set, Marc Maron killed at the Wheeler, battled a Donald Trump-supporting heckler, and a few days later on his podcast, recorded a memorable riff<\/a> about the weird world of our Fat City.<\/p>\n

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer came to town for her Winter Words talk just days after her monumental expose about President Trump and Fox News was published. But anybody in the sold-out crowd who came to hear her talk about how she landed 2019\u2019s biggest story in journalism left disappointed, as moderator Carolyne Heldman punted on preparing for the interview and instead quoted from reviews of Mayer\u2019s books and asked bafflingly confusing and vague questions. Mayer did her best with it, but this should have been a feather in Aspen Words\u2019 cap rather than an embarrassment.<\/p>\n

APRIL<\/p>\n

Shortly after Marvel tapped him to direct the surefire global sensation \u201cShang-Chi,\u201d filmmaker Destin Cretton returned to Aspen Shortsfest in early April to reminisce about his early days in short film and a retrospective screening of his breakthrough \u201cShort Term 12.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its final season, HBO\u2019s \u201cVeep\u201d spoofed Aspen confabs like the Ideas Fest as only \u201cVeep\u201d can, setting an episode here where presidential candidates prostrate themselves for the endorsement of an eccentric rich guy. When Felix (said rich guy) announces from a T-Lazy 7-styled stage that, \u201cWe\u2019re here in Aspen to build bridges to the future \u2014 bridges made of ideas,\u201d Julia Louis-Dreyfus\u2019 President Selina Meyer whispers \u201cNo wonder the rest of the world hates us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Buttermilk\u2019s closing weekend, the first \u2014 hopefully not last \u2014 staging of The Apr\u00e8s festival took over the ski hill<\/a> with three days of shows by two of the most popular jam bands in the world: Umphrey\u2019s McGee and the String Cheese Incident. Fans from across Colorado and the U.S. made the pilgrimage \u2014 one told me it was his 140th Umprey\u2019s show! \u2014 for the communal experience of skiing all day and dancing all night in deep and slushy snow.<\/p>\n

As novelist Tayari Jones won the second annual Aspen Words Literary Prize<\/a> in New York, she praised the awards existence and mission of recognizing fiction with social impact: \u201cThank you to Aspen Words for this award \u2014 for having this award at all. Because many of us who write and engage the issues of the day, we\u2019re told not to.\u201d Her impassioned speech indicated locals should look forward to her public talk here in June.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lil Wayne performing on stage at X Games in January.Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times It was the winter of unending powder days, the ski season that gave us something other than a hole at Base Village, the winter of the Ikon Pass, the winter of Bauhaus, Justice for New Year\u2019s Eve, Lil Wayne for X Games. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2443699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-23 01:44:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2443699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2443699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2443699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2443699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}