Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
New Businesses/Organizations
Current Work, Salt Lake City
Current Work (826 South 500 West, Suite 2), led by founder and director Tiffini Porter, exhibits emerging and established contemporary artists working in a variety of media. The gallery’s debut show, Friends of Friends, one of Southwest Contemporary’s exhibitions of note for fall 2022, is currently open by appointment through September 30, 2022, and during the Salt Lake Gallery Stroll on Friday, September 16, 6-9 pm.
Flyby Provisions, Albuquerque
Flyby Provisions, a retail shop that opened in June 2022 at 201 Coal Avenue SW (at 2nd Street SW) in downtown Albuquerque, is partnering with Old Town’s Lapis Room to open an art annex that will act as a complementary space for Lapis Room’s art center. The space kicks off on Friday, September 2, 2022 with a reception and display of works by Reyes Padilla, Abdiel Beltrán, and Jessica Roybal.
Grants and Awards
National Endowment for the Humanities Reveals Latest Round of Grants
The NEH, chaired by Shelly C. Lowe (Diné), announced $31.5 million in grants given to 226 nationwide humanities projects for collaborative and individual research, the preservation of historic collections, humanities exhibitions and documentaries, and education programs for teachers. Learn more about Lowe, the first Native American chair of the NEH, in a recent Southwest Contemporary story.
Southwest area projects include:
Arizona
Arizona Department of Libraries, Archives and Public Records
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
Museum of Contemporary Art Flagstaff
Northern Arizona University
University of Arizona (six different humanities projects affiliated with the university)
Nevada
Board of Regents Nevada System of Higher Education
New Mexico
University of New Mexico (two different humanities projects affiliated with the university)
Oklahoma
Kathryn Schumaker via the University of Oklahoma
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Texas
Baylor University
University of Texas at El Paso (two different humanities projects affiliated with the university)
Texas A&M University-San Antonio
Utah
Southern Utah University
Heard Museum Garners Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services
The IMLS awarded $245,678 in grant funds to the Heard Museum in Phoenix to “improve the care and access to the Heard’s extensive collection of American Indian materials, books, artist documentation, and archives housed in the museum’s library, the Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives,” reads a press release from the Heard.
Houston’s DiverseWorks Announces 2022 Project Freeway Fellows
Stacey Allen and the husband-and-wife team of Azel Agustin and Laura Moreno have been announced as DiverseWorks’s Project Freeway fellows for fall 2022. The program allows artists to activate social-change and community-based projects in neighborhoods where the fellows live and create. Learn more about Project Freeway in a 2021 story in SWC.
Utah Museum of Fine Arts Granted Funds to Develop the Arts for Older Adults
UMFA in Salt Lake City is one of nine nationwide museums to receive a grant that is part of E.A. Michelson Philanthropy’s Vitality Arts Project for Art Museums to develop arts programs for older audiences. “This new initiative will help art museums strategically reframe their relationships with older adults,” states a press release.
Tucson Artist Named a 2022 Ford Foundation Disability Futures Fellow
Naomi Ortiz (she/they), a poet, writer, and visual artist, was named as one of twenty fellows for Disability Futures in 2022. The initiative, developed by disabled practitioners in collaboration with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by United States Artists, spotlights “the work of disabled creatives across disciplines and geography and amplify their voices individually and collectively,” reads a Ford Foundation news release.
Leadership Changes and Appointments
Former New Mexico Museum of Art Curator Merry Scully Becomes an Arts Director in California
Deep-rooted Santa Fe curator Merry Scully departed the New Mexico Museum of Art to become the executive director at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art at California State University, San Bernardino. Read Scully’s reflections on New Mexico and what she’s looking forward to in California in an August 17, 2022 SWC news story.
Ballroom Marfa Names New Executive Director
Daisy Nam, a Ballroom Marfa curator since 2020, has also assumed the role of executive director of the West Texas contemporary art museum. She replaces Laura Copelin, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson’s new curator-at-large and the subject of a recent SWC curator profile.
Phoenix Art Museum Curator Heads to Florida
Longtime Phoenix Art Museum curator Gilbert Vicario will become the chief curator at Pérez Art Museum Miami starting October 2022. A Phoenix Art Museum press release says that Vicario helped expand and diversify the Phoenix Art Museum’s modern and contemporary art and Latin American art collections during his seven-year tenure.
Presidential Appointment for Albuquerque Museum Director
President Joe Biden appointed Andrew Connors, Albuquerque Museum director since 2018, to serve on the eleven-member Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which helps advise the federal government when working with foreign governments in protecting historical artifacts.
New Look Curatorial Team at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
The Fort Worth Modern’s curatorial team, led by chief curator Andrea Karnes, now consists of curator María Elena Ortiz, curator Alison Hearst, and assistant curator Clare Milliken.
