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Amid Breathtaking NEA Cuts, Southwest Arts Organizations are Reeling—and Rallying Support
The Trump administration's shadowy National Endowment for the Arts grant retractions have Southwest arts organizations banding together to track the cuts and gather supporters.
May 15, 2025
Announcing Southwest Contemporary‘s Art Party Fundraiser and Benefit Auction
Southwest Contemporary announces the Art Party, our first fundraiser event and benefit art auction in support of arts journalism in the Southwest on Friday, June 6, in Santa Fe.
April 28, 2025
“What’s Your Side Hustle?”: Hard-Earned Lessons on Artistic Survival from a Southwest Highway Town
The artists of Helper, Utah, have spent the last three decades honing strategies to strengthen their rural community—and make the regional market work for them.
May 13, 2025
Southwest Artist and Writer Residencies with Summer 2025 Deadlines
Apply for artist and writer residencies with summer 2025 deadlines in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
May 12, 2025
Queering Cowboy Culture with José Villalobos: It’s a Quick, Rough Ride
José Villalobos: Rough Rider at Arizona State University queers the traditional masculinity inherent in cowboy culture’s objects of desire.
May 08, 2025
Meet the “Sad Little Houses” of Dallas, and the Artists on the Front Lines of the Housing Crisis
Three artists confront the Texas housing crisis with street-level projects using piñatas, murals, gentrification walking tours, and more.
May 06, 2025
Hank Willis Thomas’s Pop Culture Platitudes Belong to an Alternate Timeline—Not the One We’re Living In
Hank Willis Thomas's LOVERULES offers a comprehensive survey of a decade's worth of artwork but flounders in our current political crisis.
May 02, 2025
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Amid Breathtaking NEA Cuts, Southwest Arts Organizations are Reeling—and Rallying Support
The Trump administration's shadowy National Endowment for the Arts grant retractions have Southwest arts organizations banding together to track the cuts and gather supporters.
May 15, 2025
Announcing Southwest Contemporary‘s Art Party Fundraiser and Benefit Auction
Southwest Contemporary announces the Art Party, our first fundraiser event and benefit art auction in support of arts journalism in the Southwest on Friday, June 6, in Santa Fe.
April 28, 2025
“What’s Your Side Hustle?”: Hard-Earned Lessons on Artistic Survival from a Southwest Highway Town
The artists of Helper, Utah, have spent the last three decades honing strategies to strengthen their rural community—and make the regional market work for them.
May 13, 2025
Southwest Artist and Writer Residencies with Summer 2025 Deadlines
Apply for artist and writer residencies with summer 2025 deadlines in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
May 12, 2025
Meet the “Sad Little Houses” of Dallas, and the Artists on the Front Lines of the Housing Crisis
Three artists confront the Texas housing crisis with street-level projects using piñatas, murals, gentrification walking tours, and more.
May 06, 2025
Southwest Art News: May 2025
Suki Seokyeong Kang dies amid landmark Southwest show, Nevada Humanities gets a lifeline after NEH cuts, and more top Southwest art news headlines for May 2025.
May 01, 2025
Shepard Fairey Unveils His First Arizona Mural in a City That Tried to Censor His Work
Shepard Fairey was nearly censored at the Mesa Arts Center. He's back with a monumental artwork—and thoughts on police power, fascism, and art as a "counterwind."
April 24, 2025
From our Sponsors
Discover Rising National Talents at Future Fair in Chelsea
Future Fair celebrates five years with diverse galleries showcasing emerging artists, inclusive representation, the Pay-It-Forward Fund, and nearly seventy exhibitors in Chelsea during New York's spring fairs.
April 22, 2025
Missing Waters Reimagines Santa Fe’s Forgotten Waterways
Environmental artist Stacy Levy brings Santa Fe’s lost acequias back to life with Missing Waters, a temporary chalk water map installation at the Santa Fe Railyard April 25-29, 2025.
April 08, 2025
Group Exhibition Brings Light and Space Greats to Albuquerque
Explore the transformative Light and Space art movement at Albuquerque Museum April 5–July 20, 2025, featuring groundbreaking works that redefine perception through light, color, and spatial experience.
April 01, 2025
Artists
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An Artist Who Wrangles Cattle, Pours Iron, and Pulls Prints
Artist Jack Craft operates a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle while producing minimalist sculptures and experimental prints.
April 17, 2025
An Artist Who Tends the Earth—and then Sculpts It
Arizona-based artist Farraday Newsome's studio extends into her high-desert garden, sprouting ideas for intricate ceramics about nature's self-perpetuating systems.
