Aspen Art Museum Sets AIR 2026 Around Landscape, Performance, and Miranda July
Aspen Art Museum will open the second annual AIR festival on July 27, 2026, with Miranda July delivering the keynote address and a program built around the theme “Figures in a Landscape.” Running through July 31, the festival will unfold across the museum and the surrounding mountain setting, using Aspen itself as both backdrop and subject.
The theme draws inspiration from Joseph Losey’s 1970 thriller of the same name, but the museum is pushing the idea well beyond cinema. According to the institution, AIR 2026 will examine how staging and human intervention shape the way a place is understood, especially in a landscape as visually charged as Aspen’s. Vic Brooks, the museum’s senior curatorial advisor, has described AIR as a year-round initiative that develops over a decade, with each edition building on the last.
Argentine sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas will anchor the festival with a presentation of new works. His contribution is expected to set the tone for a program that leans heavily into performance and interdisciplinary collaboration. Camille Henrot will stage her first theatrical production, a New York-centered tragicomedy about a special delivery, commissioned by Performa, Aspen Art Museum, Wheeler Opera House, and LYRA Foundation. The project also involved Charlap Hyman & Herrero, choreographer Sigrid Lauren, and writer Estelle Hoy.
The lineup extends across media and geography. Australian interdisciplinary artist Ivan Cheng will present his first U.S. performance, one of his signature “live situations for camera.” Experimental duo Los Thuthanaka will perform atop Aspen Mountain, while American artist Lyle Ashton Harris will mount a multimedia choral performance on the museum’s roof.
Two artists from AIR 2025 will return with new work. Matthew Barney will present “Old Snowmass Parallax,” a sculptural installation that continues his interest in endurance, mythology, and material transformation. Lucy Raven will offer a site-specific version of “Murderers Bar (2025),” accompanied by a new score by Deantoni Parks.
Additional talks, readings, and performances will round out the festival, reinforcing AIR’s interest in work that moves between disciplines rather than settling into one. In Aspen, where wilderness and mediation are always in tension, that approach feels especially apt.
AIR Festival runs from July 27–31, 2026.
