Skiing & Snowboarding

Aspen/Snowmass Brings an Art to Snow Sports

By Kisten Lummis, 2-11-11

	Feeling lucky? You might if skiing past these fun, 8-foot dice tossed down from the Superpipe.

Before throwing away your used Aspen/Snowmass lift ticket, take a closer look: It’s art. For six seasons, the Aspen Skiing Company and the Aspen Art Museum have collaborated to bring art to unexpected places, including the radio-frequency-enabled plastic tucked into the pocket of your ski coat.

The initiative began in 2005 when Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson joined the Aspen Art Museum as director and chief curator. New to Aspen, she was watching the visiting skiers who flood the town each winter and was struck by the idea that their lift tickets were actually small canvasses. And, aside from a bar code and an expiration date, largely blank canvases.

From that simple idea, the partnership has expanded from visually interesting lift tickets to transitory on-mountain art.

Through Feb. 21, skiers and riders at Snowmass can hear singing as they cross the Trestle Bridge between the Big Burn and Sheer Bliss lifts. A tonal, a cappella melody, almost ethereal, greets them and then disappears. Except for a low-profile sign at the east end of the bridge explaining the installation by Susan Philipsz, there is no forewarning, no promotion. Skiers are left wondering if what they just heard was even real, or just the sounds of the mountain.

Philipsz’s installation, “White Winter Hymnal” (a work originally performed by the Fleet Foxes) is in place at random times. I heard it on a sunny January afternoon. The following week, when I went back with a friend, it was silent. Philipsz, a Berlin-based vocal artist was the 2010 winner of the Turner Prize, awarded to a contemporary British artist. For the exhibit opening, Philipsz came to Aspen and took her first ski lesson.

Other unexpected art on the mountains has included a pair of giant, colorful 8-foot dice designed by Japanese artist Yutaka Sone, tossed down the Superpipe at the 2006 X Games and “Shred the Gnar Full Moon Film Noir,” an experiential film by Los Angeles-based Jennifer West.

The film, made with the help of participants at the 2010 Bud Light Spring Jam, happened when West threw film containing images of the moon onto the snow and invited skiers and riders to run over it. After that, the film was marred on purpose, West took it (yes, the film) hot-tubbing and rubbed it with pain relievers including arnica, Tiger Balm and Advil, mimicking some of the end-of-the-ski-day, off-mountain activities. Her final product was aired the following weekend at Spring Jam.

If all of this art in unexpected places isn’t enough, the Aspen Skiing Company has delved in a bit deeper on its own, commissioning a multi-site exhibit of skiing-themed paintings by Italian Walter Niedermayr which will be featured at various venues on the mountains throughout this season and into 2012. Currently, exhibits are in place across all four mountains and a map and audio-guide are being produced.

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