Hot take: I finally watched that 3 hour documentary on the Denver airport murals

My friend kept pushing me to see it, so I sat down with it last Tuesday. I went in expecting to roll my eyes, but the part about the artist's contract with the city council in 1994 actually made me pause. It's weird how a straightforward commission can look so strange when you pull on one thread. Has anyone else had a theory they dismissed completely change after looking at the original paperwork?

3 comments

3 Comments

foster.mary1mo ago

What if you're just seeing patterns because you want to? I read that same contract and it looked like a normal, boring city project to me. People forget how weird public art was in the 90s. Sometimes a weird mural is just a weird mural.

rosep871mo ago

Okay but have you actually looked at the full project budget breakdown? The numbers for "materials" and "site prep" don't add up at all. Normal boring projects don't need that much concrete for a wall painting. Maybe it was weird art, but the funding sources were weirder. Feels like people just don't want to connect the dots because it's easier to call it a coincidence.

the_alice10d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, didn't someone dig up a city council meeting transcript where a budget director questioned the concrete order and got shut down pretty fast? That part always stuck with me when I read about this thing.