Big Blue Bear at the Colorado Convention Center

Right there against the Colorado Convention Center is one of the most photographed pieces of public art in Denver. The sculpture is officially titled I See What You Mean, created by Colorado artist Lawrence Argent and installed in two thousand five through the Denver Public Art Program. It stands forty feet tall and is made of polymer concrete, depicting an American black bear on its hind legs, nose and paws pressed to the glass, peering inside.

The bear looks into the convention center's lobby, and the project cost four hundred twenty-four thousand, four hundred dollars. Argent chose a black bear as a bear native to the Rocky Mountains, a symbol of the natural world pressing up against the built city. The inspiration came from a newspaper photograph of a bear peering through someone's window.

The blue color was not the original plan. Argent intended earthy sandstone tones, but a design mockup was printed in vivid blue, and he decided that version was more striking. Locals have never called it anything but the big blue bear, and that name has completely stuck.

It was popular with the public and the art community from the start, and since it stands outdoors it can be visited at any hour for free. Argent died in October of twenty seventeen at the age of sixty.