EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS

Sole Mates: Cowboy Boots and Art celebrates the art of the West and views cowboy boots as important symbols of western life.  The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, postcards, advertisements, sculptures, video imagery, and of course boots.  The images define changing aspects of the West, from 1880 to the present.  The exhibition includes more than 130 objects and pairs of boots that investigate freedom, loneliness, gender, fashion, allure and contemporary art.  The exhibition opens at the New Mexico Museum of Art on Saturday, May 15, 2010, and runs through October 17, 2010.
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Two major rivers and their tributaries - the Colorado River and the Rio Grande - have shaped both the landscape and the distribution of indigenous villages. Neighboring New Mexico pueblos on the banks of the northern Rio Grande - just a river apart - the communities of Cochiti and Santo Domingo share a ceramic tradition extending back almost 1,500 years. This permanent collection - A River Apart - preserves these iconic cultural representatives.
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The exhibition Harry Fonseca: In the Silence of Dusk  focuses on four series of paintings that explore the transformative and mythic forces that Fonseca perceived in himself and the world around him. The painting series include In the Silence of Dusk, Stone Poems, St. Francis of Assisi; and Seasons. While not a retrospective, the exhibition explores Fonseca’s body of work as it changes focus from stylized but representational studies based on his Native American heritage to more abstract explorations of his world to non-objective compositions celebrating color. All of the works in the exhibition are courtesy of the Harry Fonseca Trust. The exhibition opens at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 1:00-4:00 p.m. and runs through January 2, 2011.
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In the mountain town of Taxco in Mexico’s state of Guerrero, large-scale mining can be dated to the sixteenth century, and silver is a way of life. In the years following the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), jewelry and other silver objects were crafted there with an entirely innovative approach, informed by modernism and the creation of a new Mexican national identity. Antonio Pineda was a member of the Taxco School and is recognized as a world-class designer.  He lived a long and creative life, passing away at the age of 90 on December 14, 2009.

 

Nearly two hundred examples of Pineda’s acclaimed silver work will be displayed in Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda, a traveling exhibition opening at the Museum of International Folk Art June 6, 2010 through January 2, 2011. Exhibition images may be found at http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/.
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The New Mexico History Museum and Department of Cultural Affairs proudly announce that El Archivo General de Indias (the General Archive of the Indies) in Seville, Spain, has chosen Santa Fe for the American debut of El Hilo de la Memoria  (“The Threads of Memory”) an exhibit of rare documents, illustrations and maps detailing Spain’s early presence in North America.

The exhibit – nearly 140 documents spanning Ponce de León’s first contact in Florida through New Mexico’s incorporation as a U.S. Territory – will premiere in the museum’s Albert and Ethel Herzstein Gallery from Oct. 17, 2010, to Jan. 9, 2011, before traveling to the El Paso Museum of History and the Historic New Orleans Collection. The exhibition is sponsored by the Fundación Rafael del Pino.

 

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Each year, the National Endowment for the Arts honors folk artists, storytellers, performers, and musicians throughout the United States for their contributions to traditional art forms. The National Heritage Fellows demonstrate artistic excellence and a commitment to their art forms through their processes, techniques, and transmission of the knowledge to others that strengthens and enriches their communities.

New Mexico residents are well-represented in this distinguished group of talented artists, especially given the size of the state's population. The Museum of International Folk Art holds examples of the works of all the Fellows from New Mexico in its collections, from weavings, colcha embroidery and silversmithing, to pottery, tinwork, straw appliqué, hide painting, retablos, and woodcarving.

“The quality and range of artworks created by New Mexico’s National Heritage Fellows is impressive. The exhibit will stand as testimony to the dedication and skill of these talented artists;” said Dr. Joyce Ice, former Director of the Museum of International Folk Art.

A Century of Masters opens September 27, 2009 and is scheduled to close January, 2011; and celebrates the Museum of New Mexico’s 100th Anniversary.

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For the first time, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology presents a significant collection of Huichol art from the early part of the last century in Huichol Art and Culture: Balancing the World. The exhibition opens at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture April 11, 2010 and will run through March 6, 2011.

