Welcome to a new issue of Southwest Contemporary! After various pandemic-related hiccoughs—revenue losses, paper shortages, and printing cost increases—we’re more proud than ever to be presenting our most expansive issue to date.
Over the last year, we have broadened the scope of our editorial to encompass the entire Southwest—and sometimes beyond. In this issue, for instance, you’ll visit the studios of artists in Denver, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City (beginning on page 34). You’ll find an overview of some of the most vibrant DIY and artist-led creative spaces across the region (p. 58), receive a status update on arthouse film in five cities (p. 98), and hear from Dr. Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha) on her position as the first Indigenous curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (p. 78).
In addition to expanding our reach, we’ve also invested in our capacity to produce more content. Now, under the sharp leadership of our news editor Steve Jansen, we publish near-daily content online at southwestcontemporary.com. There, you can follow Southwest art news in real-time, from interviews with curators to breaking-news stories written by our team of forty-some contributors dispersed across six states. Also on our website: our ever-popular events calendar, classifieds listings, and art guide—three tools for navigating your way through the arts whether you’re a buyer, maker, or peruser. To stay in the loop with new content and resources, sign up for our email newsletter at southwestcontemporary.com/swc-newsletters.
In this issue, we’ve also launched two new sections. “Beginnings,” (p. 29) a series of short, creative pieces to ease you into this issue and the new “To-do List,” a curated round-up of SWC recommendations spanning food, travel, music, and more.
I invite you to patronize and support our community of advertisers. I’m proud to say that each of our advertisers is sincerely invested in their local and regional arts communities and is committed to supporting our mission of producing arts journalism and criticism. We could not do our work without their support.
If you also find yourself moved to support a local, independent art mag, please join the SWC Membership program! Members receive subscriptions and other perks like artist-designed merch, discounted event tickets, and more. To learn about our membership options, please visit southwestcontemporary.com/membership. If you’ve already joined us, thank you! Your membership means everything to us.
Thank you for reading,
Lauren Tresp
publisher + editor
