Museum of International Folk Art

The Museum of International Folk Art Presents “Lloyd’s Treasure Chest: Focus on Folk Art”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2016

MEDIA CONTACT


For Immediate Release: December 12, 2016 (Santa Fe, NM) -- After an extensive renovation, Sunday January 29, 2017, the Museum of International Folk Art will reopen Lloyd’s Treasure Chest: Folk Art in Focus. The gallery will offer visitors a place to explore, interact, and create folk art. Because the Museum’s entire 136,000-object collection can never be on view at the same time, collections are carefully stored and cared for in rooms such as the Neutrogena Vault, which visitors can view from the Treasure Chest gallery. Visitors will take “the vehicle to the vault” to the museum’s lower level where the collection vault is located.

The exhibition presents new ways to think about folk art and its cultural context with books, maps, and baskets they can touch, as well as explore intangible forms of expressive culture, like music. While there is no one definition of folk art, Lloyd’s Treasure Chest embodies multiple perspectives and helps us come closer to an understanding of “What is Folk Art?”  Patrons of all ages will find engaging participatory experiences with hands-on activities such as origami-making, kite-coloring, a community basket-making activity, and a musical instrument (a Javanese gamelan instrument).

The re-opening brings back some favorites from past exhibitions, including “Last of the Red-Hot Lovers," an American sculpture made from recycled metal by artist Dwight Martinek (aka “Wild Willie”) and a Wedding Rickshaw from Bangladesh. Rotating thematic displays will offer close-up views of the museum’s folk art collections. The gallery will open with “The Basket Case,” featuring baskets and basketry from around the world. Future rotations will include Syrian folk art and Chinese Opera. The Neutrogena Wing, including the Cotsen Gallery and Lloyd’s Treasure Chest first opened in 1998. Former chairman of the board of Neutrogena Corporation and founder of the Cotsen Foundation for the ART of TEACHING, Lloyd Cotsen has made commitment to education, folk art, children’s literature and archaeology. 

The Treasure Chest reopening coincides with the Museum’s Second Annual Asian New Year Celebration, scheduled from 1 to 4pm Sunday January 29, 2017 with free admission sponsored by the Cotsen Family Foundation. The Museum of International Folk Art and Museum Shop are located in the museum at 706 Camino Lejo (Museum Hill just off Old Santa Fe Trail). Museum 505 476-1200 Gift Shop: 505-982-5186.


MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART The Museum of Folk Art is a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. The Museum of International Folk Art’s mission is to foster understanding of the traditional arts to illuminate human creativity and shape a humane world. Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the museum holds the world’s largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations. The museum’s collections represent a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects in the Multiple Visions Gallery that features the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure. The museum’s historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice. Over 90,000 national and international visitors come to the Museum of International Folk Art every year. Through folk art, the museum encourages all to find a common ground upon which to craft better lives for all. Museum exhibitions and programs are supported by donors to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and its Director’s Leadership Fund, Exhibitions Development Fund, and Fund for Museum Education, as well as by the International Folk Art Foundation, also established by museum founder Florence Dibell Bartlett.


Related Photos

Vehicle to the Vault
“Ray and Elsie”

Back to Press Release List »