In late July, the Aspen Ice Garden undergoes an annual weekend transformation. Skates, hockey sticks, and shouts disappear, making room for collectors, gallery booths, and an artistic event that has defined Aspen’s summer calendar for 15 years and counting. The Intersect Aspen Art + Design Fair returns to the rink for its 16th edition from July 28–Aug. 1 with a little more scale, a little more spectacle, and a lineup of programming poised at the intersection of art and technology.
The fair emphasizes its ability to curate expansive galleries and sizable installations by creating space for works that hold their own, even against the grandeur of the Rockies. Visitors can expect to wander through presentations by regional and international creatives alike, including renowned conservation photographers Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier, whose work is rooted in environmental urgency and is as spectacular as it is emotional to behold.
Joining them is California artist Jay Kelly, showing a new slate of anti-representational offerings, as well as a local array of talent featured in “The Colorado Connection,” presented jointly with the Red Brick Center for the Arts. There, visitors will see everything from Whit Boucher’s keenly textured investigations of the landscape to John Doyle’s rustic wood sculptures.
“The excitement from our galleries, partners, and collectors is heartening,” Tim von Gal, the fair’s CEO, shared. “Our objective is to raise the level of the art and the excitement of the event each year.” The new schedule of programming will do just that. It includes curated talks and tours that move across the fault lines of contemporary culture: the ever-changing role of technology in the artistic process, the art world’s potential as a consciousness-raising force, the changing local landscape. With the mountains just steps away from the Aspen Ice Garden walls, the fair is more than ready to compete for your attention.
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