Southwest Contemporary’s Spring 2023 Art Guide
Southwest Contemporary publisher Lauren Tresp's guide to museum and gallery exhibitions to see across the Southwest this spring.
Mar 31
News
Mar 30
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge Tackles the Bogeyman of Loneliness in Waterman
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge of Salt Lake City grapples with themes of isolation and belonging—in comic book-style works influenced by Korean folk art—in her ongoing Waterman series.
Mar 28
The Outsized Presence of Luis Jiménez in the Southwest
Luis Jiménez’s monumental sculptures are found all over the country. Why is the artist not more well known?
Mar 27
Star Power: Immersive Experience The Gift Blends Art with Astrophysics
The Gift, a creative and scientific immersive art installation at Colorado College, considers diverse social, cultural, and ethical perspectives in science.
Mar 21
USPS Set to Dedicate Postage Stamp by Arizona-based Native American Artist and Skater
A new Art of the Skateboard USPS stamp series that includes work by Di’Orr Greenwood (Diné) will be dedicated this weekend as part of the 2023 Cowtown Phoenix AM skateboarding competition.
Mar 14
Oak Street Alley Mural Festival Celebrates Art and Community in Phoenix
The Oak Street Alley Mural Festival in Phoenix’s Coronado neighborhood gives community members a chance to meet and talk with local artists whose live painting reflects diverse styles and themes.
Mar 13
In Speaking with Light, Contemporary Indigenous Photographers Showcase Their Lenses at the Denver Art Museum
Speaking with Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography, a first-of-its-kind retrospective now at the Denver Art Museum, celebrates Native culture while confronting settler colonialism.
Mar 07
Horacio Rodriguez’s Boombox Benefit Amplifies a Bygone Relic
The Horacio Rodriguez-curated exhibition and auction Boombox Benefit at UMOCA, a multi-artist showcase of ten ceramic pieces patterned from Rodriguez’s 1980s childhood boombox, aids ten different social justice-centric organizations.
Mar 06
Bingo Studios Opens in Barelas, Fills a Huge Need for Artist Spaces
Bingo Studios, a pandemic project of artists Lance McGoldrick and Josh Stuyvesant that includes studios, a gallery space, and a fabrication shop, recently opened to fanfare.
Mar 02
The Thief Collector Chronicles the Willem de Kooning True-Crime Heist—With a Twist
The making of The Thief Collector, a true-crime documentary about the theft of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ochre, parallels the Arizona Museum of Art’s journey of prepping the artwork for display after a thirty-seven-year absence.
Mar 01
Southwest Art News: March 2023
Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
Feb 28
Art Detour in Phoenix, Now a Month-Long, Takes a Left Turn
Art Detour, the thirty-four-year-old annual studio tour, has shifted course to match Phoenix’s shrinking arts enclave.
Feb 21
New Santa Fe Art Space Container Saves Artwork from Storage—and Destruction
Container in Santa Fe, an offshoot of Turner Carroll Gallery, offers a model that prizes artists, curators, and artwork—some saved from the ultimate demise—over profit.
Feb 20
Michael Anthony García: “Grounded in a Utopian Projection of Positivity”
Michael Anthony García, an Austin-based artist and curator, creates installation, video, and sculptural work that explores personal questions of identity and cultivates community.
Feb 17
Autumn T. Thomas’s Dancing in the Diaspora Explores Ancestral Connections Through Woodworking
Contemporary woodworker Autumn T. Thomas has developed a collection that speaks to her embrace of ancestry, community, and exploration of self.
Feb 15
Eco Build Lab in Taos Designs Menus for Off-Grid Living
Eco Build Lab co-founder, earthship builder, and educator Kirsten Jacobsen describes the delicacy and environmental factors integral to green building construction and action.
Feb 14
The Fight to Save Kimball’s Peak Three, Colorado Springs’s Only Independent Movie Theater
Kimball’s Peak Three Theater has closed after the death of owner Kimball Bayles. Community leaders are coming together to try to save Colorado Springs’s only independent movie theater.
Feb 13
Smoke the Moon in Santa Fe Elevates Emerging Artists on Canyon Road
Smoke the Moon, which moved from its original Marcy Street location to Canyon Road in March 2022, uplifts emerging artists and cultivates young collectors and artists in Santa Fe.
Feb 06
Southwest Art News: February 2023
Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
Feb 03
Utah’s New State Flag, To the Disappointment of Some, Won’t Depict the State Fish Wielding the State Firearm
During the Utah state and Salt Lake City flag competitions, residents fall in love with Grant Miller’s dark-horse design heavy on clowning state symbols and imagery.
Jan 26
Anthony Bondi’s Archive Establishes a Provenance for Las Vegas Arts
Anthony Bondi’s standalone archive of Las Vegas arts from 1990 to 2015 recalls the Underground and the Committee for Public Safety, and sheds a light on the city’s cultural amnesia. […]
Jan 25
Core Contemporary in Las Vegas Moves Locations, Expands Scope
Core Contemporary in Las Vegas, under the direction of Nancy Good, focuses on local artist standbys and self-taught outsider artists in exhibition themes ranging from gun violence to queer aliens.
