Denver Art Museum
Poetic Invocation, Reopening

Feature
News, Events

Published
April, 2022

Tags
Denver Art Museum, Museums

We are excited and honored to share Adrian Molina’s performance of his amazing, “A Poetic Invocation to Re-Imagination,” written on behalf of the opening of the reimagined Martin Building and new Sie Welcome Center. Molina, who also goes by Molina Speaks, originally wrote, and performed this poem for the Denver Art Museum’s opening ceremony; the performance was later re-created by the artist in the captivating video format, above.

Read about Adrian’s writing process here.

Event

Video courtesy of the Denver Art Museum

We are excited and honored to share Adrian Molina’s performance of his amazing, “A Poetic Invocation to Re-Imagination,” written on behalf of the opening of the reimagined Martin Building and new Sie Welcome Center. Molina, who also goes by Molina Speaks, originally wrote, and performed this poem for the Denver Art Museum’s opening ceremony; the performance was later re-created by the artist in the captivating video format, above.Molina opens his invocation with a wonderful description of the project and what it represents for the museum:

“In celebration of the grand reopening
of the Denver Art Museum's Martin Building.
The Maya understood the circle
as a placeholder for the universe.
A circle of new life inspired by a fruit
now connects the titanium, multi-quadrilateral succulent
to its renovated medieval castle.
A modern marvel of design.
Let this embrace of spectacular shape and connection
be the driving force in the Denver Art Museum's mission
to relearn what it means to be a museum.
A muse, a medium.
A meeting point of human dimension.”

"A Poetic Invocation to Reimagination."
Adrian H. Molina
Commissioned for the Martin Building Opening Day Celebration at the Denver Art Museum on October 24, 2021

Related Content

  • The Denver Art Museum’s campus, comprised of several notable works of architecture including the 1971 Gio Ponti museum tower, commissioned Machado Silvetti for the design of the new Sie Welcome Center which serves as a beacon and an anchor for Denver’s emerging cultural center. Read more about the completed project here.

  • We pursued the deliberate, particular goal of finding and retrieving inspiration from some of Gio Ponti’s ideas that resulted in the creation of the most important design component of the whole project: the defining glass beacon that gives new formal identity to the institution, and new iconic clarity to one of the most vibrant districts of the city of Denver. Read more about the design process of the Denver Art Museum here.

  • Made with curved glass panels, the Welcome Center’s façade creates an elegant surface ripple as its appearance responds to the curvature of the elliptical plan, the environment and the viewer’s own movement around the building. Learn more about the fabrication of the glass used at the Denver Art Museum here.

  • Over the past few months, the Denver Art Museum, Martin Building Expansion and Revitalization project has been widely recognized with a number of awards, from the local, Denver Mayor’s Design Award, to Interior Design Magazine’s 2022 Best of Year Winner for Museums, to the most recently received, Boston Society for Architecture, Honor Award for Design Excellence. Read more here.

  • Project updates, upcoming events, construction features, & site visits — Continue exploring news articles and stories here.