The Denver Art Museum (DAM) has opened a new photography exhibition titled "What We’ve Been Up to: People," featuring 60 never-before-exhibited photographs from its collection. The show includes works by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Richard Avedon, Graciela Iturbide, Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti, and Andrea Modica, with images spanning from 1929 to 1999. The exhibition aims to highlight the behind-the-scenes work of curators—acquisitions, research, conservation—while offering the public a chance to see fresh acquisitions and overlooked treasures.
The exhibition matters because it demystifies the role of museum curators and emphasizes the importance of ongoing collection development at encyclopedic museums. By showcasing previously unseen works, DAM connects visitors to both the art and the institutional labor that sustains it. The show also reflects broader trends in photography collecting since DAM’s photo department was founded in 2008, and it offers a timely, humanistic message about shared hopes and fears in a divided world.