A colorful, high-flying Denver art installation is debuting this week as part of a summer-long display that encourages urban Denverites to look up.
“Skynets Over Downtown,” an aerial art installation from Poetic Kinetics and Colorado-based artist Patrick Shearn, features sculptures that respond to “natural wind patterns, creating a dynamic experience that is constantly changing,” according to city agency Denver Arts & Venues.
The project, announced in February, will take flight at a trio of sites this summer, starting with the Friday, June 19-Saturday, June 20, opening of an installation that floats above the fountain at Denver Union Station (1701 Wynkoop St.), dubbed “Sun Splash.”
The next one, “Quaking Gold,” opens at Glenarm Plaza at 16th Street (500 16th St.) on June 25, followed by “Skyline Drift,” which will be complete mid-July at Skyline Park at 17th Street (1127 17th St.).
The “major aerial art installation,” as the city calls it, is led by the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure and Denver Arts & Venues, along with the Downtown Denver Partnership, Denver Downtown Development Authority (DDDA) and other city agencies. Hearn was paid $625,000 for the project, according to the Denver Department of Finance.
The kinetic sculptures are expected to be a major draw for Denverites and visitors to downtown, said Michael Chavez, the city’s curator of public art — and not just folks who stumble upon them in tourism-heavy spots such as Denver Union Station.
“People are going to make this a destination experience,” he said. “If they have a friend coming into town, they’re going to say, ‘You’ve got to see this.’ It’s a one-and-done, once-in-a-lifetime installation, and it’s going to be a shot in the arm for downtown.”
A similar project last summer by artist Shearn in El Paso County’s Green Mountain Falls attracted more than 100,000 visitors and boosted sales tax revenue by 36% year-over-year during its four-month run, according to the Denver Downtown Development Authority, which is helping pay for the artwork in Denver. That 6,000 square-foot sculpture, “Off the Beaten Path,” was suspended over Green Mountain Falls’ Gazebo Lake and was created to look like “luminous brushstrokes dancing across the sky,” according to the artist’s website.
Chavez watched the installation of “Sun Splash” over the Union Station fountain on Thursday and was surprised by how immersive it felt, with all five senses being engaged simultaneously, he said. The next sculpture will rise over Glenarm Plaza on Monday, June 25, he said, when 16th Street is temporarily shut down for the day.
“I can’t overemphasize the amount of collaboration that’s gone into this from city agencies,” Chavez said. “It’s way more complicated than it looks and could have taken at least two years to put together. Instead, it’s taken six months.”
“This is the kind of art that stops you in your tracks and inspires delight and curiosity,” said Gretchen Hollrah, executive director of Denver Arts & Venues, in a statement. “The Skynets transform familiar public spaces into something unexpected, and they demonstrate what’s possible when partners across the city come together around a shared vision.”
The sculptures are expected to be on display through October, and a handful of events are planned throughout the summer to complement them, Chavez said.
“As a Colorado native artist, it is an honor and a thrill to create magic and whimsy in Denver,” Shearn said in a statement. “My creative practice is to reveal, in a beautiful way, what nature is doing that we all take for granted.”
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