Denver Art Museum will commemorate its Indigenous arts collection

• While some museums valued Native artifacts as anthropological materials, the Denver Art Museum was among the first to see their value for their aesthetic qualities, DAM's website says.

State of play: The museum will run programming throughout 2025 to recognize the anniversary, including installing a new exhibition, "Sustained! The Persistent Genius of Indigenous Art," in December and hosting a Native Arts Symposium to bring together experts and scholars.

• The Lanny and Sharon Martin Building currently houses 20,000 square feet of gallery space exhibiting more than 18,000 pieces crafted by Indigenous people.

Zoom in: Contemporary Indigenous artists Kent Monkman and Andrea Carlson will host solo exhibitions.

Monkman, a Canadian First Nations artist, will host his first large-scale U.S. exhibit in Denver, in partnership with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, starting April 20, 2025.

• His exhibit includes 41 paintings, some of which depict Native people's struggle against violence. His celebrated acrylic painting, "The Scream," on display at DAM, illustrates violence inflicted by law enforcement against Native people.

Carlson, a mixed-media artist of Ojibwe descent, often leans into Indigenous futurism. Her exhibit is scheduled to begin next October.

• Carlson's hyper-realistic work incorporates elements of poetry, storytelling, cultural and pop references. Her exhibit will feature 40 works.

Zoom out: Museums in Denver are increasingly paying attention to how Native art and history are displayed.

Go deeper: Danielle SeeWalker's new exhibition seeks to challenge stereotypes