The American West is experiencing its most severe drought in a millennium, but visitors to the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver are surrounded by water like never before. The museum opened "Water, Water on the Wall, You're the Fairest of Them All" in September, marking artist Roni Horn's first exhibition focused entirely on Earth's most precious liquid resource. The five-month showcase arrives at a critical moment for the water-stressed region.
With a federal deadline approaching, the seven states sharing the Colorado River Basin have only days left to negotiate an agreement on dividing the river's dwindling waters. While state officials exchange proposals and criticism over who should bear the burden of necessary water cuts, Horn's exhibition presents a more nuanced discussion about scarcity that goes beyond the win-lose mentality of Western water politics.
Visitors entering MCA Denver encounter a striking pair of solid glass cylinders, each roughly the size of a carnival dunk tank. The twin sculptures forming Horn's "Water Double, v. 2" differ only in color from a distance: one blue, one black. The blue sculpture's frosted glass surface resembles an iceberg, offering a cooling thought during this unusually warm fall season. In contrast, its black counterpart evokes dangerous black ice that can prove fatal to unsuspecting drivers. This heavy association is reinforced by each sculpture's weight of several tons.
As viewers move closer to "Water Double, v. 2," the ice illusion fades and the sculptures appear as reflecting pools. The work's title suggests reflection's dual nature: the glass reflects light while prompting mental reflection in viewers. Staring into the blue sculpture's transparent depths, it's easy to believe the old myth that glass is liquid. However, scientists classify glass as an amorphous solid, lacking the organized structure of crystalline solids like diamond and ice. These properties, including glass's absence of a distinct melting point, enabled Horn to create sculptures of such impressive size and solidity.
The blue sculpture evokes a tropical lagoon, while the black one resembles the ocean's midnight zone where light cannot penetrate. Anything could be lurking beneath the black sculpture's glossy surface. This contrast between the refreshing and unsettling doubles provides a fitting introduction to the exhibition. In Horn's work, the line between light and shadow is as thin as the boundary between drinking water and drowning.
"Still Water (The River Thames, for Example)" lives up to its name as a collection of 15 photographs - or stills. However, the subject, London's River Thames, is anything but still. Standing in the room's center, surrounded by the Thames's varied textures, visitors experience an overwhelming impression of movement and change. Despite flowing through one of the world's largest cities, the Thames in these photos appears surprisingly free of human debris.
Closer examination reveals unexpected elements: tiny numbers float on the river's surface, functioning as annotations that connect the Thames's currents and small waves to footnoted text running along each photograph's bottom. Like waves hitting shore, the footnotes of "Still Water" echo and repeat, creating a tidal rhythm. Certain phrases appear verbatim while others return in modified forms. One footnote states "The river is a tunnel," followed by "The river is an entrance," then "The river is a highway." Through this variation process, viewers reach the conclusion that "The river is civil infrastructure" - something Colorado River negotiators would certainly agree with despite their differences.
The repetition in "Still Water" creates a calming effect similar to water sound recordings used for sleep. However, viewers soon discover nightmares lurking beneath the Thames's surface. The river emerges as a kind of black hole, exerting gravitational pull on both murderers and those seeking to end their lives. Footnotes recount in disturbing detail the dismembered and unidentified bodies regularly surfacing from the river's murky depths.
By examining the Thames as a scene of murder and suicide, "Still Water" also recalls the violence humans have inflicted on rivers, including the Thames itself. In the mid-1800s, industrialization and urban growth transformed the Thames into an open sewer, culminating in the Great Stink of 1858. Less than a century later, London's Natural History Museum declared sections of the river biologically dead.
American rivers have often fared no better. Between 1868 and 1969, Ohio's Cuyahoga River caught fire at least ten times. In the West, engineering achievements like the Hoover Dam and All-American Canal mean the Colorado River, while providing water for millions, rarely reaches the sea. "Still Water" particularly highlights the Hoover Dam as a symbol of society's disconnection from its water sources. One footnote observes: "When you approach the Hoover, there's nothing but distance between you and it... And forget about the Colorado River, I mean where is it? Way the hell down there. (Seven hundred and twenty-six feet down there.) You wouldn't even know there was a river if it wasn't a dam."
