Cowboy
Kenneth Tam, Still from Silent Spikes, 2021. Commissioned by the Queens Museum with support from the Asian Art Circle of the Guggenheim Museum.
Cowboy
Nora Burnett Abrams, MCA Denver Mark G. Falcone Director & Miranda Lash, MCA Denver Ellen Bruss Chief Curator
The exhibition Cowboy will bring together loans and new commissions from 27 artists representing a wide range of perspectives including Asian American artists, Latinx artists, and Native artists. The exhibition aims to shift the narrative of this figure’s cultural power and significance to be both historically accurate and creatively imaginative.
“This sweeping exhibition will explore the origins of the American cowboy and how the figure and its mythology persist today. Cowboy speaks to the museum’s ambition to challenge, revise, and reconceive how such a myth originated and might be probed in exciting, courageous, and nuanced ways,” said Nora Burnett Abrams, Mark G. Falcone Director of MCA Denver.
“The American cowboy is vividly and enduringly present in the popular mindset, as a character, a seductive ideal, and as a laborer, but most established narratives fail to acknowledge the wildly diverse histories and lived experiences surrounding this profession,” added Miranda Lash, Ellen Bruss Senior Curator at MCA Denver.
The exhibition asks: How does the myth of the cowboy exist today? How has the cowboy as an archetype of masculinity shaped how we think about gender now? What assumptions do we have about cowboys’ relationship to the land and how does this relate to the real, lived experiences of contemporary cowboys? By presenting a broad range of perspectives, this exhibition aims to break apart the homogenous ideal of the cowboy as a white, cisgender American male and showcase the diverse manifestations of this figure across many different communities and in a variety of media.
The exhibition will also include newly commissioned work by rafa esparza and Nathan Young, as well as Colorado-based artists R. Alan Brooks and Gregg Deal.
A fully illustrated catalogue co-published with Rizzoli will accompany the exhibition with essays by Nora Burnett Abrams, Myeshia Babers, Jongwoo Jeremy Kim, an interview with rafa esparza by Miranda Lash, and a graphic essay by R. Alan Brooks. The catalogue is produced through the special support of the Blue Rider Group of Morgan Stanley.
Lead support for Cowboy is generously provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Special support is given by Visions West Contemporary and the Harmes C. Fishback Foundation. Additional support is provided by Nicole and Craig Harrison.
Installation images
rafa esparza, in collaboration with Fabian Guerrero, Querías Norte, 2023. Courtesy the artists.
rafa esparza, in collaboration with Fabian Guerrero, Querías Norte, 2023. Courtesy the artists.
Kenneth Tam, Silent Spikes, 2021. Commissioned by the Queens Museum with support from the Asian Art Circle of the Guggenheim Museum.
L‑R: Ana Segovia, Aunque me espine la mano, 2018. Courtesy the artist; Ana Segovia, Carnage, 2017. Huber & Timberlake Collection.
L‑R: Stephanie Syjuco, Double Vision with Set-Up (The Broncho Buster 1), 2022. Courtesy the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco; RYAN LEE Gallery, New York; and Silverlens, Manila.; Karl Haendel, Rodeo 11, 2023. Courtesy the Artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, and Wentrup, Berlin.
L‑R: Stephanie Syjuco, Double Vision with Set-Up (The Rattlesnake), Set-Up (The Broncho Buster 2), and Set-Up (The Broncho Buster 1), 2022. Courtesy the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco; RYAN LEE Gallery, New York; and Silverlens, Manila.; Karl Haendel, Rodeo 10, 2023. Courtesy the Artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, and Wentrup, Berlin.
L‑R: Stephanie Syjuco, Double Vision with Set-Up (The Rattlesnake), Set-Up (The Broncho Buster 2), and Set-Up (The Broncho Buster 1), 2022. Courtesy the artist, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco; RYAN LEE Gallery, New York; and Silverlens, Manila.; Kahlil Joseph, Wildcat (Aunt Janet), 2016. ©Kahlil Joseph. Collection of the Bonnefanten.; Yumi Janairo Roth and Emmanuel David, We Are Coming, 2023. Courtesy of the artists.
Akasha Rabut, L‑R: Jesse Murdock, 2014; Untitled (ARAB 0024), n/d; Sunday afternoon on Claiborne Ave, n/d.; Kristin Lewis-Hampton and Devence Hampton, 2016. Courtesy the artist.
Nathan Young, Activation / Transformation II, 2023. Collection of the artist, Linda Chapman-Jestes, Warren Realrider, and Kay Kay Goodeagle.
L‑R: rafa esparza, in collaboration with Fabian Guerrero, Querías Norte, 2023. Courtesy the artists.; Nathan Young, Activation / Transformation II, 2023. Collection of the artist, Linda Chapman-Jestes, Warren Realrider, and Kay Kay Goodeagle.
L‑R: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Route Book, Season 1900, 1900. Collection of Circus World, Wisconsin Historical Society.; Yumi Janairo Roth and Emmanuel David, We Are Coming, (Boulder Theater, Boulder, CO), 2022. Courtesy the artists.
L‑R: Kahlil Joseph, Wildcat (Aunt Janet), 2016. ©Kahlil Joseph. Collection of the Bonnefanten.; Karl Haendel, Rodeo 10, 2023. Courtesy the Artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, and Wentrup, Berlin.
L‑R: Karl Haendel, Rodeo 10, 2023. Courtesy the Artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, and Wentrup, Berlin.; Kahlil Joseph, Wildcat (Aunt Janet), 2016. ©Kahlil Joseph. Collection of the Bonnefanten.
L‑R: Gregg Deal, Teepugoobakwaetu Modu (Animals That Roam On The Earth), 2023. Courtesy the artist.; Juan Fuentes, Untitled, 2021. Four photographs from the series Thirty-Six Miles East. Courtesy the artist. Photograph originally commissioned by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art for Anythink Bennett.
Lucy Raven, Untitled, 2021 – 2022. Five framed shadowgrams. Loaned courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery.
Installation views, Cowboy, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, September 29, 2023 — February 18, 2024. Photos by Wes Magyar.