Casey Kaplan
Logan Lecture: David Huffman
December 16, 2025 – 6 pm–7 pm
David Huffman creates “social abstractions,” large-scale paintings combining social and political themes with inventive abstract mark-making. Influenced by progressive Black politics, Afrofuturism, Pop art, basketball, and the television shows Star Trek and Astro Boy, Huffman layers these references to reflect on the African American experience.
In his paintings, Huffman transports us to celestial realms where images of basketballs float like planetary bodies while the circuitous netting of hoop chains ground his work in the urban environment of his youth. His current work recalls NASA’s Cold War-era space race and Sun Ra’s hypnotic sonic experimentations to envision a world where Black Americans may freely prosper.
Huffman joins crystal am nelson, assistant professor of African Diasporic Visual Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, in a conversation about his almost three-decade-long practice as an artist.
To purchase tickets, please visit the Denver Art Museum’s website.
Image: David Huffman, Provo Soul, 2023. Acrylic paint, oil paint, spray paint, African cloth, photo collage, glitter, crayon, and graphite on gesso coated birch door skin; 96 x 154 in. Denver Art Museum: Funds from Contemporary Collectors’ Circle with additional support from Vicki & Kent Logan, Craig Ponzio, Bryon Adinoff & Trish Holland, Kathryn & David Birnbaum, Catherine Dews Edwards & Philip Edwards, and Drs. Ellen & Morris Susman, 2023.399A-D. © David Huffman