Emptiness is the Mirage of the New Frontier in ann haeyoung’s Exhibition terra nullius
Roswell artist-in-residence ann haeyoung confronts the geopolitics of emptiness in terra nullius at the Roswell Museum.
February 26, 2024
Essay
Leslie Martinez Shifts the Personal and Political in The Fault of Formation
Dallas-based Leslie Martinez’s first New York solo show, The Fault of Formation at MoMA PS1, addresses political binaries and cultural survival.
February 14, 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
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
The Crestone Ziggurat: An Idiosyncratic Monument Among an Epic Landscape
Crestone Ziggurat, once a private sanctuary for meditation, is a peculiar monument nestled along the edge of the San Luis Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in southeast Colorado.
December 06, 2023
Alex Boeschenstein Examines Roswell’s Storied History in New Works
Roswell artist-in-residence Alex Boeschenstein takes inspiration from things seen in the skies in Visionary Rumor at the Roswell Museum.
October 19, 2023
The 99th Burning of Zozobra Indulged Y2K Nostalgia and the Primal Urge to Light a Big Man on Fire
Thousands gathered for Zozobra 2023 in Santa Fe to stuff their sorrows into a fifty-foot puppet and watch the effigy burn to the ground.
October 10, 2023
Semi-Tropical: Stealth Palms
In this essay, Audrey Molloy dissects the stealth palm and the iconographies of the palm tree, telegraph pole, and cell phone tower as visual media that convey myths of Western expansion and technological innovation.
September 01, 2023
A Letter to the Museum
In this essay, Tyler Stallings pens a letter to the University of Arizona Museum of Art regarding Willem de Kooning’s stolen painting Woman-Ochre.
September 01, 2023
Photography for the Apocalypse
Meggan Gould speculates on the future of photographic practice and the potential of the anthotype process, in which plant-based photosensitive emulsions create ephemeral prints.
September 01, 2023
Two Las Cruces Exhibitions Explore the Fallout of Nuclear Weapons Testing
Cara Despain: Specter New Mexico at the NMSU Art Museum and Trinity: Legacies of Nuclear Testing at Branigan Cultural Center examine nuclear fallout impacting local Indigenous and settler communities.
August 17, 2023
Contemporary Aesthetics Renew Debussy’s Mystifying Pelléas et Mélisande at the Santa Fe Opera
In the Santa Fe Opera’s 2023 staging of Pelléas et Mélisande, director Netia Jones’s contemporary aesthetics renew Debussy’s mystifying Symbolist opera for present-day audiences.
July 31, 2023
Three Ways of Walking Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field
The Lightning Field—a vestige of the conceptual, minimalist, and earthwork movements of the mid-20th century by Walter De Maria—provides visitors with multiple, discrete ways of encountering the art object.
July 14, 2023
Celia Álvarez Muñoz Situates Her Practice at the U.S.-Mexico Confluence
Celia Álvarez Muñoz’s first career retrospective at MCASD presents a rich body of work by the celebrated Arlington, Texas-based artist, who is committed to the complexity of stories from the U.S.-Mexico border.
May 31, 2023
A-Z West Might Make You Rethink Absolutely Everything
A-Z West, Andrea Zittel’s decades-long art experiment presently stewarded by High Desert Test Sites near Joshua Tree, investigates the architecture of everyday life by stripping items to their most basic components.
April 28, 2023
EssayVol. 7 Finding Water in the West
A Bird’s Eye View: Water Futures in the Colorado River Basin
Simone Johnson writes about her experience living between New York City and Arizona, while also highlighting her explorations of water and time in the Colorado River Basin.
March 03, 2023
EssayTexasVol. 7 Finding Water in the West
Postcard from the Fair Park Lagoon
Artist Trey Burns on the Fair Park Lagoon, an iconic, yet overlooked, land art work by Patricia Johanson in Dallas, Texas.
March 03, 2023
A Brief History of Sonoran Modern, Illuminated by Tucson Modernism Week
Sonoran Modern shaped Southern Arizona architecture nearly eighty years ago. Tucson Modernism Week makes a dedicated effort to highlight the region’s distinctive mid-century modern style.
January 30, 2023
“Pornographic” Mural in Salt Lake City Suburb Causes Confusion, Outrage
Midvale, Utah recently instituted a cultural revitalization project to enhance its downtown. A large mural depicting two nude figures and a ghoulish specter has become the talk of the town. […]
November 17, 2022
Documenta 15: What You Need to Know About the History-Making Quinquennial
Documenta 15, the globally significant quinquennial, was both an exercise in decentralized curation with a focus on the Global South and a show riddled with unrelenting controversies.
October 26, 2022
EssayNew MexicoVol. 6 Rooted: Poetics of Place
Becoming More Cottonwood
Cottonwoods, giants of riparian habitats, are dying, branch by branch. Erin Elder reflects on the life and death of these trees and how they foreshadow what is to come.
August 26, 2022
EssayNew MexicoVol. 6 Rooted: Poetics of Place
Elsewhere, NM, USA, Earth
Psychoanalytic wordplay about aliens, isolation, space, and place.
August 26, 2022
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
Emily Margarit Mason Recontextualizes Photographs Past a Single Moment
Emily Margarit Mason challenges the limits of the still image by placing photos into alternative settings—whether baking one into a cake or rearranging another into an abstract collage.
July 25, 2022
The Fuzzy Knowledge of Mythic Space at Agnes Martin Gallery
The Agnes Martin Gallery at the Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico embodies Yi-Fu Tuan’s concept of mythic space.
April 27, 2022
Way to Gogh: The Immersive Experience, For Better or Worse, Visits ABQ
If you decide to Gogh, be prepared for decent visuals, a hefty debit charge, and a pun or two at the Beyond Van Gogh projection room at Albuquerque’s Sawmill District.
March 25, 2022
Good Grief: Theresa Chong, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Repositioning Grief
Writer and poet Laura Neal visits Theresa Chong's Dallas exhibition dedicated to the organization of grief, and finds the power in the familiar and heavy emotion.
March 07, 2022
Harry Reid, Searchlight, and the Erasure of Life in the Desert
During former Senator Harry Reid’s eulogies, Hikmet Loe heard that Searchlight, Nevada, is a ghost town—which clashed with her experience of a land teeming with life.
March 02, 2022
EssayNew MexicoVol. 5 Collectivity + Collaboration
A Risk Taker
This autofiction short revisits an outpatient surgery and the drive home through the lens of health, marriage, and fantasy.
February 25, 2022
EssayNew MexicoVol. 5 Collectivity + Collaboration
Gut Feeling
D. Ward muses on the current and potential roles of the human gut microbiota in collaboration and art in general.
February 25, 2022
