A stand-alone building is being constructed to host a collection of fairy tale relics and serve as a venue for experiences and events.
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. – March 16, 2023 – This month the Museum of Outdoor Arts (MOA) broke ground on a stand-alone building in Marjorie Park, located in Greenwood Village, for a reimagined permanent exhibit by acclaimed Colorado artist, and former MOA “Wizard in Residence,” Lonnie Hanzon called “Cabinet of Curiosities & Impossibilities.” The roughly 400 square-foot building, reminiscent of an English curio shop, will be an immersive experience and will contain a collection of objects from fairy tales and children’s rhymes that tell stories about particular subjects, including early optics, geometry, magical tools, the heavens and objects of art among others. The opening of the exhibit is anticipated for summer of 2023.
“Cabinet of Curiosities & Impossibilities” originally grew out of a group art exhibition in 2009 at the former headquarters of MOA, a spacious indoor gallery in Englewood, and in 2011 was later interpreted into a semi-permanent and favorite exhibit among patrons for over a decade. In 2022 MOA closed their indoor galleries and moved their headquarters to its recently renovated Marjorie Park location at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre and the artifacts and relics were put into storage. Hanzon will include several of the original objects in the reimagined experience, as well as many new treasures and stories. The cabinet will also serve as a programmable immersive theater experience in the near future, to include actors and audience participation, making the installation truly a one-of-a-kind and further exploring Hanzon and MOA’s extensive work in the immersive art space.
“I am honored and excited to reimagine the Cabinet with MOA after all of these years. Being able to take the rich and magical setting of the cabinet, and use it as a reservoir and springboard for an immersive theater work is a dream come true,” said artist Lonnie Hanzon. “It combines all of the art forms that I have been working in for several decades, and brings them into a cohesive offering… a whole world!”
Cabinets of Curiosity emerged as a form from the European traditions of royal keeps and religious reliquaries of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Although the general form of presentation springs from the Baroque period, the style of MOA’s exhibit is Victorian, with objects ranging from antiquity to the present day. Classic Cabinets of Curiosities attempted to be encyclopedic and all-encompassing, but this cabinet will tell stories on amusing oddities and objects of art with a focus on fairy tales and children’s rhymes like Miss Muffet’s Tuffet, Little Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland. Museum patrons will also enjoy the collection of Alice in Wonderland maquettes of life-size bronze sculptures located within Marjorie Park, just outside of the cabinet.
“This project has truly been a labor of love for MOA,” said President and Executive Director, Cynthia Madden Leitner. “We knew that when we moved our headquarters that our patrons would miss “The Cabinet” and so we have worked very diligently with Lonnie to bring it back into an even more exciting experience as part of our many offerings at Marjorie Park!” Construction is currently underway at Marjorie Park and planning for several preview events for media and MOA members is currently in the works.
About MOA: Founded in 1981 by Cynthia Madden Leitner and parents, John and Marjorie Madden, MOA (Museum of Outdoor Arts) is a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to making the visual and performing arts accessible to everyone by implementing its mission of “Making Art a Part of Everyday Life.” MOA owns and operates Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre in collaboration with its tenant AEG Presents and features more than 150 pieces in its permanent collection. Additionally, MOA runs an artist in residence program and a signature education program, Design and Build, an annual opportunity for young artists, students and creative minds to work with professional artists on collaborative art projects. MOA is a forerunner in the placement of site-specific sculptures in Colorado. MOA’s art collection is located within various public locations throughout the Denver metro area. From commercial office parks to botanic gardens, city parks and traditional sculpture gardens, art is placed to interpret space as “a museum without walls.” MOA is headquartered at the newly renovated Marjorie Park located next to Fiddler’s Green in Greenwood Village.