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María Elena Ortiz’s Sweeping Curatorial Worlds Start with Hyperlocal Specificity
Amid a triumphant New York triennial, Fort Worth-based curator María Elena Ortiz looks back at her diasporic storytelling efforts—and calls for a bigger Latinx curatorial web.
January 16, 2025
Keith Haring’s City-Spanning Phoenix Takeover Almost Didn’t Happen
Keith Haring was a Phoenix teacher's second choice for a 1986 art workshop, but the invite made a major mark on the city.
January 14, 2025
Relax and Stay Alert: The Playful Incoherence of Tristram Lansdowne and Ryan Crowley
Wicked Wells and Window Wipeouts traps the viewer between a hard place and a sunken one—but its ambiguity offers a different kind of freedom.
January 09, 2025
Permanence of Earth: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture
The Shaw Gallery at Weber State University hosts ten ceramic artists during the 59th annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.
January 08, 2025
Denver Collective’s Four-Hour Karaoke Marathons Have a Message For the Art World: Get Over Yourself
Bucking the solemn tone of much performance art, Right on Time collective's sweaty, cyclical extravaganzas herald a roaring late-2020s vibe.
January 07, 2025
Seascapes in the Desert: RioBravoFineArt Opens 27th Year with Paintings by Leo Neufeld
RioBravoFineArt's twenty-seventh year opens with an exhibition of plein-air seascapes of the Pacific Coast by painter Leo Neufeld.
January 07, 2025
Books + LiteraryInside Southwest Contemporary
Our Favorite Books (and One Epic Article) of 2024
The Artist's Way for werewolves, a guide to forgetting the Alamo, and other compelling reads from the Southwest Contemporary editorial team.
January 06, 2025
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Keith Haring’s City-Spanning Phoenix Takeover Almost Didn’t Happen
Keith Haring was a Phoenix teacher's second choice for a 1986 art workshop, but the invite made a major mark on the city.
January 14, 2025
Books + LiteraryInside Southwest Contemporary
Our Favorite Books (and One Epic Article) of 2024
The Artist's Way for werewolves, a guide to forgetting the Alamo, and other compelling reads from the Southwest Contemporary editorial team.
January 06, 2025
Inside Southwest ContemporarySouthwest
The Top 10 Southwest Contemporary Stories of 2024
Southwest Contemporary's most widely read stories of 2024 reflect some of the most urgent issues within the arts.
January 02, 2025
Karima Walker’s “Grief Rituals” Seek the Non-Linear Wisdom of Walking in Circles
The Arizona-born artist’s MOCA Tucson exhibition draws inspiration (and soil) from the Santa Cruz River, melding body and land.
December 23, 2024
“The Doors Were Breaking, Things Were Moving”: Inside the Roswell Museum After Disastrous 500-Year Flood
Museum insiders offer firsthand accounts of the flash flood that breached Roswell Museum in October—and an update on the uphill battle for remediation.
December 19, 2024
Darkest Days: 11 Urgent (and Uplifting) Art Shows to See This Winter
Catch these must-see art exhibitions across the Southwest for winter 2024–25, featuring Richard Avedon, Nancy Hemenway Barton, Charles Ross, and more.
December 17, 2024
Southwest Art News: December 2024
MCA Denver director to lead ICA Boston, Utah artist who formed 21st-century art salon dies, and more top Southwest art news headlines for December 2024.
December 03, 2024
From our Sponsors
Permanence of Earth: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture
The Shaw Gallery at Weber State University hosts ten ceramic artists during the 59th annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.
January 08, 2025
Seascapes in the Desert: RioBravoFineArt Opens 27th Year with Paintings by Leo Neufeld
RioBravoFineArt's twenty-seventh year opens with an exhibition of plein-air seascapes of the Pacific Coast by painter Leo Neufeld.
January 07, 2025
Arizona State University’s Top-Ranked MFA Includes a Three-Year Teaching Assistantship
The School of Art at ASU advances generative art practices driven by research, ideas, and effective public engagement. Attend an info session on December 6, 2024, and apply by January 15, 2025.
November 22, 2024
In Print
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FeatureNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Virgil Ortiz: Historical Memory, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Art of Storytelling in 2180
Drawing from his community’s roots in social commentary, Virgil Ortiz crafts a future without limitations, and his epic series Revolt 1680/2180 reaches a climax this fall.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Mallery Quetawki: Circulatory Systems + Translational Aesthetics
Mallery Quetawki paints cross-cultural translations that help bridge futures between Indigenous communities and science and medical professionals.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Jason Garcia: The Futurism of Narrative Change
In bold pop culture style, Santa Clara Pueblo artist Jason Garcia envisions Native futures by challenging narratives that have always kept us in the past.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitColoradoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Lydia Andrew Farrell: Reimagining the Suburbs
It's Halloween everyday and outsiders rule the streets in hypersaturated paintings by Denver suburbanite Lydia Andrew Farrell.
September 06, 2024
FeatureUtahVol. 10 Radical Futures
Red Planet Role-Play at the Mars Desert Research Station
At the Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah, scientists conduct experiments as if they are on the Red Planet, the only caveat being that they aren’t.
September 06, 2024
FeatureSouthwestVol. 10 Radical Futures
Radical Architecture, Radical Imagination: How Will We Live in a Hotter, More Arid Future?
Science fiction authors have provided many visions of dystopian futures in the Southwest. Can architects help avert such disastrous outcomes?