Navigating the Thames's annotated waters, visitors encounter "anhydrony" - a concept seemingly designed for the drought-stricken West. A footnote explains anhydrony as "waterless water, the opposite of water. The form remains liquid but the substance is altered - replaced with another identity. Anhydrony is dry water." This paradox isn't entirely new, echoing Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": "Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink," describing sailors dying of thirst surrounded by undrinkable saltwater.
The 1922 Colorado River Compact represents an exercise in anhydrony. When determining water allocation between Upper and Lower Basin states, river commissioners ignored current data on annual river flow, basing calculations instead on an abnormally wet historical period. The resulting compact allocated a combined 15 million acre-feet annually to both basins. Today, with climate change disrupting precipitation patterns, annual flows average closer to 12 million acre-feet. This discrepancy leaves Colorado Basin states in an increasingly dire position: their legal water rights exceed available wet water. The West, one could say, is drowning in dry water.
Deeper in the exhibition stands a second collection of cast-glass cylinders resembling "Water Double, v. 2" but much smaller - all five stacked wouldn't match the earlier sculptures' height. Rather than feeling more approachable, the reduced scale proves alarming after the abundance of the larger works. These unnamed sculptures appear to have melted or evaporated compared to their jumbo predecessors. Walking among the squat cylinders, visitors confront not only their reflections but also scarcity's specter.
Facing uncertainty, humans instinctively seek familiarity. If "Water Double, v. 2" resembles dunk tanks, these "Untitled" sculptures evoke kiddie pools or the round stock tanks dotting Western rangelands as artificial oases for thirsty cattle. Kiddie pool and stock tank - representing suburbia and rangeland respectively - are equally valid associations. By presenting both options while leaving room for others, the sculptures filter through viewers' personal water relationships, whether municipal or agricultural. In an exhibition titled "Water, Water on the Wall, You're the Fairest of Them All," these multifaceted pools remind us that water's beauty lies in the beholder's eye.
In one second-floor gallery, walls display 100 photographs of the same woman's face. The label identifies her as Margrét Haraldsdóttir Blöndal, an Icelandic artist who accompanied Horn on tours of Iceland's geothermal pools. The photographs are cropped so tightly they exclude nearly all background. Location identification becomes impossible but irrelevant - this represents landscape photography using Blöndal's face as elemental terrain.
As with "Still Water," repetition and variation dominate "You are the Weather, Part 2," completed in 2011. Frame to frame, Blöndal's face changes almost imperceptibly. A head tilt or raised eyebrow provides the only clues these are different photographs. The most dramatic change occurs when steam drifts between camera and subject, temporarily obscuring Blöndal like a mountain face behind clouds. The collection's title "You are the Weather, Part 2" proves fitting, as comparing side-by-side photographs reveals personal weather defined by short-term variation while hinting at long-term climate change.
Horn's original "You are the Weather," also featuring 100 Blöndal photographs, was created in 1997, with Part 2 completed in 2011. For 2025 viewers, it's difficult not to speculate about changes since Horn and Blöndal's first collaboration. Across Iceland, retreating glaciers include Okjökull Glacier, declared dead in 2014. In England, the Thames's warming waters increase toxic algae bloom risks. In the Colorado River Basin, reduced snowpack runoff has cost more than Lake Mead's worth of water. Under Blöndal's penetrating gaze, viewers cannot hide from an uncomfortable truth: through our lifestyles and emissions, we are all the weather now.
Taken as a whole, "Water, Water on the Wall" defies easy categorization regarding climate change and water scarcity. "Still Water's" annotated images show water can enable violence and inspire self-harm, as Thames bodies attest. Simultaneously, "You are the Weather, Part 2's" hot springs recall water's cleansing and renewing power. Ultimately, Horn's glass sculptures feel most suited to today's West and its river basin at management crossroads.
With reflections shifting based on viewer perspective, works like "Water Double, v. 2" remind us that water's nature varies as much as its users. The Colorado River Basin's seven states each have distinct economies, geographies, and politics. Achieving compromise requires parties to concede ground while protecting fundamental interests. They must follow the river's example: constancy through constant change. As one "Still Water" footnote reads: "When you go down to the river, you're killing two birds with one stone: you stand there and you go places."
The same applies to Horn's transporting exhibition. Should compromise remain elusive, Colorado River negotiators might benefit from a field trip. "Water, Water on the Wall, You're the Fairest of Them All" runs through February 15 at MCA Denver, located at 1485 Delgany Street.
