WritingsColoradoRadical Futures
The Life-Warmth of the Universe
Noah Travis Phillips’s more optimistic, queer, and contemporary “cover” of Pamela Zoline’s feminist collage sci-fi classic “The Heat Death of the Universe.”
September 06, 2024
Accidental Utopia: An Introduction to Radical Futures
In Southwest Contemporary Vol. 10: Radical Futures, curator and conceptual artist Ian Breidenbach ruminates on creative agency and utopian praxis as the guest juror for this issue.
September 06, 2024
ArtistsTexasVol. 10 Radical Futures
Bonny Leibowitz: Radical Futures
Texas-based artist Bonny Leibowitz creates hybridized installations of natural and manufactured materials that reflect the impacts of isolation, environmental degradation, and human conflict.
September 06, 2024
ArtistsTexasVol. 10 Radical Futures
Wills Brewer: Radical Futures
Wills Brewer’s practice is rooted in research and documentation, emphasizing history at its most expansive, geologic scale.
September 06, 2024
Past Deposits from a Future Yet to Come: A Sweeping Saga of Everyday Objects in Austin’s Waterloo Park
Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler's colossal new video installation, Past Deposits from a Future Yet to Come, dramatically explores the archeological record of Austin's Waller Creek.
August 20, 2024
Tina Mion Delves Deep Into Family Trauma While Broadening Her Oeuvre at Kouri + Corrao Gallery
Tina Mion ventures into unexplored territory in her exhibition Departures, through death spoon sculptures and paintings about her brother’s death.
August 13, 2024
At SMoCA, Carolina Aranibar-Fernández Uses Soil, Sequins, and Blood to Explore the Impacts of Global Trade
California-based artist Carolina Aranibar-Fernández explores colonization, extraction, and exploitation in the Southwest in her exhibition Oleaje at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona.
July 30, 2024
Succumb to Defeat or Persevere: Lessons from Rejected Public Art Proposals at the Arvada Center
I Regret to Inform You: Rejected Public Art explores the process of applying to and proposing a public art project, while grappling with the ubiquity of rejection.
July 23, 2024
Feral with Possibility: Harry Fonseca’s Queer Coyote Takes Center Stage in Small but Resonant Exhibition at the Heard
In the first exhibition to explore Harry Fonseca’s expressions of “queerness” through his beloved character Coyote, queer-Indigenous performativity takes center stage.
July 16, 2024
In Biophilia, Nature is Exalted, But Does it Compel Connection?
"Biophilic design," which emulates the natural environment, is undoubtedly having a moment. So how does the Denver Art Museum’s latest design exhibition expand on this discourse?
July 05, 2024
Journey to the Origin of Images: New Book on Aby Warburg’s 1890s Trek to the Southwest Gives New Insights
A new book from Hatje Cantz, The Snake and the Lightning: Aby Warburg's American Journey, enlivens the German art historian's trek to the Southwest in 1895-96.
June 14, 2024
Suddenly Somebody: Carmen Herrera I’m Nobody! Who Are You? at SITE Santa Fe
In canvases and sculpture created during the last years of her life, Carmen Herrera, an under-sung hero of minimalism and abstraction, receives further attention.
June 04, 2024
Feature2024 New Mexico Field GuideNew Mexico
The Insider’s View: Studio Tours Across New Mexico
Artist studio tours across New Mexico illustrate the enduring power of creative exchange—and give visitors an insider's view of the artistic process.
May 24, 2024
Field Report2024 New Mexico Field GuideNew MexicoTravel
Field Report: Roswell, New Mexico
"Come for the aliens, stay for the art!" sums up the compelling reasons to visit Roswell, New Mexico—a mecca for UFO culture and contemporary art.
May 24, 2024
Reaching for the Light: Daniel Hawkins’s Wild West Dream of a Desert Lighthouse
Daniel Hawkins's surreal, fifty-foot Desert Lighthouse is a glowing, perplexing beacon in the desolate Mojave Desert, on the site of ecological catastrophe.
