Opening: Arthur Lopez: Altar Visions of the West

In Altar Visions of the West, radical regionalist and brilliant wood carver Arthur Lopez tunes out the static of the mythologized frontier to celebrate the enduring, sacred craftsmanship rooted in the actual earth of the region. In this series, the mid-century television set is reimagined as a contemporary altar. Just as traditional New Mexican altar screens have historically provided a window into the divine, the vintage screen provided a window into a beautifully fabricated mythology.

Altar-Visions of the West, New Works by Arthur Lopez opens at King Galleries Santa Fe Spanish Market Weekend, Friday July 24th with a special reception from 5 to 7P. Lopez will be present for the opening night festivities. King Galleries is located at 130 Lincoln Ave, just off the historic Santa Fe plaza.

For generations, the global imagination has seen the American West through a cinematic lens—a landscape of Hollywood soundstages, romanticized archetypes, and exported myths. This vintage broadcast loop of cowboys and outlaws created a beautiful, shared story, but it often drifted above a much deeper, more tangible cultural reality that has thrived here for centuries.

In Altar Visions of the West, radical regionalist Arthur Lopez tunes out the static of the mythologized frontier to celebrate the enduring, sacred craftsmanship rooted in the actual earth of the region. In this series, the mid-century television set is reimagined as a contemporary altar. Just as traditional New Mexican altar screens have historically provided a window into the divine, the vintage screen provided a window into a beautifully fabricated mythology.

Lopez playfully collapses the distance between the sacred and the modern by hand-carving these “television” vessels entirely from wood, housing his figures within them.