Alex Israel: Heaven

In partnership with Aspen One, the Aspen Art Museum is pleased to present Heaven, an expansive project by Los Angeles–based artist Alex Israel that takes the form of a lift ticket, an exhibition, and on-mountain signage.

Israel creates artworks that draw upon traditions of pop culture, celebrity, and entertainment to consider ways in which fantasy, escapism, and the pursuit of joy shape our lives. To make his work, Israel often embeds himself within industries he examines, harnessing their magic through incorporating their methods of production. Much of his work, including props, set pieces, signs, and scenic backdrops of sunset-hued skies, is made within the Warner Bros. Design Studio.

At the invitation of Aspen One and Aspen Art Museum, Israel designed the 2024–25 season lift ticket. Across each ticket, against a luminous skyscape, reads the phrase: “Your ticket to Heaven.” The dynamic red script in which the title of the project is rendered references the logo of Heaven: The Supermarket of Pop Culture, a novelty store founded by Brad Benedict in Los Angeles’ Century City mall in the late 1970s. Known for selling graphic T-shirts, greeting cards, candy, toys, and collectibles, the unconventional store became a treasured emblem of the city throughout the 1980s. The iconic graphic, created by Benedict, could be seen on merchandise worn by celebrities including Freddie Mercury, Divine, Sharon Stone, Brooke Shields, and Andy Warhol. Punchy and effervescent, the logo evokes a bygone era of graphic design and retail experience. As such, Israel presents this lift ticket not as an image of an artwork, but as a work of art in and of itself that resurrects a cherished brand.

Acts of resurrection characterize Israel’s exhibition, which unfolds in a building formerly known as Ruthie’s, stationed at the base of the treasured Ruthie’s Run on Aspen Mountain. Built by Frank Lerner in the early 1980s, the restaurant shuttered in 2001, yet remains extant on the slopes. As Heaven, the entire interior is painted a luminous white and inhabited by over thirty life-size painted portraits of celebrities who have died since the launch of Instagram on October 6, 2010. Israel is attuned to the ways in which figures of pop culture are memorialized in a tidal wave of recycled imagery on social media. For a short time, feeds become entirely devoted to a person cherished by many, but known by few. These images form the basis for the portraits, which are painted upon an aluminum structure that mimics a cardboard cutout. Hyperreal and bodily, Israel’s trompe l’oeil techniques place the work somewhere between an apparition and memorabilia.

The dramaturgy of Heaven catalyzes imagined conversations among stars across time and situates the exhibition itself as a mirage on the face of the mountain, overlooking the town below. For decades, memories, traditions, and lore have been generated on Ajax. Heaven emerges as another sublime chapter in its evolving history.