EssaySouthwestVol. 6 Rooted: Poetics of Place
Face Value: On Procession Panel
Briana Olson meditates on Procession Panel, migration, and the biological and aesthetic complexity of the desert Southwest.
August 26, 2022
Briana Olson
On Theft and Mesh
Briana Olson mourns the theft of a King Tut death mask replica and confronts loss in a personal essay about mesh.
October 29, 2021
The Annexation of Art, Empathy, and the Future
From thermal surveillance imaging to maps of the dead to stories and visions of survival, the work at two imminent Santa Fe exhibitions invites you to come closer to some of the millions of humans who have lost, fled, or been chased from their homes and countries in the past three decades.
July 13, 2020
Donald Judd & Barnett Newman
Chinati's special exhibition is like a conversation between Donald Judd and Barnett Newman, with work from both artists on view.
March 26, 2020
Species In Peril Along the Rio Grande
In Species in Peril Along the Rio Grande, twenty-three New Mexico artists challenge themselves and visitors to 516 Arts to confront the fragmentation of the ecosystem on which the river, the bosque, and innumerable lifeforms—humans included—depend.
December 01, 2019
Santa Fe Indian Market Haute Couture Fashion Show
From the moment Shandien LaRance (Hopi) dances out onto the runway, threading her legs into and out of and through her five hoops, the sixth annual Indian Market Haute Couture Fashion Show feels as much a ceremony as a runway show.
October 01, 2019
To Survive on This Shore
To Survive on This Shore is the product of five years of research and travel across the U.S. The show pairs Dugan’s photographic portraits with Fabbre’s interviews with transgender and gender-nonconforming adults, all aged fifty or older. I’m drawn immediately to Duchess Milan, 69, Los Angeles, CA (2017). “I just know I’m me,” begins the text beside the photo. “I identify as Duchess.”
October 01, 2019
Weekday Detour: Street Art in Albuquerque
Briana Olson meditates on belonging as she tours the murals and street art of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
August 28, 2019
Nina Elder: What Endures
"What Endures is, and is not, a question. It’s not incidental that I’m focused on the elemental details of my surroundings, that I want to take apart the anthropogenic landscape, break it down into its simplest ingredients. This act is central to Nina Elder’s process—and to the subjects of the featured work, which spans from 2011 to the present."
July 29, 2019
Raven Chacon: Still Life No. 3
With Still Life No. 3, sound artist Raven Chacon (Diné) subverts the notion of the still life, immersing visitors in a layered, multimedia experience of the story of the Navajo people's emergence into this world at the surface of the earth.
July 29, 2019
A Season of Anachronisms at the Vortex Theatre
The question is not merely why Shakespeare, but why make any art at all? Who is art for, and at what cost? In Guards at the Taj, answers to the first question accumulate as if without effort: we make art to create objects of resplendent beauty and experiences of wonder; to revel in the joy of creation; to invent worlds beyond this one; to compete with God; to fail. It’s the second question that’s difficult—brutally so...
June 26, 2019
Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It
Two years ago, I sat transfixed beside a memorial garden assembled within a gallery at the Frye Art Museum on Seattle’s First Hill. That installation, a feat in and of itself, might have scored my memory even were it not for what preceded it...
May 24, 2019
Qué Chola
Qué Chola is an homage to the characteristically Chicana figure of the chola. The show features street photographs and paintings inspired by old snapshots, plays on pin-up ads and Lotería cards, constructed photos, and graphic art...
April 26, 2019
Art After Stonewall, 1969-1989
It’s late June 1969, and the young people clustered on Christopher Street look giddy, some performing, others a bit shy before the camera. Neither they nor Fred McDarrah, the Village Voice photographer who shot Celebration After Riots Outside Stonewall Inn (1969)...
March 27, 2019
Currency: What Do You Value?
Currency: What do you value? puts fifteen artists in conversation about the problem of value in a world where the dollar seems to be the one unit of measurement that everyone can agree on—even if few can articulate what a dollar measures, or means.
January 30, 2019
