Cowboy

A color photograph of a man on a running horse in a dusty landscape and a sky full of white, fluffy clouds.
Image Credit
September 28, 2024–March 16, 2025
Second floor

Cowboy reexamines the popular mythologies surrounding the image and concept of the cowboy. Through the work of more than 25 artists representing Asian American, Latino, and Indigenous perspectives, the exhibition explores a wide array of themes, including the cowboy’s role in shaping our perception of masculinity and gender as well as long-held assumptions about cowboys’ relationship to land and the way these assumptions come into conflict with the lived experiences of contemporary cowboys. Cowboy, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Denver, brings together approximately 70 cutting-edge contemporary artworks including new commissions.

Akasha Rabut

Jesse Murdock, 2014

archival digital print mounted to matboard

A color photograph of a Black man nuzzling and scratching the forehead of a horse wearing a blue bridle

Richard Prince

Untitled (cowboy), 1989

chromogenic print

A color photograph of a man on a running horse in a dusty landscape and a sky full of white, fluffy clouds.

Stephanie Syjuco

Set-Up (The Broncho Buster 2), 2022

archival pigment print

A color photograph of a bronze sculpture, from the back, of a cowboy on a rearing horse in front of black drapery as a light-skinned hand reaches in to hold up a color card.

Kenneth Tam

Silent Spikes, 2021

two-channel video (20:29)

A still from a film showing a White man with a 5-o'clock shadow wearing a cowboy hat cheek-to-cheek with a green toy cow head.

Gregg Deal

Teepugoobakwaetu Modu (Animals That Roam On The Earth), 2023

performance, mixed media

An installation view of a black open-crown cowboy hat with feather sticking up from the headband, a black coat with a fur cowl over a blue shirt with a painting of a White vampire cowboy all hung over a display of Spam, revolvers, and a rifle.

Otis Kwame Quaicoe

Caught in the Act, 2023

oil on wood panel

An oil painting with loose brushstrokes of a Black man with a beard wearing a cowboy hat resting his chin on his fist with blue skies in the background.

R. Alan Brooks

A Dream to Dearfield, 2023

short graphic novel

A color illustration from a graphic novel with the figure of a Black man falling from the sky onto a scene from the 19th century of Black people in and next to covered wagons.

Juan Fuentes

Untitled, 2021

photograph

A black-and-white photograph of a smiling Black man in a cowboy hat leaning on the metal gate of a corral in which two horses stand.
All Exhibitions

Header Image Credit

Image: Richard Prince (b. 1949), Untitled (cowboy), 1989, chromogenic print, Courtesy Richard Prince Studio

Cowboy is organized by Nora Burnett Abrams, Mark G. Falcone Director, and Miranda Lash, Ellen Bruss Senior Curator, both of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated catalogue co-published by MCA Denver and Rizzoli with essays by Nora Burnett Abrams, Myeshia Babers, Jongwoo Jeremy Kim; an interview with rafa esparza by Miranda Lash; and a graphic essay by R. Alan Brooks. The catalogue is produced through the special support of the Blue Rider Group of Morgan Stanley.