"Not your grandfather's Remington": Reimagining the Cowboy Today

Event Sponsors

The Bill Lane Center for the American West
Cantor Arts Center 
MCA Denver 

Join us for an insightful conversation as MCA Denver's Nora Burnett Abrams and Miranda Lash discuss the development of Cowboy, an ambitious traveling exhibition that unpacks the myths and realities associated with the American cowboy both historically and in today's popular culture. Together with artist Jaye Rhee, whose work Arizona Cowboy (as part of Far West, So Close), appears in the exhibition, they will explore why the Cowboy has remained one of our country's most enduring icons, and how the artworks in this exhibition offer new narratives and perspectives to the broader public.

Cowboy reexamines the popular mythologies surrounding the image and concept of the cowboy. Through the work of more than 25 artists representing Asian American, Latino, and Indigenous perspectives, the exhibition explores a wide array of themes, including the cowboy’s role in shaping our perception of masculinity and gender as well as long-held assumptions about cowboys’ relationship to land and the way these assumptions come into conflict with the lived experiences of contemporary cowboys. Cowboy, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Denver, brings together approximately 70 cutting-edge contemporary artworks including new commissions.