Aspen Art Museum

In partnership with AspenOne, the Aspen Art Museum is pleased to present Heaven, an expansive project by Los Angeles-based artist Alex Israel that takes the form of a lift ticket, an exhibition, on-mountain signage and a series of live performances.

Israel creates artworks that draw upon traditions of pop culture, celebrity and entertainment to consider ways in which fantasy, escapism and the pursuit of joy shape our lives. To make his work, Israel often embeds himself within industries he examines, harnessing their magic through incorporating their methods of production. Much of his work, including props, set pieces, signs and scenic backdrops of sunset-hued skies, is made within the Warner Bros. Design Studio.

At the invitation of AspenOne and Aspen Art Museum, Israel designed the 2024-2025 season lift ticket. Across each ticket, against a luminous skyscape reads the phrase: “Your ticket to Heaven.” The dynamic red script in which the title of the project is rendered references the logo of Heaven: The Supermarket of Pop Culture, a novelty store founded by Brad Benedict in Los Angeles’ Century City Mall in the late 1970s. Known for selling graphic t-shirts, greeting cards, candy, toys and collectibles, the unconventional store became a treasured emblem of the city throughout the 1980s. The iconic graphic, created by Benedict, could be seen on merchandise worn by celebrities including Freddie Mercury, Divine, Sharon Stone, Brooke Shields and Andy Warhol. Punchy and effervescent, the logo evokes a bygone era of graphic design and retail experience. As such, Israel presents this lift ticket not as an image of an artwork, but a work of art in and of itself that resurrects a cherished brand.

Acts of resurrection characterize Israel’s exhibition, which unfolds in a building formerly known as Ruthie’s, stationed at the base of the treasured Ruthie’s Run on Aspen Mountain. Built by Frank Lerner in the early 1980s, the restaurant shuttered in 2001 yet remains extant on the slopes. As Heaven, the entire interior is painted a luminous white and inhabited by over thirty life-size painted portraits of celebrities who have died since the launch of Instagram on October 6, 2010. Israel is attuned to the ways in which figures of pop culture are memorialized in a tidal wave of recycled imagery on social media. For a short time, feeds become entirely devoted to a person cherished by many, but known by few. These images form the basis for the portraits, which are painted upon an aluminum structure that mimics a cardboard cutout. Hyperreal and bodily, Israel’s trompe l’oeil techniques place the work somewhere between an apparition and memorabilia.

The dramaturgy of Heaven catalyzes imagined conversations amongst stars across time and situates the exhibition itself as a mirage on the face of the mountain, overlooking the town below. For decades, memories, traditions and lore have been generated on Ajax. Heaven emerges as another sublime chapter in its evolving history.

About Alex Israel

ALEX ISRAEL (b. 1982, Los Angeles, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Deeply entwined with his hometown, his work explores popular media, Hollywood, and the cult of celebrity, while positing LA as central to an understanding of American culture and the American dream. Israel’s practice has included high-profile collaborations with Bret Easton Ellis, Louis Vuitton, Rimowa and Snapchat, as well as his own Freeway Eyewear and Infrathin Apparel designs. His ongoing web series, an LA-centric talk show hosted by the artist and titled “As It Lays,” is streaming on YouTube, and his feature length art film, “SPF-18”, first appeared on Netflix, following a tour to high schools across the United States. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at: Le Consortium, Dijon; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo; Fosun Foundation, Shanghai; and The Bass, Miami. His work is included in numerous museum collections worldwide including: MoMA, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; and The Broad, Los Angeles.

This exhibition is curated by Daniel Merritt, Director of Curatorial Affairs