Diné Writer Brendan Basham Transmutes Words into Worlds
Diné artist, writer, and educator Brendan Basham approaches writing as he does life: as a process of transformation.
April 16, 2024
Francisco González Castro’s Durational Art Investigates, Illuminates, and Confronts Hegemonic Societal and Power Structures
Francisco González Castro: Does Not Say «I», But Does «I»: Bodies, Limits and Transgressions at the Coconino Center compiles a decade of the artist’s endurance work challenging social structures.
April 08, 2024
Sofie Hecht, Through Archival and Original Photography, Catalogues the Shocking Impact of the Trinity Atomic Bomb Test on Living New Mexicans
Sofie Hecht discusses her project Downwind, a documentary photo album exploring the continued impact of radiation exposure on resident New Mexicans after the 1945 nuclear bomb Trinity Test.
April 03, 2024
Work in Progress with Nick Larsen
Nick Larsen, who gives a talk about his Nevada Museum exhibition this Thursday, explores an invisible history through collage by “pulling from what already exists to visualize something that doesn’t.”
April 02, 2024
Inside Southwest ContemporarySouthwest
Southwest Contemporary Announces New Magazine Size
Ta-da! Southwest Contemporary, a leader in arts and culture coverage in the Southwest, punches above its weight in a revamped print magazine!
April 01, 2024
EssayNew MexicoSITE Santa Fe Young Curators
Navigating Mental Health Through Creative Channels: How Art Influences Our Mental Health
Young Curator Sofia Garcia reflects on the ways expressive art serves as a powerful channel for emotional release, stress, and anxiety.
March 27, 2024
NewsCollectivity + CollaborationTexas
The Fort Worth Circle Pioneered Modern Art in Cowtown in the 1940s and ’50s
The Fort Worth Circle, a progressive mid-century artist group, introduced modernism to the conservative North Texas town and laid the groundwork for the city’s vibrant art community of today.
March 26, 2024
Denver Art Museum Becomes First Colorado Museum to Unionize
Denver Art Museum workers have voted to unionize, citing pay and management transparency as leading reasons for organizing.
March 20, 2024
Jenna Maurice Investigates the Language of the Complicated Human Experience
Jenna Maurice, currently a resident artist at RedLine Contemporary Art Center in Denver, discusses how relationships with humans and the natural environment shine through her artworks. She also ponders nonverbal communication and life’s various gray areas.
March 18, 2024
Fair Deal: High Desert Art Fair’s New Take on an Old Format
An experiment in non-traditional exhibition spaces, the High Desert Art Fair breaks down the boundary between the gallery and the home, creating a radically immersive context for experiencing art.
March 11, 2024
Reno Museum to Steward One of the Country’s Largest Aboriginal Art Collections
Two major donations to the Nevada Museum of Art of Aboriginal and Native American artworks tie into the Reno institution’s capital expansion project.
March 07, 2024
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 9 Living Histories
Modernware: The Allure and Tension in Defining Nampeyo, An Iconic Pueblo Potter, as a Modernist
An art world debate over the modernist credentials of iconic Hopi-Tewa potter Nampeyo surfaces tense questions about art, craft, Indigeneity, and the meaning of modernity.
March 01, 2024
Pillar: No More Mud in Our Eyes
Andrés Mario de Varona remembers and honors the life of Aaron Martin Garcia, also known as Pillar, and reveals the powerful human condition of strangers becoming friends, brothers, and teachers.
January 17, 2024
Antoinette Cauley: I Do It for The Hood, Pt. 2 at Modified Arts
Antoinette Cauley creates expressive portraiture to bridge hyperlocal and global concerns in I Do It For The Hood, Pt. 2 in Phoenix.
January 16, 2024
How Beatrice Moore and Tony Zahn Unintentionally Founded the Grand Avenue Arts District
Artists and preservationists Beatrice Moore and Tony Zahn recall how they established Phoenix’s Grand Avenue arts district despite wanting to do the opposite.
January 12, 2024
Elaine Parks and the Art of Paying Attention to Everything
Ceramicist Elaine Parks, in the under-appreciated northern Nevada landscape, carefully combs the environment to find and fashion objects that command awareness and attention.
January 10, 2024
InterviewUtahVol. 9 Living Histories
Paisley Rekdal Reimagines History in West: A Translation
Salt Lake City-based writer Paisley Rekdal discusses poetry as an archive and cultural connecter in the history of the transcontinental railroad.
March 01, 2024
Work in Progress with John Flores
Ceramicist John Flores infuses natural forms with humanistic qualities to create surreal sculptures that celebrate transition and change.
January 08, 2024
Southwest Art News: January 2024
Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
January 05, 2024
Books + LiteraryInside Southwest Contemporary
Our Favorite Reads (and One Podcast) of 2023
Southwest Contemporary’s staff—Roman Aragón, Natalie Hegert, Steve Jansen, and Lauren Tresp—pick their favorite reading materials of 2023.
January 04, 2024
High Desert Soundings Showcases the Nooks, Crannies, Slipstreams, and Eddies of Sound Art and Experimental Music
High Desert Soundings, a far-flung festival of experimental music and sound art, points our attention towards small sounds and unique resonances in the California desert.
December 22, 2023
If Autumn Knight is Here: Nothing Less
Autumn Knight’s multimedia work at the Visual Arts Center connects video, vinyl drawing, lecture, and performance to challenge audiences to re-think their ideas about disappointment, doing nothing, and sounding.
February 29, 2024
Late Artist and Tuskegee Airmen Clarence Shivers Showcased at Colorado College
The remarkable Clarence Shivers—a multifaceted artist, Tuskegee Airmen fighter pilot, and Colorado Springs philanthropist—is remembered in a retrospective exhibition at Colorado College.
February 28, 2024
Karla Garcia’s Clay Landscapes Challenge the Lines that Divide Us
Karla Garcia, a Dallas-based multidisciplinary artist, creates clay landscapes that urge us to reflect on our connections to place and each other.
February 27, 2024
Del Harrow Stays True to Form, Fusing Clay and Computer
Del Harrow, a Colorado-based ceramicist, combines ancient practices and contemporary technologies to create historically informed objects that tell stories toward a more sustainable future.
December 18, 2023
Ronald Rael Constructs an Architecture of the Borderlands with 3D-Printed Adobe and Regional Histories
Ronald Rael, who was born and raised in the San Luis Valley, harnesses the inherent contradictions between heritage and digital-build practices in his 3D-printed adobe works.
December 15, 2023
Work in Progress with Claire Kennedy
Fort Worth-based artist Claire Kennedy explores materiality and play during her residency at Arts Fort Worth that culminates in an exhibition of new work.
February 23, 2024
EssayCollectivity + CollaborationSouthwest
Hyperlink’s Creative Rollercoaster Embraces the Whirlwind of Interconnected Artistry
Hyperlink, a nebulous artist collective with projects in Denver, Chicago, and at a uranium mine ghost town in Wyoming, is a proven testament to the power of collectivity and collaboration.
December 13, 2023
“I’m Here, We’re Here”: The Work of Manuel Carrillo in Conversation with Delilah Montoya and Maryssa Rose Chavez
Though focused on a 20th-century photographer, Manuel Carrillo: Mexican Modernist illuminates a sense of community identity through beauty that connects to the work of artists practicing in the Southwest today.
December 11, 2023
Work in Progress with Laura Shill
Laura Shill, a Denver-based interdisciplinary artist, commits to creative community-building through the playful and profound lens of conceptual buffoonery, which she elevates to a high art form.
February 21, 2024
