Just in time for cooler temps, SWC publisher and editor Lauren Tresp picks twenty-two must-see exhibitions across the Southwest.
I’m writing this after spending a week in New York, hoofing it across the city to see all the art I could. And, as I always feel after spending a week in New York, it’s such a pride-inducing pleasure to be home in the Southwest, in New Mexico, where our visual arts scene is as inspiring, powerful, and impactful as any other. And for me, personally, perhaps the work I see around me here is more important, because it grapples more with cultural concerns than market forces; it can unfurl across space rather than squeeze into the highly pressurized metropolis.
Of course, it’s harder to hoof it across this region, where seeing a wide range of shows often requires hitting the road. But the coolness of fall brings a new slate of shows worth venturing out for. Below are the three shows I want to see the most, along with the rest of my fall to-do list.
Dixon Studio Tour
various studios / Dixon, NM
November 1–2, 2025
Okay, this may not be an exhibition, but the Dixon Studio Tour is a fall highlight for me. It’s worth trekking the Low Road to Taos up the Rio Grande to duck into historic adobe houses and studios, visit with artists who have called the area home for decades, sip a glass of wine at one of the valley’s vineyards under the fall colors, and take home a special artwork. It’s the height of authentic Northern New Mexican charm.
Eva Gabriella Flynn: Made of This Place
Francis McCray Gallery, WNMU / Silver City, NM
October 23–November 20, 2025
I’ll use anything as an excuse to get to Silver City, but this is an especially good excuse. Based in southern New Mexico, Eva Gabriella Flynn’s work engages with identity, belonging, and deep histories in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her work represents a kind of hyperlocal engagement that injects rich textural detail and the nuances of lived experience back into national narratives that are too frequently flattened.
Hillerbrand+Magsamen: nothing is precious, everything is game
Fotofest, Houston
October 8–November 22, 2025
Hillerbrand+Magsamen (Mary Magsamen and Stephan Hillerbrand) appeared in Volume 1 of Southwest Contemporary, presenting, with their children as key collaborators, an idiosyncratic vision of everyday household items playfully transformed into Devices for practices such as “awakening creativity,” or “interpolating confidence” in their series 147 Devices for Integrated Principles. This fall, Fotofest presents the duo’s first mid-career survey with photographs, videos, and sculptural objects spanning multiple series, and a number of performances and programs. They will also premiere Mountains, an experimental live-cinema performance narrated by Kirk Lynn, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on October 18.
Arizona Art Exhibitions
- Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis / Center for Creative Photography, Tucson / August 23–December 6, 2025.
- Ofrenda en Alfombra / MOCA Tucson / October 16–November 2, 2025.
- The Presence of Ancestors: Sonya Clark, Angela Ellsworth, and Ato Ribeiro / Lisa Sette Gallery, Phoenix / October 4–December 27, 2025.
- The Skin We Live In: Miguel Casco and Ramon Sanmiquel with artists from the collections of Dan Leach and Douglas Nielsen / Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery, Pima Community College, Tucson / October 27–December 12, 2025.
Colorado Art Exhibitions
- Andrea Carlson: A Constant Sky / Denver Art Museum / October 5, 2025–February 16, 2026.
- MediaLive: Data Rich, Dirt Poor / Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art / September 11, 2025–January 11, 2026.
- Roni Horn: Water, Water on the Wall, You’re the Fairest of Them All / MCA Denver / September 12, 2025–February 15, 2026.
- What We Hold On To / Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum Headquarters, Englewood / September 5–December 12, 2025.
New Mexico Art Exhibitions
- Cara and Diego Romero: Tales of Futures Past / Albuquerque Museum / November 1, 2025–February 8, 2026.
- claudia hermano: TIL WE ARE FULL / Strata Gallery, Santa Fe / November 4–14, 2025.
- Dietmar Busse: The Forest Has a Thousand Eyes / Daniel Cooney Fine Art, Santa Fe / September 20–November 1, 2025.
- Taos Abstract Artist Collective 4th Annual Fall Exhibition / Stables Gallery, Taos Center for the Arts / November 1–9, 2025.
Texas Art Exhibitions
- Hannah Spector: if you stare at a cowboy’s face for long enough, it turns into a sunset / Women & Their Work, Austin / September 27–November 16, 2025.
- Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting / Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth / October 12, 2025–January 18, 2026.
- Raychael Stine: Falls and Springs and Stardust Things / Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas / September 6–October 25, 2025.
Utah Art Exhibitions
- Elizabeth Malaska: 2025 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting / Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City / September 26, 2025–January 3, 2026.
- Gaze Into These Eyes / Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT / September 26, 2025–January 4, 2026.
- salt 17: Adama Delphine Fawundu / Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City / September 13, 2025–June 14, 2026.
- Stephanie Leitch: Heaven and Earth: Attached by One Pillar / St. George Museum of Art, St. George, UT / September 6–November 15, 2025.
