Marc Dennis Attends ArtCRUSH 2014

NEW YORK, NY(Marketwired - Sep 4, 2014) - The first week of August marks the gathering of artists, collectors, curators, gallery owners, celebrities, and philanthropists from around the world who converge in Aspen, CO for ArtCRUSH, a yearly benefit for the Aspen Art Museum. This year's 10th Anniversary event included a renowned wine tasting and auction event, a seated dinner for 350 guests, silent and live auctions of contemporary art from prominent artists. Ernesto Neto was honored with the AAM's 2014 Aspen Award for Art. Celebrated contemporary artist Marc Dennis attended and exhibited for his 7th year in a row, along with other artists like Tomma Abts, Rosemarie Trockel, Jim Hodges and pyrotechnic artist Cai Guo-Qiang whose firework performance "Black Lightning" lit the skies above Aspen Mountain.

This year's ArtCRUSH event was a notable one, with a ribbon cutting for the new Aspen Art Museum building, designed by renowned Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Saturday afternoon, attended by Shigeru Ban and Colorado governor John Hickenlooper along with AAM director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson and board members. Shigeru Ban hosted special a walk-through exhibition of his "Humanitarian Architecture." He has received much attention recently for his revolutionary technique of turning recycled cardboard tubes into fast and efficient housing for disaster victims.

Marc Dennis contributed an auction piece titled "The Physical Possibility of a Superfine" (2014), an oil on linen painting featuring a lithe, bikini-clad model laying atop a large aquarium with an equally lithe and perhaps equally dangerous shark, which appears to be Damien Hirst's piece titled, "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," an artwork created in 1991 of a Tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine.

ABOUT MARC DENNIS

New York-based artist Marc Dennis is known for his hyperrealistic paintings that simultaneously satirize and celebrate popular American culture and in particular, the contemporary art world. His work is resoundingly and humorously meta, with layers of self-reflexive iconic images drawn from contemporary society which explore the subjects of beauty, pleasure, and power. Dennis works from his studio in Brooklyn, NY and is represented by Hasted Kraeutler Gallery in New York City and Zane Bennett Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, NM. His paintings can be found in numerous private and public collections throughout the world. In addition to being a professional artist, he also works as a full-time tenured professor at Elmira College in upstate New York where he teaches painting and drawing. He is also an independent Holocaust scholar, focusing on the clandestine art made by prisoners inside Nazi concentration camps, as well as a filmmaker.

Marc Dennis website: http://www.marcdennis.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/marcdennis

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marc-Dennis/845364702156653