There are important ties between Huichol work and Native American, prehispanic, and Hispanic art histories and cultures. Known today for colorful, decorative yarn paintings, the origins of modern Huichol art are found in the earlier Huichol religious arts of the Robert M. Zingg ethnographic collection at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

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All of the cooperatives featured in the exhibit will be at the Museum throughout the week and have artist booths at the 2010 Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. Exhibition highlights include weaving, beadwork, painting, baskets, embroidery and other traditional folk arts from Bolivia, Rwanda, Peru, Swaziland, India, Kenya, Laos, South Africa, Morocco and Nepal.
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Opening May 23 at the New Mexico History Museum, Wild at Heart: Ernest Thompson Seton dedicates itself to telling the often overlooked story of the conservationist, author, artist, lecturer and co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Ernest Thompson Seton’s impact on America’s conservation movement was immeasurable but, today is largely forgotten. Wild at Heart: Ernest Thompson Seton sets out to change that.

A yearlong set of workshops and lectures supports the exhibit.

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Now celebrating its 400th anniversary, Santa Fe was once an infant city on the remote frontier. A new exhibition, opening Nov. 20, 2009, at the Palace of the Governors explores the archaeological evidence and historical documentation of Santa Fe before the Spanish arrived, the first colony in San Gabriel del Yungue, the founding of Santa Fe and its first 100 years as New Mexico’s first capital.

A symposium and lecture series supports the exhibition.

Co-curated by Josef Diaz of the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors and Stephen Post of the DCA/Office of Archaeological Studies, Santa Fe Found collects more than 160 artifacts from four historic sites, along with maps, documents, household goods, weaponry and religious objects. Together, they tell the story of cultural encounters between early colonists and the Native Americans who had long called this place home.

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Material World presents a tantalizing glimpse into the Museum of International Folk Art's largest collection of textiles and costumes stored in 57 closets and numerous trunks and drawers. The 138 rarely-seen items in this exhibition highlight the remarkable breadth and depth of 20,000 objects ranging from everyday household articles to elaborately detailed ceremonial wear in the Museum's textile collection.

The exhibition will be at the Museum of International Folk Art  in the Cotsen Gallery of the Neutrogena Wing  from December 20, 2009 through August 7, 2011.
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The Buchsbaum Gallery features each of the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in a selection of pieces that represent the development of a community tradition. In addition, a changing area of the gallery, entitled Traditions Today highlights the evolving contemporary traditions of the ancient art of pottery making.
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Here, Now, and Always is a major exhibition based on eight years of collaboration among Native American elders, artists, scholars, teachers, writers and museum professionals. Voices of fifty Native Americans guide visitors through the Southwest's indigenous communities and their challenging landscapes. More than 1,300 artifacts from the Museum's collections are displayed accompanied by poetry, story, song and scholarly discussion.
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A permanent collection of works by two of New Mexico's legendary creative forces.
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How the West Is One:The Art of New Mexico, organizes key objects from the museum’s collections so that they outline an intercultural history of New Mexico art, from the arrival of railroads in 1879 to the present.

This long term exhibition presents 70 works by Native American, Hispanic, and European-American artists which illustrate the changing aesthetic ideals that have evolved within southwestern art over the last 125 years.

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Though the source of the Segesser Hide Paintings is obscure, their significance cannot be clearer: the hides are rare examples of the earliest known depictions of colonial life in the United States. Moreover, the tanned and smoothed hides carry the very faces of men whose descendants live in New Mexico today...
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Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now, the core exhibition of the New Mexico History Museum, sweeps across more than 500 years of stories -- from early Native inhabitants to today's residents -- told through artifacts, films, photographs, computer interactives, oral histories and more. The state's newest museum, it's connected to the state's oldest, the Palace of the Governors. Together, they breath life into the people who made the American West: Native Americans, Spanish colonsits, Mexican traders, Santa Fe Trail riders, fur trappers, outlaws, railroad men, scientists, hippies and artists.

The museum's second floor holds a changing gallery with a rotation of exhibits. The Cowden Cafe offers food, along with free wifi and a lovely downtown Santa Fe view from its outdoor terrace.

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Treasures of Devotion/Tesoros de Devoción contains bultos, retablos, and crucifijos dating from the late 1700s to 1900 which illustrate the distinctive tradition of santo making in New Mexico introduced by settlers from Mexico.
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