Located on the grounds of the historic Denver Stockyards and the site of the annual Western Stock Show, the National Western Center will honor and celebrate the spirit of the West, promoting research in agriculture, animal husbandry and water scarcity while also serving as a large events venue in Denver. Taking Stock (her animus) is a focal point in the central plaza of the NWC complex. The sculpture is in one sense what one would expect to find in a place whose main annual event celebrates cowboys, cowgirls, horses, and cattle. On approach from the east and west the viewer is confronted with a traditional sculpture of a cowgirl with a rope on one side and a bull on the opposite side. Characters like these signify the romance of the West and are a persistent image in film and TV, so as to become part the American psyche. However, when approaching the sculpture from the front, the sculpture destabilizes these traditions as one figure stretches and melts into the other. At about one and one half, life scale the heroic cowgirl locks eyes with a bull, as she is startled in the moment of his aggression. The sculpture’s traditional heroic allegory unfolds in a cinematic sweep, comingling, stretching and distorting human and beast. The viewer is asked to step into another vision of the American West where the figures of the past and present merge and their romantic forms are challenged, as they become part of a different narrative.
