Santa Fe mourns Gene Hackman, Austin’s Big Medium closes, another staff departure from CCA Santa Fe, and more top Southwest art news headlines for March 2025.
News
Santa Fe Mourns Gene Hackman: Actor, Museum Trustee, and Cultural Advocate
Gene Hackman, the celebrated actor known for his everyman roles, passed away at 95 alongside his wife, Betsy Arakawa. His contributions as a trustee of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum played a crucial role in fostering Santa Fe’s cultural community.
IAIA Leaders Advocate for Indigenous Higher Education at U.S. Capitol
In early February, representatives from Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts spent a week in Washington, D.C., advocating for Indigenous higher education. Their visit was marked by discussions with influential members of Congress, emphasizing the need for sustained investment in tribal colleges.
BMoCA Unveils Design Team for North Boulder Creative Campus
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art selected SO–IL and Coburn as the architectural team for its North Boulder Creative Campus project. The initiative will transform Boulder’s NoBo Art District into a hub for art, sustainable living, and community engagement.
Austin’s Art Scene Loses a Pillar as Big Medium Closes Its Doors
After more than twenty years of bolstering Austin’s creative community, nonprofit Big Medium will close its gallery on South Congress amid financial and leadership challenges. The closure leaves cherished programs like the Austin Studio Tour and Texas Biennial facing an uncertain future, highlighting the need for renewed investment in the city’s arts.
Also:
- At the Boulder International Film Festival in March, the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light brings Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson’s powerful story of love, loss, and cancer treatment to the screen.
- Denver-based nonprofit BRDG Project shuttered its vibrant gallery space following a failed attempt to secure sustainable studio leases and meet critical fundraising goals.
- Aspen Art Museum’s new AIR initiative is a global summit and retreat that reimagines creative leadership through cross-disciplinary collaboration. Its inaugural event “Life As No One Knows It” launches in late July.
- In early February, over 200 Texas arts advocates converged on Austin’s Capitol during Texas Arts Advocacy Day to make a data-backed, bipartisan case for increased state funding, emphasizing art’s economic and cultural returns across the state.
- A recently published study co-authored by New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science curator Dr. Jason Malaney reaffirms museum collections as irreplaceable archives that not only decode environmental change but also inspire interdisciplinary dialogue.
Grants and Awards
Southwestern Artists Shine in the 2024 Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant Competition
In its latest biennial competition, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation recognized twenty artists with $20,000 grants each, honoring Santa Fe–based artists Jordan Ann Craig (Northern Cheyenne) and Terran Last Gun (Piikani), along with Athena LaTocha (Hunkpapa Lakota/Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe) of Peekskill, New York, whose connections to the Southwest enrich her practice.
Delilah Montoya’s ABQ Museum Retrospective Garners $150K Grant from Terra Foundation
The Albuquerque Museum secured a $150,000 grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art to support Delilah Montoya’s first in-depth retrospective, Delilah Montoya: Reclaiming Chicano Narratives through Art and Activism. Running from January 10 to May 3, 2026, the exhibition will showcase more than 100 works including photography, printmaking, and installation art.
Mittler Family Foundation Donates $2M and Cochiti Collection to Transform Wheelwright Museum Gallery
Charlotte Mittler and the Mittler Family Foundation gifted $2 million—and their treasured collection of Cochiti storytellers and Mono figurines—to the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, enabling a remodel of its lower-level gallery. The new space will serve as a permanent home for the collection with a rotating exhibit over the next ten to fifteen years.
More:
- Jamie Diaz, a Mexican American trans woman and mixed-media artist from Dallas, was named a 2025 Right of Return Fellow by the Center for Art & Advocacy, receiving $20,000 in support to expand her practice and explore themes of LGBTQ+ love, trans liberation, and bodily autonomy.
- New Mexico Arts’s 2025 artists-in-residence at the Los Luceros Historic Site are Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo Tewa)—whose clay and print work blends traditional Pueblo pottery techniques with contemporary pop culture—and Chris E. Vargas, a transdisciplinary video maker who explores queer and trans histories through performance.
- Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts & Culture named Native American basket weaver Auri Poseyesva (Hopi) their 2025 Goodman Aspiring Artist Fellow, providing funds to establish a dedicated workspace and further revitalize the traditional art of Hopi Yungyapu weaving.
- The 40th annual Creative Bravos Awards spotlights Albuquerque’s creative community in late March. This year’s honorees include visual artists Eamon Quigley and Naomi Natale, and arts organizers Julia Munroe Mandeville and Sherri Brueggemann.
- The Harwood Museum of Art acquired Luchita Hurtado’s watercolor Mist and Rain–July 1, ’75 Taos, coinciding with the late-February closing of the posthumous retrospective Luchita Hurtado: Earth & Sky Interjected.
- New Mexico Arts awarded $2,500 Arts & the Military Mini Grants to ten organizations—including Otero Arts, Center, and Groove Art Space—to support innovative arts programming for active-duty military and veterans.
- The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona announced its 2024 operating support grants, bolstering visual art spaces such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson and La Linea Art Studio with up to $10,000 each.
- The Chinati Foundation in Marfa unveiled its 2025 artists in residence, including Guadalupe Rosales and Charisse Pearlina Weston, who have ties to West Texas.
- Wyoming’s spring 2025 Ucross Foundation fellowship cohort includes prominent Southwest artists Raksha Vasudevan from Denver, S. Kirk Walsh from Austin, and Erin Elder from Albuquerque.
Leadership Changes and Appointments
Breaking: CCA Cinema Manager Fired, Adding to String of Recent Leadership Changes
Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe dismissed cinema manager Jayson Jacobsen on Saturday, March 1, following the elimination of cinema director Justin Rhody’s position in early January. The change continues the embattled organization’s leadership shuffle, including the departure of general manager Paul Barnes last June and the appointments of executive director Dale Albright and board chairman David N. Meyer in January. Jacobsen shared his termination letter with Southwest Contemporary; CCA Santa Fe did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Halona Norton-Westbrook to Lead Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Appointed to succeed Marla Price following her thirty-year tenure, Halona Norton-Westbrook brings decades of experience from the Honolulu Museum of Art to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, starting July 1.
Dr. Robert Martin to Retire as IAIA President After 40 Years of Leadership
Dr. Robert Martin (Cherokee Nation), whose leadership since 2007 has expanded IAIA’s academic programs, infrastructure, and community partnerships, retires in July, marking the end of an era in tribal higher education.
Christian Waguespack to Depart NMMA for Role at Museum of Northwest Art
After nearly twenty years of New Mexico arts leadership—including roles as curator of 20th Century Art and head of curatorial affairs at New Mexico Museum of Art—Christian Waguespack is set to join the Museum of Northwest Art in La Conner, Washington. He told Santa Fe Reporter, “New Mexico contributes so much more of its fair share of artistic content to the rest of the country.”
More:
- Longtime SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market fashion producer Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation), following her split with the organization, will launch her own Native Fashion Week in the Santa Fe Railyard in May, setting the stage for “dueling” Indigenous fashion events.
- The New Mexico Museum of Art welcomes Stacy Hasselbacher as its new deputy director, bringing over twenty-five years of innovative museum leadership in digital engagement, interactive exhibits, and visitor-centered programming.
- Karla McWilliams steps in as deputy director of the NM Historic Preservation Division, while the New Mexico History Museum expands its curatorial team with Mark Dodge and Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder.
- The Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos announced the promotion of Karen Chertok—formerly the institution’s director of education—to executive director.
- Marissa Fassano joins Albuquerque’s Tamarind Institute as its new gallery director, bringing nearly two decades of arts experience, including a term as curatorial director of Form & Concept and Zane Bennett Contemporary Art in Santa Fe.
- Carina Evangelista, the new gallery director of Form & Concept and Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, leaves her role as senior director of curatorial affairs at Oklahoma Contemporary. She worked for a decade as editor of Chuck Close’s catalogue raisonné.
Editor’s note: This article includes reporting by Erin Averill.
