upcoming exhibition
Sculpting the Environment: The Three-Dimensional Art of Herbert Bayer
Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies
June 10, 2025 – April 18, 2026
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Aspen Institute, Sculpting the Environment: The Three-Dimensional Art of Herbert Bayer provides the most comprehensive investigation to date of Bayer’s exploration of “the total environment,” or, as he put it in 1970, “the extension of my work into many areas of space.” Focusing on his site-specific outdoor sculptures and land art, this exhibition brings together more than one hundred works by Bayer, including drawings, paintings, photographs, models, and maquettes—many on display for the first time. Elevating this prolific artist’s legacy as a boundary-breaking polymath whose Bauhaus training informed the genesis and execution of his environmental sculptures, the exhibition promises to deepen the viewer’s knowledge of Bayer’s relationship with the landscape. His particular fondness for Aspen, where he was given free rein to sculpt the Aspen Meadows into a gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, will be highlighted. This exhibition is co-curated by the artist Koko Bayer, Herbert Bayer’s granddaughter, and Adam Thomas, PhD.
Funding for the exhibition is provided by the estate of Ann M. Korologos. Additional support provided by Lynda and Stewart Resnick.
current exhibitions
Charting Space: Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas at 70
Resnick Gallery, Doerr-Hosier Building
Charting Space: Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas at 70 is on view in the Resnick Gallery located in the Doerr-Hosier Center. Intended for visitors of all ages, but particularly for K-12 youths, the installation uses Bayer’s atlas as a springboard to explore current issues related to our world including travel, natural resources, population, and conservation. Making use of interactive elements and multimedia experiences, the layout unfolds in three sections focusing on the themes that Bayer used to visualize the world for readers: the observable universe; the planet Earth; and individual states and countries.
You can learn more about how the content of this exhibition was utilized in the Bayer Center’s first year of educational programs here.
Funding for the exhibition is provided by the Toby Lewis Trust. Additional support provided by Lynda and Stewart Resnick.
past exhibitions
Bauhaus Typography at 100
Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies
June 11, 2024 – April 26, 2025
Bauhaus Typography at 100 explores the school’s unique legacy in graphic design and typography through artifacts of its own making – its books, magazines, course materials, product catalogs, stationery, promotional fliers, and other ephemera — as well as objects created by its many students and teachers before and after the time of the school. The exhibition draws a throughline from the Bauhaus’s iconic style to the shape of typography today.
Funding for the exhibition is provided by the estate of Ann M. Korologos. Additional support provided by Lynda and Stewart Resnick.
Celebrating 75 Years: Herbert Bayer and the Aspen Music Festival and School
Walter Paepcke Memorial Building
May 2024 – April 11, 2025
In celebration of the Aspen Music Festival and School’s 75th anniversary, this exhibition recognizes Bayer’s contributions to the early artistic vision of the Festival and School. Included here are program book covers and posters that feature Bayer’s artwork, as well as early photographs, architectural plans, and ephemera from the music tent Bayer designed in 1964. This exhibition explores Bayer’s long collaborative relationship with the Music Festival.
Funding for this exhibition is provided by a grant from the City of Aspen.
Concept of a Visualist: Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas
Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies
June 2023 – April 2024
On view in the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies, this exhibition examines Herbert Bayer’s 1953 World Geo-Graphic Atlas, a landmark work of visual education and modernist design. Marking the seventieth anniversary of the atlas’s publication, this is the first exhibition devoted to this groundbreaking and influential work that has come to occupy a key place within graphic design history. In addition to exploring Bayer’s contributions to map design and scientific illustration, Concept of a Visualist provides new insights into Herbert Bayer’s larger body of artwork and highlights the atlas’s continued relevance for audiences today. Watch here as curator and author of Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-graphic Atlas and Information Design at Midcentury Benjamin Benus and Penner Manager of Educational Programs Andrew Travers talk with Aspen Institute President and CEO Dan Porterfield about the enduring influence of the artist and his atlas, and here as Benjamin Benus and Bloomberg Philanthropies Kate D. Levin discuss how the atlas was a precursor to our current world of information design.
Funding for the exhibition was provided by the Toby Lewis Trust. Additional support provided by Lynda and Stewart Resnick.
Richard Carter’s Observable Universe
Walter Paepcke Memorial Building
October 2, 2023 – April 12, 2024
Richard Carter served as studio assistant to Bauhaus artist and designer Herbert Bayer in Aspen from 1972 to 1978. During that time, Bayer gave Carter a signed copy of his groundbreaking 1953 World Geo-Graphic Atlas. While the atlas was not a direct influence on Carter, he developed scientific interests similar to those that Bayer explored, using his artist’s eye to find new ways of seeing the world around us. Spanning 2002 to 2021, these mixed media pieces mark a break from Carter’s signature geometric and constructivist paintings and instead reflect his intense study of Earth sciences and astronomical, natural, and geological phenomena. Richard Carter talks with Penner Manager of Educational Programs about the exhibition and a life devoted to painting and fine art, here.
Herbert Bayer: An Introduction
A landmark exhibition celebrating Herbert Bayer’s artwork and legacy.
June 2022 – April 2023
The inaugural exhibition, Herbert Bayer: An Introduction, curated by Bayer expert Bernard Jazzar, is the first major US exhibition since 1973 to present so full a range of the artist’s work from the late 1910s to the mid-1980s. The survey exhibition provides a contemporary reexamination of Bayer’s career, focusing on his role as a fine artist. With over 150 pieces arranged across 13 galleries, Bayer’s artworks are presented chronologically, from his teenage sketches to paintings from his final decade in Montecito, California. The exhibition includes dozens of rarely-exhibited drawings, gouaches, and watercolors as well as tapestry, sculpture, publications, works on paper, ephemera, and historical photographs.
A Total Work of Art: Bauhaus-Bayer-Aspen
Resnick Gallery, Doerr-Hosier Building
June 2022 – April 2023
Created in 2019 in conjunction with the Aspen Institute’s centennial celebration of the Bauhaus, A Total Work of Art: Bauhaus-Bayer-Aspen presents an overview of the evolution of the Bauhaus, the influential school and movement where Bayer studied and taught, and which operated in Germany between 1919-1933. The exhibition features reproductions of archival materials and concludes with a focused survey of Bayer’s innovative exhibition designs.
