Catch up on some of the top art news headlines in the southwest region over the last month, including people on the move, grants, and more.
News
Clare McAndrew’s 2020 mid-year UBS Art Market Report says art gallery sales are down 36% due to the pandemic. This initial research will be followed by a second, follow-up survey to be conducted in December 2020 as part of Arts Economics’ annual art market report (The Art Market 2021), which will be published in March 2021. Some key findings of the report:
- Almost all art galleries in the world (93%) had closed their spaces between January and July 1, 2020, with an average closure period of 10 weeks.
- Of galleries surveyed, 83% reported a decline in the value of their sales.
- Comparing to the first six months of 2019, the sales in the same period in 2020 dropped by 36% on average, with the biggest fall reported by smaller galleries (with a turnover of less than $500,000).
The Ford Foundation named the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) one of 20 Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Cultural Treasures in America.
“America’s Cultural Treasures” acknowledges and honors the twenty organizations’ vital contributions to the diversity of expression and excellence in America and brings greater recognition to a group of organizations that have been impactful, despite historically limited resources and funding streams. They, along with others, represent the cultural heritage and creativity of communities that have been historically marginalized, underfunded, and under-represented in the narrative of American culture.
Led by an initial investment of $50 million from the Ford Foundation, the national component of the initiative will provide $81 million in operational and general support funds to an initial cohort of twenty organizations that are significant national anchors for artistic and cultural diversity in America.
The twenty organizations include Alaska Native Heritage Center, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Apollo Theater, Arab American National Museum, Ballet Hispánico, Charles H. Wright Museum, Dance Theater of Harlem, East West Players, El Museo del Barrio, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Japanese American National Museum, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Museum of Chinese in America, National Museum of Mexican Art, Penumbra Theatre, Project Row Houses, Studio Museum in Harlem, Urban Bush Women, and Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.
The Historic Santa Fe Foundation added three properties—the Dorothy McKibbin House, Lobato-Morley House, and El Delirio/School for Advanced Research (SAR) to the HSFF Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation.
The properties were approved unanimously by the Board and the Register now holds a total of 96 to be included in the new edition of HSFF’s upcoming book Old Santa Fe Today, authored by Dr. Audra Bellmore with photography by Simone Frances, and published by Museum of New Mexico Press. The book will be the culmination of all the efforts of those who nominated, researched, and listed properties and resources on HSFF’s Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation, one of the first initiatives of the foundation since the incorporation in 1962.
Grants and Awards
New Mexico Historic Sites Received a $452,252 Save America’s Treasures Grant for Preservation Projects at Los Luceros.
The grant is provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through its partnership with the National Park Service, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The grant will support preservation projects at the 148-acre Los Luceros Historic Site, located just north of Alcalde along the Río Grande. These efforts will focus on preserving and stabilizing the two-story adobe Hacienda (first constructed around 1600) and adjacent one-story adobe Storehouse on the historic site property. Both of these structures are significant to the cultural heritage of multiple ethnic groups in northern New Mexico, but they have sustained interior and exterior damage over time.
Leadership Changes and Appointments
Vital Spaces, a Santa Fe nonprofit dedicated to providing affordable spaces to artists by utilizing the city’s empty real estate, announced the appointment of Raashan Ahmad and Hannah Yohalem as co-directors of the organization.
Ahmad, an active and visible member of the Santa Fe art community, comes to Vital Spaces with experience as a musician, poet, community worker, and DJ. He has released six critically acclaimed albums that have taken him to over thirty-five countries around the world. This, in turn, has led him down a path of collaboration across artistic mediums, borders, and cultures.
Yohalem grew up in Santa Fe and returned to work as Program Director of Vital Spaces last year after twelve years away. She has a background in curation, arts education, and community organizing. She’s a published art historian, art critic, and editor with degrees from Harvard and Princeton focusing on the history of modern and contemporary art and dance.
