MCA Denver marks thirty years with the exhibition Colorado Currents and expanding reach through pop-ups, public art, and the October 15 Luminocity Gala.
As the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is turning thirty in December 2026, Colorado is recognizing its 150th anniversary of statehood. MCA marks the moment with Colorado Currents (on view July 24–November 1, 2026)—an exhibition consisting of over 100 works by twenty-eight artists with ties to the state. There is a collective effort among the exhibiting artists—and MCA’s curators Miranda Lash and Leilani Lynch—to “take stock”: the artworks presented illustrate how artists are understanding Colorado today. Similarly, the museum is thinking about where they’ve been and where they’re going as they enter their 31st year.
MCA Denver is dedicated to researching, presenting, and documenting the art of our times, introducing the public to new artists. They are committed to professional artist development; fostering teens and young adult creativity; and embracing eclectic, smart, and accessible programs. In December of 2025, MCA welcomed its eighth executive director, Anthony Kiendl. Kiendl, who has spent the last thirty years in various arts leadership positions across Canada, has been a fan of MCA for many years. When he began at MCA, he named his desire to “take something that’s already amazing and move it to the next level.” In 2022, MCA had outgrown the building on Delgany Street. They expanded their programs beyond the museum walls by opening the Holiday Theater, a historic vaudeville-era cinema and performance space a mile away from the museum.
Now ten months on the job, Kiendl has immersed himself in the arts scene not only in Denver, but regionally within the Southwest, while maintaining a global perspective. When thinking about MCA Denver’s future, Kiendl wants to identify ways to expand reach beyond the space of the museum, advancing the idea of a “museum without walls, or museum without borders.” Examining ideas of place is of keen interest to Kiendl, both in understanding the history of a place and the communities within it, and also exploring how new connections can be forged between different localities. More specifically, Kiendl is thinking about pop-up exhibitions, public art commissions, broadcasting, publishing, and rethinking programs like Octopus Initiative, MCA’s art lending library. A guiding question for Kiendl: How can the museum expand its presence not only literally, but virtually and in the public imagination?
The October 15 Luminocity Gala provides a snapshot of what is to come for MCA. Honoring internationally renowned Colorado artist Senga Nengudi alongside locally celebrated arts advocate Tina Walls, the evening will close with a performance by Berlin-based international recording artist Peaches. Under the theme of movement, experimentation, and performance, the Gala takes place outside the museum-proper, in a vacant Denver Design District warehouse. The space is adjacent to Herbert Bayer’s eighty-five-foot tall monument Articulated Wall (1985). In the collection of Denver Art Museum, the work is a version of Bayer’s design for the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, and will animate the Luminocity Gala as a vital space of play and celebration, reflecting on the past while re-imagining the future.
