Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but so are art, math, and artificial intelligence—all distinct disciplines which humanity uses to comprehend our complicated reality. On July 27, Aspen Art Museum will kick off Aspen Art Week with its second-annual AIR festival, convening artists, writers, and more to consider how humanity orients itself amidst creation. American author, artist, and filmmaker Miranda July will headline the event with a keynote address.
“I’m honored to be part of AIR, but more than that I’m just very intrigued by the lineup,” July said via email. “I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten to see so many artists I admire on a single trip.”
As AIR senior curatorial advisor Vic Brooks noted, AIR is a year-round, decade-long initiative where each edition builds on the previous one. Last year’s AIR highlighted art and technology. This year’s is themed “Figures in a Landscape,” inspired by Joseph Losey’s 1970 thriller of the same name.
A sprawling show of new works by monumental Argentine sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas will anchor the forthcoming event. “Building upon Villar Rojas’s inquiries,” press materials said, AIR’s wider program “draws upon Aspen’s landscape, a tapestry of raw wilderness and mediated environments, to question how acts of staging and human intervention shape understandings of a place and its power.”
Aspen Art Museum. Photo: by Benjamin Rasmussen, courtesy of Aspen Art Museum.
Indeed, if you place figures in such a landscape, they’ll likely give you a show. As such, AIR 2026 boasts a plethora of performances. Renowned French interdisciplinary artist Camille Henrot, for instance, will stage her first-ever theatrical production—a New York-centric tragicomedy centered on a special delivery. Performa, Aspen Art Museum, Wheeler Opera House, and LYRA Foundation commissioned the spectacle. A whole cast of experts—like buzzy architects Charlap Hyman & Herrero, choreographer Sigrid Lauren, and writer Estelle Hoy—helped bring it to life.
Australian interdisciplinary artist Ivan Cheng, meanwhile, will present his first-ever U.S. performance—one of his signature “live situations for camera.” Experimental musical duo Los Thuthanaka, whose 2025 studio debut garnered glowing reviews, will perform atop Aspen Mountain. And ascendant American artist Lyle Ashton Harris will present a multimedia spoken word performance on the museum’s roof.
Some luminaries will reprise their 2025 AIR appearances, too. American avant-gardist Matthew Barney will follow his site-specific performance from last year with Old Snowmass Parallax, a sculptural installation advancing his interest in “endurance, mythology, and material transformation,” per press materials. American multidisciplinary artist Lucy Raven, who last year attended AIR’s accompanying private retreat, returns this year to its public summit with a site-specific rendition of her moving image installation Murderers Bar (2025), featuring a new score by American musician Deantoni Parks.
Additional talks, readings, and performances will further confound modalities in a manner that a multi-hyphenate like July uniquely understands.
“Miranda July’s sharp, incisive work across film, literature, performance, and visual art has reframed the way we talk about our relationships to others and ourselves,” Aspen Art Museum artistic director and CEO Nicola Lees noted over email. “It’s an honor to welcome July back to the museum for AIR, and her interest in performance and presentation promises to open new lines of inquiry into the theme of this year’s festival.”
AIR festival runs from July 27–31, 2026.