September 06, 2024
FeatureArizonaVol. 10 Radical Futures
The Ants of Biosphere 2
Seeking fresh hope in the 20th-century futurisms of Arizona architectural marvels Biosphere 2, Taliesin West, and Arcosanti.
September 06, 2024
Exhibitions
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Relax and Stay Alert: The Playful Incoherence of Tristram Lansdowne and Ryan Crowley
Wicked Wells and Window Wipeouts traps the viewer between a hard place and a sunken one—but its ambiguity offers a different kind of freedom.
January 09, 2025
Denver Collective’s Four-Hour Karaoke Marathons Have a Message For the Art World: Get Over Yourself
Bucking the solemn tone of much performance art, Right on Time collective's sweaty, cyclical extravaganzas herald a roaring late-2020s vibe.
January 07, 2025
Karima Walker’s “Grief Rituals” Seek the Non-Linear Wisdom of Walking in Circles
The Arizona-born artist’s MOCA Tucson exhibition draws inspiration (and soil) from the Santa Cruz River, melding body and land.
December 23, 2024
Darkest Days: 11 Urgent (and Uplifting) Art Shows to See This Winter
Catch these must-see art exhibitions across the Southwest for winter 2024–25, featuring Richard Avedon, Nancy Hemenway Barton, Charles Ross, and more.
December 17, 2024
Scripted Spaces Dissects the Mind Maze of the Las Vegas Casino, Down to Those Crazy Carpets
Las Vegas–raised painter eri king co-opts the persuasive powers of gambling hall interior design at Available Space Art Projects.
December 10, 2024
A Hundred Years On, Surrealism’s Desert Dreamworlds Continue to Inspire
The desert—in all of its arid, minimalist, color-block permutations—permeates this selection of Surrealist artworks.
November 19, 2024
Salt Lines Converge at Southern Utah Museum of Art
Salt Lines: Exploring Climate, Environment, and the Saline Influx examines the past, present, and future of salt in the global landscape through the work of duo Hylozoic/Desires, photographer David Maisel, and poet and photographer Alexandra Fuller.
November 19, 2024
Artists
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Work in Progress with Beedallo
Albuquerque-based artist Beedallo on staying elusive, spilling guts on canvas, and eavesdropping at art openings.
October 22, 2024
Work in Progress with Shawn Skabelund
Flagstaff-based artist Shawn Skabelund returns to the storm-swept ravine that birthed his latest show—and explains what a squirrel stick is—in an intrepid studio visit.
September 26, 2024
Longtime New Yorker Paulina Ho Suddenly Started Painting—and Pining for—the Southwest
Santa Fe-based designer and artist Paulina Ho’s work tilts reality to find pleasure in the everyday absurdities of her new Southwestern environs.
September 12, 2024
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Virgil Ortiz: Historical Memory, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Art of Storytelling in 2180
Drawing from his community’s roots in social commentary, Virgil Ortiz crafts a future without limitations, and his epic series Revolt 1680/2180 reaches a climax this fall.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Mallery Quetawki: Circulatory Systems + Translational Aesthetics
Mallery Quetawki paints cross-cultural translations that help bridge futures between Indigenous communities and science and medical professionals.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Jason Garcia: The Futurism of Narrative Change
In bold pop culture style, Santa Clara Pueblo artist Jason Garcia envisions Native futures by challenging narratives that have always kept us in the past.
September 06, 2024
FeatureNevadaVol. 10 Radical Futures
Emily Budd Breaks the Mold: Founder of the Foundry Project Aluminati
Emily Budd, founder of Aluminati, challenges the norms of monument-making, advocating for diversity and inclusion in public art.
September 06, 2024
Radical Futures
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“This is our power”: Afrofuturists Imagine Radical Futures in Reclaiming Hope: Afrofuturist Visions
Black artists imagine radical futures through hope, healing, and history in Reclaiming Hope: Afrofuturist Visions.
October 29, 2024
Reclaiming Space through Technology: Santa Fe Uncovers Hidden Histories Through Augmented Reality
The City of Santa Fe’s ArcGIS Storymaps, and its AR component, Ojos Diferentes, peel back the layers of Santa Fe history to tell underrepresented stories with new technologies.
October 15, 2024
In ALHAMDU, Muslim Artists Envision a Bright Future
The collection of work featured in ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM asks what a bright future might look like for Muslim communities and engages visitors in new ways.
October 04, 2024
The Youth are Our Future: the Hamrah Arts Club Brings Refugee Youth Together on a Journey of Self-Expression
The Hamrah Arts Club, founded by artist Nazafarin Lotfi, uses art and creative expression to foster solidarity between refugee and asylum-seeking communities for youth in Tucson.
September 13, 2024
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Virgil Ortiz: Historical Memory, Indigenous Futurisms, and the Art of Storytelling in 2180
Drawing from his community’s roots in social commentary, Virgil Ortiz crafts a future without limitations, and his epic series Revolt 1680/2180 reaches a climax this fall.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Mallery Quetawki: Circulatory Systems + Translational Aesthetics
Mallery Quetawki paints cross-cultural translations that help bridge futures between Indigenous communities and science and medical professionals.
September 06, 2024
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 10 Radical Futures
Jason Garcia: The Futurism of Narrative Change
In bold pop culture style, Santa Clara Pueblo artist Jason Garcia envisions Native futures by challenging narratives that have always kept us in the past.
September 06, 2024
