Suki Seokyeong Kang dies amid landmark Southwest show, Nevada Humanities gets a lifeline after NEH cuts, and more top Southwest art news headlines for May 2025.
News
Suki Seokyeong Kang, Visionary Korean Artist, Dies at 47 Amid Landmark U.S. Show:
South Korean artist Suki Seokyeong Kang passed away after a multiyear battle with cancer on April 27 at forty-seven. (She was forty-eight based on the Korean method of counting age.) Her final and most extensive U.S. exhibition, Mountain—Hour—Face, is on view at MCA Denver through May 4. Artnet‘s obituary quotes Kang: “I am not the type of artist who suggests grand visions for the future, but more of an artist who tries to talk about things that happen in close proximity in the present.”
Daisy Simms, Quechan Elder and Beadwork Luminary of Arizona, Dies at 88:
Daisy Simms, a beloved Quechan elder and master bead artist, died on March 1 at eighty-eight. “The Quechan Tribe — and Arizona — lost one of its cultural treasures,” writes Debra Utacia Krol for Arizona Republic. Simms was a master of Colorado River Valley beaded collar necklaces, which denote a woman’s tribe or clan and require thousands of seed beads. “She was able to teach you anything,” Simms’s granddaughter told Krol. “She taught beadwork, she taught language, she taught about the Lord when she was in church.”
Nevada Humanities Gets Mellon Lifeline After Federal Funding Slashed:
After losing 75% of its annual funding due to NEH cuts enacted by the federal Department of Government Efficiency, Nevada Humanities is scrambling to keep programs alive. A $200,000 emergency grant and $50,000 matching challenge from the Mellon Foundation offer temporary relief, but the organization says the one-time support won’t fill the long-term gap.
New Initiative Aims to Protect Latinx Historic Sites from Erasure—and It Starts in the Southwest:
The Texas-based nonprofit Latinos in Heritage Conservation launched Endangered Latinx Landmarks, a nationwide effort to protect Latinx historic sites from demolition, gentrification, and climate threats. Timed with Preservation Month, the program invites community nominations and uses real-time mapping to track “lost, endangered, and saved” sites—calling attention to a stark gap in federal recognition, where less than 1% of listed landmarks honor Latinx heritage.
Also:
- Sanitary Tortilla Factory, a grassroots arts space founded by artist-organizer sheri crider, is relocating from its longtime home in a former tortilla restaurant on 2nd Street to a historic JC Penney building in downtown Albuquerque. The move marks a major expansion, with new studios, a contemporary gallery, a new media space, and a forthcoming reentry-focused arts program.
- The National Hispanic Cultural Center’s Visual Art Museum reopened on April 25 following repairs from a January water leak, debuting the new exhibition Voces del Pueblo: Artists of the Levantamiento Chicano in New Mexico.
- Best Western Art Gallery in Santa Fe closed after four years of experimental programming, as founders Shane Tolbert and Jamie Sterling Pitt shift focus back to their own studio practices.
- Taos Art Museum unveiled two major additions—the Janis and Roy Coffee Gallery and the Nathaniel “Nat” Troy Art and Archival Building—marking a significant expansion of its exhibition and collections space.
- A living artifact of space travel, a pine sapling grown from a seed that orbited the moon aboard Artemis I, debuted as part of a new exhibition at Las Cruces’s New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in early April.
- Salt Lake City tapped artist Matthew Mazzotta to create a major public artwork for Glendale Park, inviting West Side residents to shape the project through community Outdoor Living Room events this spring.
- Elaine Wynn, the billionaire arts patron who championed a new Las Vegas art museum in partnership with LACMA, died at 82, but the project she helped launch is expected to move forward as a lasting part of her legacy.
- The Nevada Museum of Art and the University of Nevada, Reno formalized a new partnership that will bring UNR classes into the museum’s expanding campus, offering students hands-on access to art, archives, and interdisciplinary research resources starting this fall.
- Austin’s Blanton Museum raised nearly $1.2 million at its 2025 fundraiser—a “stylish, Western-themed gala,” according to Tribeza.
- Over 250 international students at Texas universities had their legal immigration statuses abruptly revoked due to expanded federal enforcement policies targeting minor infractions and political speech. Following legal challenges and public outcry, the Trump administration temporarily reinstated many of these students’ statuses, though uncertainty remains as new guidelines are developed.
Grants and Awards
Tucson Museum of Art Honored for Innovative Community-Centered Toolkit:
Six Emerging Artists Selected for Immersive 2025 Namingha Institute Residency:
Six emerging artists are currently at the 2025 Namingha Institute, a two-week residency at the Museum of Northern Arizona where they’re studying with renowned Hopi-Tewa artists Dan and Arlo Namingha, engaging with museum collections, and creating new work rooted in cultural exchange and place.
Also:
- Creative Flagstaff honored a new class of cultural changemakers at the 17th annual Viola Awards on April 26, celebrating standout artists, educators, and organizations who embody the creative spirit of Flagstaff. Individual honorees ranged from emerging artist Ian Hall to veteran educator Heather Cureton, while Open Doors: Art in Action and the Flagstaff Foundry were recognized for their collaborative and community-driven impact.
- Portland-based artist Elizabeth Malaska won the 2025 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting, receiving $15,000 and a solo exhibition at UMOCA for her richly layered, myth-infused works exploring identity, protection, and transformation.
- The Clyfford Still Museum announced six fellows for its 2025 Residential Fellowship Program, including artist and musician Geovanni “Geo” Barrios, art critic Kealey Boyd, and Colville Tribes artist-scholar Michael Holloman, who will engage with the museum’s collection through the lenses of art, education, and social enterprise this July.
- Film Prize Junior New Mexico’s 2025 festival drew record participation with 192 student films from twenty-two counties, awarding over $12,000 in scholarships and media grants to young filmmakers, teachers, and schools statewide.
Leadership Changes and Appointments
Renowned Curator to Helm Nasher Sculpture Center:
The Nasher Sculpture Center appointed internationally renowned curator Carlos Basualdo—known for his transformative work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and major exhibitions like Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror—as its next director.
Palm Springs Art Museum Director to Conclude Tenure After Four Years:
Adam Lerner will conclude his transformative four-year tenure as executive director of the Palm Springs Art Museum at the end of his contract, leaving behind a revitalized institution marked by increased engagement, LGBTQ+ programming, and major architectural initiatives.
Tucson Museum of Art Taps Seasoned Museum Leader for Top Role:
Anne Breckenridge Barrett joined the Tucson Museum of Art as its new director and CEO, bringing decades of museum leadership—from the Center for Creative Photography to MCA Chicago—to guide the institution into its second century.
Also:
- After nearly three decades of shaping Albuquerque’s public art landscape—including eighteen years as Public Art Division Manager—Sherri Brueggemann retires with a legacy of innovation, community partnerships, and interstellar imagination.
- Kate Alderete, former Deputy State Librarian and past president of the New Mexico Library Association, accepted a role as director of the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Public Library.
- Southwest Contemporary contributor Denise Zubizarreta joined the New Mexico Local News Fund as director of development and communications.
- Nicole Herden, who has extensive museum leadership experience spanning from Colorado Springs to Phoenix, becomes executive director of the Ellen Noël Art Museum in Odessa, TX, as it prepares to open a major new facility later this year.
