Denver Artist Koko Bayer on Meow Wolf, Herbert Bayer, and What Comes Next
By Emily Hawver
Whether you have lived in Denver for a few months, a few years, or call yourself a native, you have probably seen the work of Koko Bayer. Bayer, who was born in France and moved to Colorado with her family when she was six years old, has been wheat-pasting on walls and dumpsters around the city since 2015. “I have probably at least 100 plus spots around town where I’ve put pieces” said Bayer. “All of which I maintain.”
Recently, one of her works pasted on a dumpster caught the eye of artist-based collective, Meow Wolf. “I’d been pasting on the dumpsters over where they are building their Denver location and they literally tracked me down. They were all down looking at the site and then one of the principals tasked the art liaison with finding who stuck the art to their dumpster and to get that person to do more of them.” Once contacted, she was commissioned to paste on their dumpsters as well as two large shipping containers which can be seen from I-25.
For those unfamiliar, Meow Wolf, is an artist collective established in 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico and creates immersive art experiences. They are currently building a second facility in Denver with a predicted late 2020 opening and Bayer, a big fan of their work, was thrilled to be asked to be a part it. “They’re really super inclusive. They’re trying to be what we as starving artists imagine we would be if we had a bunch of money. They have these objectives as an organization and it’s all about art. It’s not about building a Disney World or a money making machine. It’s trying to replicate this idea of making this really amazing art environment that no one’s ever seen before, using local artists. I really admire what they’re doing.”
As of now, her work with Meow Wolf is limited to outside the structure, but she believes more opportunities could arise, “There is so much more to Meow Wolf then just the rooms. There’s all this connective space between everything and it’s going to be something like 90,000 square feet. It’s going to be really massive.”
In addition to her recent work for Meow Wolf, Bayer’s time is spent working on a documentary about her late step- grandfather, prolific Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer. She began work on the documentary, titled “head + heart + hand”, nearly five years ago. “As a family we always hoped someone would do a documentary about Herbert’s work to bring him into this era and introduce him to this new generation of people. It got to a point where the latest camera I bought at the time shot really good HD and I thought, well I went to film school, I understand filmmaking, why don’t I just do it? It shouldn’t take more than a year or two.”
Despite the filmmaking process taking much longer than anticipated, Bayer doesn’t seem to mind. “Things work out the way they do. This is the right time for it where maybe three years ago it wouldn’t have been as good of a time.”
Bayer explained that the documentary will be an overview and introduction to Herbert’s work, while trying to reach people to want to know more about him. “It will be about the art and tracing the amazing art career that he had and also the influences that his work and the work of his Bauhaus colleagues had on the twentieth century. They’re responsible, them and a handful of other people for the roots of modernism and that spread everywhere.”
For about three years Koko worked alone, traveling around Colorado, California and Washington in order to gather footage of Herbert’s work as well as interviews with primary sources. Eighteen months ago she brought on friend and cinematographer Chris Bagley, and last year she partnered with a production company that focuses on architectural history documentaries.
She still has a few more places to visit before shooting is complete, including Herbert’s birthplace, Austria, and a few East Coast locations, but she hopes to complete filming by the end of the summer. Once filming is finalized, editing comes next, with a predicted completion date for late 2020. Once the documentary is finished, she will work with the production company on distribution and submit it to film festivals.
She hopes to premiere the documentary at Sundance and then sell the distribution rights to a large streaming service, However, the end goal, Bayer says, is “Just to get as many eyeballs or views as possible. I want it to be a way to educate people about his work, but at the end of the day it won’t do that unless it’s a great movie.”
In order to focus on finishing the film, Bayer has been cutting back on her own art projects. She is currently working on a new BagBaySha environment, which are art environments she creates with friends and fellow artists, Chris Bagley and Thomas Scharfenberg. This will be their third project and while most of their shows have lasted around a month, this one will be in more semi-permanent venue, with the hopes that the installation will last up to nine months. She will also participate once again in Crush Walls, which will be held September 2–8, 2019 in the RiNo Art District in Denver.
If you’re interested in learning more about Koko and her art, head over to her Instagram page @kokonofilter.
