Two years ago, in the depths of Aspen’s Smuggler Mine, artist Cauleen Smith looked at a site of man-made extraction and saw an opportunity for transformation: “Wouldn't it be great if it were a cave? If we could just magically turn it into something that's a natural part of the mountain?”
Her initial tour there — plus a residency at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, a lifelong fascination with geology and extensive additional research — inspired a film exhibition that premiered inside the mine that September.
On the walls of dank tunnels cut into the hillside, Smith projected videos of wildlife, mountains and mining materials. The 2022 pop-up, coordinated by the Aspen Art Museum, was only open to the public for one night.
And this winter, Smith expanded the concept into a winter-long exhibition at the museum. The show, titled “From Mines to Caves,” features a 10-minute film that combines clips from the pop-up with previously-unseen material.
“The whole film is a kind of incantation to return things to a more natural state, I guess, which is what my wish would be for the whole planet in some regard,” Smith said.
Like the pop-up that inspired it, this winter’s exhibition is focused on transformation. It’s set in a basement-level gallery of the museum, with dim lighting and echoing sounds that give the space a cave-like feel.
The new show also features other artworks by Smith, including an enormous, dripping candle in the center of the room. The layers of wax evoke the topography of Planet Earth, melting and changing as the wicks burn; other works reference gemstones and trees.
Smith said the exhibition is “an invitation to really love our environment” — and a reminder “that our time here may be finite” if humans don’t take meaningful action to address climate change.
“We don't exist if this planet doesn't allow it,” Smith said. “And so that's a kind of regard that we need to have for the places that we live in that's really crucial, and becoming more and more crucial every day.”
The exhibition is up through early April.
