In Context: New Mexico in the Art World

In this panel, leaders in the contemporary art field will discuss trends and issues in contemporary art in New Mexico and beyond. We will ask questions about how New Mexico is both connected and removed from the broader visual art world and how the state’s unique characteristics—such as its art historical legacies and the tourism industry—impact New Mexico’s art market and art community. How can artists, museums, and galleries in New Mexico broaden their reach and become more connected internally and externally? How do critical issues in this state, such as diversity, activism, migration, and environmental concerns, relate to national conversations in the cultural sphere? And what makes New Mexico a singular place to create and engage with visual culture?

Forum features Louis Grachos, Philips Executive Director of SITE Santa Fe, Jadira Gurule, Art Museum and Visual Arts Program Manager at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache), writer, curator, and professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Marina Perez, scholar, educator, culture worker, and Ph.D. student at University of New Mexico. The forum will be moderated by Lauren Tresp, publisher and editor-in-chief of Southwest Contemporary, and co-curator of Southwest Contemporary’s 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023.