Events - February 5, 2016

The New Mexico Museum of Art has been selected as the host site for First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, a national traveling exhibition of the Shakespeare First Folio, one of the world’s most treasured books. The Folger Shakespeare Library, in partnership with Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, is touring a First Folio of Shakespeare in 2016 to all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. The New Mexico Museum of Art will be the only New Mexico venue.

National tour from Folger Shakespeare Library in commemoration of the 400^th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s Death.  

Three new exhibitions about the performing arts, refreshments and live music by Música Antigua de Albuquerque.

The Palace Press presents a special exhibition in collaboration with the New Mexico Museum of Art’s First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare. The Book’s the Thing: Shakespeare from Stage to Page offers a multi-part exhibit with a hands-on twist: The printers make facsimiles of a First Folio page using a replica “Gutenberg” wooden hand press. (Lucky visitors can make their own prints for a take-home treat.) In addition, members of the Santa Fe Book Arts Group have crafted contemporary art books inspired by the works of Shakespeare. And Palace Press Director Thomas Leech and internationally known calligrapher Patricia Musick collaborated on broadsides from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. 

Join the Palace Press for the opening of The Book’s the Thing: Shakespeare from Stage to Page, an interactive exhibit (through February 28) in collaboration with the Museum of Art’s First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare. Come through the Blue Gate on Lincoln Avenue and follow the bonfires back for the exhibit and refreshments.

A Free First Friday Evening event. Free admission to the entire museum 5-8 pm.

Stage, Setting, Mood: Theatricality in the Visual Arts examines the formal means artists employ to impart a sense of drama and setting in their compositions. The exhibition opens with a free public reception hosted by the Women’s Board of the Museum of New Mexico at the New Mexico Museum of Art on February 5, 2016 and runs through May 1, 2016.

In the performing arts, "stage, setting and mood" refer to the evocative and emotional experiences that can be created in the physical space of the theater with the use of backdrops, props, lighting, sound, and the work of the performers. In the visual arts, artists employ theatrical pictorial means to appeal to the senses. Colors, bold forms, and compelling subjects can be called on to elicit an emotional connection between viewer and artwork. In this exhibition, artworks that feature high drama, theatrical presentation, and narrative storytelling, demonstrate the connection between sensation and spectacle.

The exhibition comprises close to 50 artworks dating from the late 18^th century to the present.

Stage, Setting, Mood runs concurrent with the New Mexico Museum of Art’s presentation of First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare: National tour from Folger Shakespeare Library (February 5 through 28, 2016) commemorating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Medieval to Metal: The Art and Evolution of the Guitar opens at the New Mexico Museum of Art on February 5, 2016 with a free public reception from 5.30 to 7.30pm. The exhibition examines the craftsmanship, design, and history of this popular musical instrument.

Medieval to Metal is a companion exhibition to two others opening the same evening at the New Mexico Museum of Art, First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare and Stage, Setting, Mood: Theatricality in the Visual Arts. Together, these three exhibitions look at the importance of the stage whether in life or imagination.

The forty instruments in Medieval to Metal span centuries, ranging from an intricately inlaid Moorish oud, a six-foot long Renaissance theorbo, to guitars displaying the modern Italian design of Eko, and one with a stunning transparent acrylic body by California’s BC Rich guitars.