Jan 23
Fate of Utah’s Outsider Art Site The Christian School Remains In Flux
Salt Lake City’s Christian School, the brainchild of late artist Ralphael Plescia, is in limbo as an arts organization’s preservation efforts are hampered by the recent sale of the property.
Jan 20
When, Where, and How Did Phoenix’s Downtown Art Scene Commence? Four Local Artists Remember.
Janet de Berge Lange, Jeff Falk, James B. Hunt, and Annie Lopez—in roundtable style—dish on downtown Phoenix’s art scene pre-America West Arena and prior to First Friday.
Jan 19
Albuquerque’s birds + Richard and Richard B Reimagine Art and Dining
Albuquerque’s birds + Richard gallery and Richard B restaurant blur the lines between dinner party and exhibition opening with an invitation to take in art with a side of gastronomy.
Jan 13
Under New Leadership, the Springville Museum of Art Remains Essential to Utah Arts and Arts Education
Springville Museum of Art, newly helmed by Emily Larsen, is one of Utah’s oldest visual arts institutions—and a crucial component of the state’s arts education networks.
Jan 12
A Win for Underserved Communities: New Mexico Sustainable Architecture Firms AOS and MASS Team Up
The combined Santa Fe offices of AOS Architects and MASS Design Group will help expand the humanitarian architecture footprint for Native and non-Native communities in New Mexico and beyond.
Jan 11
Alternative Worlds of What Ifs, Brought to You by Angel Cabrales
Angel Cabrales, a devotee of science, sci-fi, and his own cultural heritage based in El Paso, creates alternate worlds that are more playful than the serious and broken one we live in.
Jan 09
Arizona Commission on the Arts Currently Fails to Represent the Whole State
Arizona Commission on the Arts' new director says its governing board lacks geographic diversity, which goes against Arizona statute. It’s not the only violation of state law involving the agency.
Dec 21
New Media Leader Denver Digerati Looks Towards an Educational and Local Community Focused Future
Denver Digerati, under the direction of executive director and chief curator Sharifa Lafon, looks to change up its digital arts and educational programming in 2023.
Dec 19
Local Nevada Gift Guide 2022
Southwest Contemporary's final 2022 gift guide travels to Las Vegas, Nevada, where shoppers can score amazing coffee, miniature neon deserts, and a photo sesh inside a life-sized cabinet of curiosities.
Dec 15
Local Utah Gift Guide 2022
Our next gift guide travels to Salt Lake City and Provo, where shoppers can score upcycled clothing, wood-burned prints, and gender-affirming underwear.
Dec 14
Marcus Xavier Chormicle, Founder of Southern New Mexico’s CAV Gallery, Disentangles Personal Stories of Family Violence
Marcus Chormicle’s uncle and cousin passed away on the same day a year apart. On the anniversary of their deaths, the photographer opened the community-centered CAV Gallery in Las Cruces. […]
Dec 12
Local Texas Gift Guide 2022
From handcrafted boots to an indispensable indigenous cookbook, here are giftable gems for that special Texan in your life.
Dec 07
How High-Profile Southwest Museums Prioritize Local Artists
Several art museums in the Southwest region are highlighting local artists in creative ways, countering the tendency to associate major museums with monumental exhibitions of world-renowned artists.
Dec 05
Local Santa Fe Gift Guide 2022
This holiday season, consider shopping in Santa Fe for a variety of delights, ranging from gifts for cats (and cat mommies and daddies) to a music concert membership.
Dec 01
Southwest Art News: December 2022
Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
Nov 30
The Sentience of Sediments: Elpitha Tsoutsounakis’s Alchemy of Ochre
Elpitha Tsoutsounakis’s Unknown Prospect explores the material possibilities of ochre to showcase the beauty and agency of the Utah landscape and its nonhuman inhabitants.
Nov 29
Local Tucson Gift Guide 2022
Whether giving or receiving gifts is your love language, you’ll never run out of original Tucson gift options for friends and family this holiday season.
Nov 23
Join Southwest Contemporary for a Panel Discussion on the State of Art Criticism in the Southwest
Join us at Critical Commons, a lively panel discussion and Q+A exploring the current state of art criticism and art writing in Denver and the greater Southwest at RedLine Contemporary Art Center.
Nov 22
Artists Speak About the Impacts of Rampant Development in Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row
Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row arts district is different (read: more corporate) these days. How are all of the speedy commercial and residential developments impacting local artists?
Nov 21
Local Denver Gift Guide 2022
Southwest Contemporary’s first installment of the 2022 gift guide series takes shoppers to Denver, with jaw-dropping nature bundles, an in-the-thick-of-it-all staycation, and more.
Nov 15
Downtown Phoenix Art Existed Before Roosevelt Row. Just Ask Pete Petrisko.
Pete Petrisko has spent decades participating in and documenting the downtown Phoenix arts scene, which has morphed from the grit of Metropophobobia and Gallery X to a place for brewpub-hopping.