May 21, 2024
Selling the Southwest Unpacks the Colonialist Mythology and Marketing of the Santa Fe Railroad
This Museum of Northern Arizona exhibition unpacks how the marketing efforts of the Santa Fe Railroad and Fred Harvey Company romanticized and exploited the artistry and culture of Indigenous people.
May 02, 2024
Work in Progress with Ángel Faz
Ángel Faz’s studio practice centers around observation and research, unearthing the shrouded history of the land and those who inhabit it.
April 26, 2024
Inside Southwest ContemporarySouthwest
Call for Visions: Tell Us What the Future Will Bring
Southwest Contemporary is entreating its readers to stop, take a moment, and imagine what a new world could hold.
April 25, 2024
The Desert’s Living Skin: A Collaborative Effort to Bring Biocrust Into the Museum
The Biocrust Project reveals the importance of protecting the desert’s biocrust in the face of climate change in an immersive collaboration between art and science.
April 25, 2024
Wading in the Shallows: The Conundrum of Cj Hendry’s Public Pool
Cj Hendry's Public Pool delights some and confounds others, as it celebrates Las Vegas pool party culture while ignoring serious realities of PVC manufacturing, drought, and the wealth divide.
April 19, 2024
How a Creative Couple in Arizona is Exploring South Phoenix History Through Photography and Poetry
Photographer Maria Nancy Thomas and poet Rashaad Thomas, a creative couple based in South Phoenix, are using their work to explore a region brimming with the histories of marginalized communities.
April 18, 2024
Andrew Alba’s New Works at Material Expose the Pain We Inherit
In a world replete with ecological catastrophe and political turmoil, the customarily inward Andrew Alba channels calamities into catharsis for his exhibition of new works at Material.
April 09, 2024
How Commemorations to the Disenfranchised Have Forced a Reckoning with Utah’s History and Present
The narratives of the many racial and ethnic minorities whose experiences have indelibly shaped both Utah and American history deserve recognition and reckoning.
March 29, 2024
Dimensions Variable with Mixed Results: Sarah Sze Brings Together Technology and Nature at the Nasher
Sarah Sze at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas is proof the affair between an artist and museum doesn’t always result in marriage.
March 28, 2024
SITE Santa Fe Young CuratorsNew Mexico
SITE Santa Fe’s Young Curators Work with Southwest Contemporary to Offer Their Critical Perspectives on Art
Southwest Contemporary teamed up with SITE Santa Fe to produce a series of articles written by high school students taking part in their 2023-24 Young Curators program.
March 27, 2024
EssayNew MexicoSITE Santa Fe Young Curators
What is the Young Curators Program at SITE Santa Fe?
Hanbi Park, one of SITE Santa Fe’s Young Curators, reflects on the program which tasks high schoolers with curating an exhibition from start to finish.
March 27, 2024
InterviewNew MexicoSITE Santa Fe Young Curators
Interview with Nana: Carol Lujan and Her Experience as a Native Artist
Young Curator Tara Lujan-Baker interviews her grandmother, Carol Lujan (Navajo), a clay and glass artist based in New Mexico and Arizona.
March 27, 2024
ReviewNew MexicoSITE Santa Fe Young Curators
Indigenous Futurisms in Shadow and Light
At the Vladem Contemporary, artists use light and color to express Indigenous Futurisms in their current exhibition Shadow and Light. Young Curator Ainsley Drinkard reviews.
March 27, 2024
Phoenix Artist and Curator Clottee Hammons Highlights Black History, Art, and Culture
Clottee Hammons, the Phoenix artist, curator, and knowledge-keeper who leads Emancipation Arts, has spent decades elevating Black history, arts, and culture while combatting historical and contemporary racism in Arizona.
March 22, 2024
Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains Speaks to Both Ancestors and Future Generations
Belonging: Contemporary Native Ceramics from the Southern Plains brings together works by seven artists that range from ceramic vessels to monumental sculptures to installations that radiate outward in space.
March 19, 2024
