Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson dies, Texas artists galvanize support for flood survivors, IAIA welcomes a new president, and more top Southwest art news headlines for August 2025.
News
Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson Dies at 49:
Following a four-year long battle with terminal ovarian cancer, poet and queer advocate Andrea Gibson passed away on July 14 in their Colorado home surrounded by their family, friends, and beloved dogs. Gibson initially partook in poetry readings as a way of meeting people when they moved to Boulder in 1999, a fateful decision that would eventually lead them to become the state’s tenth poet laureate in 2023. In an Instagram post announcing their passing, their wife wrote, “Andrea would want you to know that they got their wish. In the end, their heart was covered in stretch marks.”
Central Texas Artists Mobilize to Support Flood Recovery Efforts:
Artists, galleries, and museums galvanized support for frontline communities ravaged by the catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe River on July 4, which killed at least 137 people. Jacqueline Overby, artistic director of Mothership Studios in San Marcos and a member of Austin’s Icosa Collective, grew up near the Guadalupe River. She’s no stranger to flash flooding, but she had never witnessed destruction of this scale. After posting a call for donations, she was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and believes arts organizers are uniquely positioned to respond effectively to climate disasters. “This was a really good example of how we can use those skills in other areas, specifically for emergency relief,” she says.
Sean Gaulager, executive director of Co-Lab Projects in Austin, joined Overby in distributing donations, and expressed similar reflections about the need to proactively consider the artist’s evolving role in an era of extreme weather events. “Perhaps we should be less surprised and more mobilized,” he says. The San Antonio Museum of Art also shared Kerrville’s official online resource hub for those looking to aid recovery efforts, and is offering free entry to residents of affected counties through the end of August.
SITE Santa Fe’s Once Within A Time Garners International Press Coverage:
In the month following the opening of the SITE Santa Fe International, the high-desert biennial landed at the forefront of global arts discourse. New York Times writer Patricia Leigh Brown reaffirmed Santa Fe’s position as “an essential art outpost.” Vogue zoomed in on Zhang Xu Zhan’s multimodal storytelling of Taiwanese history and resistance at the Museum of International Folk Art. The sprawling show was dubbed a “must-see” by Art in America. Overseas, the land of enchantment was on the radar of outlets such as Frieze, Arte al Día, and La Repubblica.
IAIA Federal Funding Appears to be Restored After Initial Budget Elimination Fears:
Robert Martin (Cherokee Nation) delivered some hopeful news on his final day as president of the Institute for American Indian Arts: The U.S. Senate approved full funding for the college at $13.482 million in a proposed Interior Appropriations Bill. This update comes after earlier iterations of the proposed budget slashed IAIA’s federal appropriations to zero, triggering a wave of online support and national press coverage. “We’re planning to go forward without any reductions impacting faculty staff positions or programming here,” said Martin, who is a doctor of education.
Also:
- Meow Wolf Workers Collective launched a strike fund for employees at the entertainment company’s Grapevine, Texas, location following eleven months of stalled negotiations. In Houston, workers at Meow Wolf Radio Tave announced their intent to unionize.
- Planning for Utah Museum of Contemporary Art’s relocation to downtown Salt Lake City is officially underway.
- Following a decades-long battle for recognition, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium announced that the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was expanded to cover downwinders and uranium workers in New Mexico. The consortium has participated in several of contemporary art exhibitions in Las Cruces.
- Eddington director Ari Aster returned to his hometown of Santa Fe for a special screening of the new film at the Center for Contemporary Arts.
- New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez called for bipartisan support of a lawsuit urging the Department of Education to unfreeze $7 billion worth of nationwide public school funding.
- Right-wing media pundit Ann Coulter posted “We didn’t kill enough Indians” on X in response to University of Minnesota professor Melanie Yazzie’s (Diné) remarks from 2023 on how decolonization can combat climate change. The post sparked widespread criticism from Indigenous leaders and advocacy groups.
- New Mexico tribal leaders and legislators are advocating for the protection of Chaco Canyon as Republicans push to revoke federal land protections and greenlight drilling projects in the area.
- While the federal government and corporations are moving to fast-track the first new uranium mines in New Mexico in over fifty years, a new exhibition at Center Santa Fe by photographer Shayla Blatchford (Diné) presents a counternarrative by exposing the harmful effects of uranium mining on tribal lands.
- An equity study conducted by Latinos in Heritage Conservation found that although Latinx communities comprise nearly 20% of the U.S. population, fewer than 1% of sites on the National Register of Historic Places reflect Latinx history. To address these gaps, the organization continues to expand its living archive of photos, storymapping, and oral histories through The Abuelas Project.
- Roswell Shorts, a new international indie short film festival, launches later this year, with the call for entries open through September 1.
