Grass Scripts: Bamboo Art from the Abbey Collection

Grass Scripts: Bamboo Art from the Abbey Collection is on display at the Denver Art Museum, in the Martin Building on Level 5. It's a collection of Japanese bamboo art, and the whole thing comes from a gift by Arthur and Diane Abbey.

The exhibition focuses on a specific shift in early 20th-century Japan. For thousands of years, bamboo work had been seen as a craft—something functional and traditional. The artists featured here were among the pioneers who pushed to have it recognized as a fine art. They did that by breaking from the old ways: they played with form and technique, gave their pieces lyrical titles, and signed their work. In doing so, they put their own hands and their own names into the bamboo, treating the material as a medium for personal expression rather than just a craft tradition. If you've never spent much time with Japanese bamboo art, this is a good place to start.

It's easy to think of bamboo as something simple, but these pieces show how much you can do with it when you're trying to move a whole tradition in a new direction. The show lets you see that transition up close—the way these artists took a material that had been used for millennia and reshaped it into something they wanted the world to see as art. It's a look at a particular moment in Japanese art history, and it's all gathered in one spot.

Admission is included in general admission, and it's free for members and everyone 18 and under. You'll find it on Level 5 of the Martin Building at the Denver Art Museum.