Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
News
Salt Lake City Contemporary Art Gallery Announces Closure
Current Work, which helped fill a gap in Salt Lake City’s contemporary art scene when the gallery opened in summer 2022, will shutter operations. Director Tiffini Porter has decided to focus on her consulting practice and independent projects. Meanwhile, the gallery, housed inside of the Granary District building that also contains artist Gary Vlasic’s V. Project Studios, will become Vlasic’s creative office and project space under the name V. Project. During its run, Current Work hosted seven exhibitions featuring twenty Utah artists, including sculptural pieces fashioned from broken skateboards by artist and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art curator Jared Steffensen.
Grants and Awards
Meow Wolf Foundation Announces Inaugural Grantees
The Meow Wolf Foundation has granted a total of $600,000 to sixty-three arts and cultural organizations throughout Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas as part of its inaugural community grant program. Recipients include Cleo Parker Robinson Dance in Denver, IndigenousAF in Las Vegas, Reunity Resources in Santa Fe, and Cara Mía Theatre in Dallas.
Santa Fe Art Institute Names 2024 Sovereignty Residents
Forty-seven nationwide and worldwide artists have been selected to participate in SFAI’s annual thematic residency program, which begins in January 2024. The sought-after residency “calls for artistic and creative engagement at the multiple intersections of sovereignty as it pertains to the individual, jurisdictions, systems, and society as a whole.”
Leadership Changes and Appointments
Nasher Sculpture Center Director Announces Retirement
Jeremy Strick, director of the Nasher, will retire from the Dallas museum effective June 2024. Strick, who led the museum for three-quarters of its twenty-year lifespan, leaves the institution after a forty-year career in the arts that includes a director position at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and senior curatorial work at the Art Institute of Chicago, Saint Louis Art Museum, and National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Ghost Ranch Tabs New CEO
Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center in Abiquiú, New Mexico, has named David Evans as the center’s new CEO beginning January 15, 2024. Evans comes from a career in social and environmental justice, humanitarian aid, and community empowerment, including serving as Mekong regional director at EarthRights International and the international and country director at Muslim Aid in Myanmar.
Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Executive Director Announces Departure
Polly Nordstrand (Hopi), executive director of MIAC in Santa Fe, is leaving her position effective December 1. According to press materials, Nordstrand, who started at MIAC in November 2022 after serving as the first curator of Native American art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, is relocating to California to be closer to family.