- A delegation representing Yee Ha’ólníi Doo (Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund) gifted a rug woven by Florence Riggs (Diné) to the people of Ireland as a symbol of gratitude for their support during the height of the pandemic.
- The Boston Public Art Triennial recently launched its inaugural exhibition featuring installations by Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota), Nicholas Galanin (Lingit and Unangax), and the collective New Red Order, all of whom have Southwest ties.
- Southwest Contemporary contributor Sean J. Patrick Carney debuted Time Zero, a podcast examining the nuclear age through the perspectives of artists and activists throughout the Southwest. “I have found that art serves as a portal, cipher, and salve,” he writes in a reflection on the project for SWC.
Grants and Awards
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Awarded $75,000 Grant for Permanent Collection Support:
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College received a $75,000 grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art to support the reinstallation of the exhibition Gathering Place. Every three years, the evolving display presents new selections from the FAC’s permanent collections. Some key goals of the project include highlighting lesser-known histories in American art and procuring scholarly and community contributions for printed literature tied to the exhibition.
Southwest Arts Organizations Receive Over $400,000 in Grant Funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation:
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts announced its 2025 Spring Grant Cycle, awarding $4 million to fifty-one visual arts organizations and museums from twenty-five states around the country. UMOCA receives $100,000 for exhibition support. In New Mexico, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian receives a $60,000 grant for a new exhibition on Native American art in the wake of the Vietnam War. Among Arizona grantees, MOCA Tucson accepts $100,000 for exhibition support and the Phoenix Art Museum receives $50,000 for a curatorial research fellowship. In Colorado, MCA Denver lands $40,000 for curatorial research. Nevada’s IndigenousAF in Las Vegas receives $60,000 for program support over the next two years.
Harmony Hammond Awarded $100,000 Grant from Trellis Art Fund:
Trellis Art Fund announced the twelve artists in their 2025 Milestone Grant cohort, all of whom will receive a $100,000 unrestricted grant released in two installments over a two-year period. Representing the Southwest is Harmony Hammond, an artist, educator, writer, and independent curator who resides in Galisteo, New Mexico. Hammond was a vanguard of twentieth-century feminist and queer art movements, and her work was featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial.
Also:
- Ucross Foundation revealed the eleven film projects and fellows selected for the annual Sundance Institute Producers Lab.
- MOCA Tucson announced the recipients of the 2025 Night Bloom: Grants for Artists program, organized in partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This year’s awardees were selected by panelists for experimental approaches to community engagement across the Sonoran Desert.
- New Mexico’s El Palacio magazine received a national award for editing from the National Federation of Press Women.
- Santa Fe Film Institute awarded $40,000 to emerging filmmakers as part of its Regional and Los Luceros grant programs.
- Notable honorees for the City of Santa Fe‘s 2025 Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts include filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, IAIA’s chief communications officer Jason S. Ordaz, and SITE Santa Fe curator Brandee Caoba.
- Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas announced the winners of the 2025 Nasher Sculpture Center Artist Grant in Honor of Jeremy Strick.
Leadership Changes and Appointments
IAIA Board of Trustees Selects Dr. Shelly C. Lowe as Next IAIA President:
The Institute of American Indian Arts announced Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) as its new president. Prior to her appointment, which went into effect on August 1, she served as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, managing a $207 million annual federal budget and driving initiatives that advanced Indigenous education at the national level. Lowe has a PhD in higher education and higher education administration, and brings over twenty years of experience in senior administrative roles at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Arizona.
MOCA Tucson Appoints Gabriela Rangel as Executive Director:
Gabriela Rangel joins Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson as executive director, effective September 1. She brings over two decades of experience as a renowned curator, arts editor, and strategist to the museum. “I am excited to join MOCA Tucson at a time when its work is both locally rooted and globally relevant,” said Rangel. “The museum’s artist-founded, community-responsive spirit and its commitment to borderlands culture make it a vital site for experimentation, difference, and exchange.”
Also:
- Phoenix Art Museum appointed two new curators––Colin Pearson will serve as the institution’s Curator for Asian Art and Dr. JoAnna Reyes as its new Adjunct Curator for Art of the Americas.
- Jessica Kinsey resigned from Southern Utah Museum of Art after accepting an assistant professor position at her alma mater, the University of Oklahoma.
- Southwest Contemporary contributor Nicholas Frank, who is based in San Antonio, was named news editor of the Texas digital art magazine Glasstire following Jessica Fuentes’s promotion to editor-in-chief in June.
- Artist and longtime Institute of American Indian Arts professor Daisy Quezada Ureña (Mexican American) accepted a role as the next dean of academic affairs at the Santa Fe institution, effective June 2, 2025.
- Dr. Brittany Webb will join the Museum of Fine Arts Houston as a curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art.
- The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos added three new members to its governing board.
- Marisa Magallanez was named president and CEO of the Albuquerque Community Foundation, effective January 1, 2026.
