Aspen Institute Holds Grand Opening of Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies on June 26

The center for art and culture in Aspen, Colorado is free to the public and is the first facility dedicated to the legacy of artist and designer Herbert Bayer
 

Aspen, CO, June 9, 2022 – The Aspen Institute announces the grand opening and inaugural exhibition of the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies that will formally open on Sunday, June 26, during the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Located on the Institute’s Aspen Meadows campus in Aspen--and established through a major gift from Lynda and Stewart Resnick, co-owners of The Wonderful Company—Colorado, the Bayer Center will commemorate and contextualize the legacy of Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), a leading artist and designer of the twentieth century who studied and taught at the Bauhaus before emigrating from Germany to the United States in 1938. Upon relocating to Aspen in 1946, Bayer supported Aspen's postwar revitalization, shaped the Aspen Institute’s early artistic and programmatic vision, and designed the organization’s historic campus.

“The Aspen Meadows campus has served as an inspiring setting for the Aspen Institute’s programs for more than 70 years.” said Dan Porterfield, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. “Catalyzed by Lynda Resnick’s vision and generosity, and led by inaugural Executive Director James Merle Thomas, the Bayer Center provides a museum-quality space for the Institute to explore and highlight Bayer’s creative process, while providing a platform for understanding how art and creativity are critical components of a free, just, and equitable society.”

“Herbert Bayer’s work and legacy, and his tremendous impact on Aspen, will no longer go underappreciated,” said Lynda Resnick. “To see his many artistic accomplishments recognized in this beautiful, world-class Center is a special moment. It’s wonderful that Bayer’s influence will be accessed by new audiences and celebrated for years to come.”

The Bayer Center was designed by Jeffrey Berkus Architects and Rowland + Broughton Architecture and Urban Design and is situated holistically within Bayer’s campus plans, which include a series of outdoor artworks and buildings designed between 1953 and 1975. The building shares a courtyard with the newly renovated Boettcher Seminar Building, the last campus structure designed by Bayer. Comprising nearly 8,000 ft2 of museum-grade gallery, storage, and archival space, the new facilities anchor the Aspen Institute’s campus arts program, which includes over 10,000 ft2 of indoor gallery space.

“The Center reflects Bayer’s interdisciplinary perspective,” said Executive Director James Merle Thomas. “Throughout his career, Bayer collaborated with artists and thinkers from virtually every field. And just as Bayer argued for the integration of art into all aspects of life, the Bayer Center can serve as a leading example of what an arts institution should be in the twenty-first century: an accessible platform for dialogue, a welcoming space for creative expression and learning, and a venue for community engagement and scholarship.” 

The Center’s inaugural exhibition is Herbert Bayer: An Introduction, curated by Bernard Jazzar, renowned Bayer scholar and curator of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick art collection. The first U.S.-based exhibition since 1973 presents a broad survey of the artist’s work from the late 1910s to the mid-1980s, covering a period of six decades. The exhibit is accompanied by an exhibition catalog and is supported by the Center’s partnership with Bloomberg Connects, a free mobile app featuring a comprehensive visitor’s guide, wayfinding, and educational material.

Beyond a landmark first showing of Bayer’s paintings, the center is planning several exhibitions that explore the artist, his peers, and the modernist paradigm he developed across art, design, and other media. It is the latest in a series of recent commitments by the Aspen Institute—spearheaded largely by the Resnicks—to preserve and examine Bayer and his aesthetic legacy. This latest Resnick gift caps a multi-year initiative that includes the 2018 acquisition of Bayer’s 1978 Anaconda marble sculpture; a major Bauhaus centennial celebration in 2019; and, most recently, the 2021 restoration of Bayer’s 1955 Marble Garden outdoor sculpture

Established as a public-facing initiative and aligned with the Institute’s Aspen Community Programs, the Bayer Center is an institutional member of the American Alliance of Museums. It is free and open to the public. 

More information will be available at www.TheBayerCenter.org starting June 13.