This is such a cool idea we’re thinking of taking up downhill skiing just to experience it: a ski-in, ski-out art exhibition on the ski slopes. It takes place on Aspen Mountain's Ruthie’s Run and features the exhibition "Heaven" by Alex Israel. You’ll have to be able to ski intermediate terrain to get to the exhibit. Ruthie’s Run is a blue trail on Ajax with a combination of groomed terrain and moguls. Newbies like us might have to carefully do 'pizza slices' down the mountain to get to see this cool exhibit.
Israel’s work consists of vibrant, large-scale, airbrushed paintings, often featuring Los Angeles or himself in self-portraits. He’s also collaborated with Hollywood celebrities, authors, German luggage maker Rimowa, and even Louis Vuitton to create beautiful animated sequences to market three of the designer’s fragrances. The work is energetic, with a shimmering pastel rainbow palette and a tangible sense of humor. Much of it was created in the lot of Warner Bros. studios in L.A.
"Heaven" is part of the innovative Art in Unexpected Places program, which has been around since 2005. Artists like Jim Hodges, Claudia Comte and Haruki Murakami have designed lift tickets over the years. Besides the exhibition inside Ruthie’s (an on-mountain restaurant shuttered since 2001), Israel’s artwork also adorns this season’s Aspen Snowmass lift tickets and passes, on-mountain signage and merchandise. The lift ticket shows a pastel sky with the legend, “Your ticket to Heaven,” the red ink and font of which references the pop culture Heaven supermarket in Century Mall, founded by artist Brad Benedict in the late 1970s.
Inside Ruthie’s, you’ll find the interior painted snow white with more than 30 life-sized painted portraits (on aluminum to resemble a cardboard cutout) of celebrities who have died since Instagram’s launch in 2010. In other words, Israel’s giving them their “due” with commentary on how social media feeds can be flooded with these memorials of people we think we know but don’t. And what really is “heaven” for those who pass on?
“My goal is to create an experience that will further enrich the lore of Aspen Mountain,” says Israel in Aspen Snowmass's press release. “Aspen, for me, has always been a place of joy and community, something of a heaven due to both its altitude and natural beauty. I learned to ski here as a child, and it has been a happy place for me ever since. Heaven as a destination exhibition challenges viewers to question their surroundings and invites them to see the mountain in a whole new light.”
You won’t need a ticket for this free exhibition, just mountain access. You can get to Ruthie’s via the the Silver Queen Gondola or Lift 1A. Sponsored by Aspen One and Aspen Art Museum, Heaven will be on display February 14-23 and March 7-16, from 10am to 2pm daily.