If you decide to hit the slopes in Aspen this winter, plan on walking away with with a special souvenir in the form of a Takashi Murakami-designed lift ticket, emblazoned with the artist’s signature Superflat figures.
The Japanese artist is known for his high-fashion collaborations, including the 13-year partnership with Louis Vuitton, as well as his more accessible ventures, such as these Murakami-designed Vans which debuted this year. We’ll likely be leaving the ultra-cute lift tickets on the zippers of our down jackets all season long, thank you very much.
The collaboration comes in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Aspen’s “Art in Unexpected Places Program,” a joint project of the Aspen Skiing Company and the Aspen Art Museum that seeks to bring art to the city’s celebrated mountaintops.
In addition to limited-edition lift tickets, which in the past have been designed by artists such as Peter Doig, Anne Collier, David Shrigley, and Mark Grotjahn, the program has been responsible for several recent public installations, including a site-specific wall drawing done last year by Teresita Fernández at the popular Elk Camp restaurant.
Aspen has been an art world hot spot for years now, and the Colorado resort town has been especially busy during the annual Aspen Art Museum ArtCrush benefit in August. It may come as no surprise, then, that the city is committed to keeping the arty spirit—and tourist dollars—alive past autumn.