March 24, 2025
PhotographyNew MexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Impact Storytelling: Shayla Blatchford’s Anti-Uranium Mapping Project
With a keen eye and a bold approach, Shayla Blatchford’s Anti-Uranium Mapping Project confronts the damaging impact of unethical mining on Southwest Indigenous lands.
March 07, 2025
New MexicoStudio VisitVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Eva Gabriella Flynn: Borderlands Drifter
Las Cruces–based artist Eva Gabriella Flynn's meticulous maps and flags hover in an uncertain space between two nations, to playful and political effect.
March 07, 2025
Studio VisitMexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Israel Gómez Mares: Transformando Sedimentos
Ceramic artist Israel Gómez Mares transforms his Ciudad Juárez studio into a community hub while creating art that connects desert clay to regional identity.
March 07, 2025
ArtistsArizonaVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Shaunté Glover
Shaunté Glover explores the muscular narrative power—and queer, femme force—of women’s basketball through the lens of South Phoenix.
March 07, 2025
ArtistsUtahVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Joshua Graham
Salt Lake City–based artist Joshua Graham explores site-specificity through walking and collecting, gathering objects in the foothills above the city and reconfiguring them in the gallery.
March 07, 2025
Exhibitions
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Queering Cowboy Culture with José Villalobos: It’s a Quick, Rough Ride
José Villalobos: Rough Rider at Arizona State University queers the traditional masculinity inherent in cowboy culture’s objects of desire.
May 08, 2025
Hank Willis Thomas’s Pop Culture Platitudes Belong to an Alternate Timeline—Not the One We’re Living In
Hank Willis Thomas's LOVERULES offers a comprehensive survey of a decade's worth of artwork but flounders in our current political crisis.
May 02, 2025
An Artist Who Wrangles Cattle, Pours Iron, and Pulls Prints
Artist Jack Craft operates a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle while producing minimalist sculptures and experimental prints.
April 17, 2025
In Tulsa, an Ambitious Exhibition Asks Us to Hold onto Our Roots, While Drifting Toward the Future
Drift///Hold is the ambitious inaugural exhibition of Central Standard in Tulsa with major new works by five compelling early-career artists.
April 11, 2025
Caroline Liu’s Chinese Garden is Not as Sweet as It Looks. And That’s Good.
Caroline Liu’s exhibition lures you in then hits you with a one-two punch about erased histories and Asian marginalization.
April 02, 2025
Group Exhibition Brings Light and Space Greats to Albuquerque
Explore the transformative Light and Space art movement at Albuquerque Museum April 5–July 20, 2025, featuring groundbreaking works that redefine perception through light, color, and spatial experience.
April 01, 2025
Spring Forward: 14 Time-Bending Southwest Art Shows for Spring 2025
Catch these must-see spring art shows across the Southwest, featuring artistic time travelers Kent Monkman, Jorge Rojas, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and more.
March 25, 2025
In Print
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From the EditorVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
From the Editors: Southwest Contemporary Vol. 11 — The Hyperlocal
Discover how Southwest Contemporary: The Hyperlocal explores art that connects immediate environments to global concerns—from borderland communities to regional myths and climate concerns.
March 07, 2025
FeatureColoradoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Future Town Tour Uses Art to Create New, Shared Cultures in Rural Colorado
The Future Town Tour, an ongoing series hosted by Warm Cookies of the Revolution, brings residents together throughout small-town Colorado to reflect on shared cultures and create new rituals.
March 07, 2025
FeatureTexasVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Can Art Stave Off Gentrification? San Antonio Cultural Spaces are Preserving the Westside
Three San Antonio arts organizations leverage a land trust and other strategies to literally hold space on the rapidly growing city's Westside.
March 07, 2025
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
For Futuros Ancestral, Cultural Preservation is Synonymous with Innovation
New Mexico's fiber artists at Futuros Ancestral are weaving technology with tradition to preserve heritage textile practices for future generations.
March 07, 2025
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Collective Imagination: Rethinking Canyon Road with Kyle Maier
Selective histories have long defined Santa Fe's main gallery district. Kyle Maier's digital Canyon Road History project aims to round out the picture.
March 07, 2025
PhotographyNew MexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Impact Storytelling: Shayla Blatchford’s Anti-Uranium Mapping Project
With a keen eye and a bold approach, Shayla Blatchford’s Anti-Uranium Mapping Project confronts the damaging impact of unethical mining on Southwest Indigenous lands.
March 07, 2025
Field ReportArizonaTravelVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Field Report: Eclectic Metro Phoenix
Some of best art offerings in metro Phoenix happen off the beaten path. Here’s our eclectic Phoenix art guide.
March 07, 2025
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
