From contemporary Korean photography and a time-spanning collection of Andean fiber arts to a bubbling biennial on the U.S.-Mexico border, let these exhibitions across the Southwest be bright lights of inspiration on these short, dark days.
As you head off to enjoy the festivities of the season with friends and family, you may also need to steal away for some time to yourself. Consider the opportunity to bask in the quietude and inspiration of an art space. From contemporary Korean photography and a time-spanning collection of Andean fiber arts to classics by John Chamberlain and a bubbling biennial on the U.S.-Mexico border, let these exhibitions across the Southwest and beyond be bright spots on these short, short days. After all, it’s better to light a candle than curse the winter darkness.
Arizona Art Exhibitions
CUMBI: Textiles, Society, and Memory in Andean South America
October 14, 2023–February 25, 2024
Tucson Museum of Art
In CUMBI (a Quechua word for the most intricate and virtuosic Inka weavings), the Tucson Museum of Art presents textile works spanning 2000 years—from ancient weavings by Wari, Chimú, and Inka cultures to contemporary works by artists inspired by Andean ancestry. Expansive and surprising in its mix of works across time and space, CUMBI delights in the enduring power and tactile appeal of the fiber arts.
Wonders and Witness: Contemporary Photography from Korea
November 18, 2023–January 27, 2024
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson
Wonders and Witness, presented in partnership with the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, is a sprawling exhibition of large-scale photographic works capturing contemporary life in Korea. With a focus on the every day, images by twelve Korean photographers allow viewers to peer into scenes of intimate family life, urban and domestic spaces, popular culture phenomena, recreation, and more.
Colorado Art Exhibitions
Gala Porras-Kim: A Hand in Nature
March 8–September 1, 2024
MCA Denver
True, A Hand in Nature opens in March, but this fangirl just can’t wait. Gala Porras-Kim’s interdisciplinary practice pokes and pries at the infrastructures of museums, practices of collection and preservation, and the mechanics by which cultural objects are given value. According to the MCA Denver’s press release, this forthcoming exhibition promises to expand into the natural world, furthering the artist’s practice to encompass aspects of the lived environment.
John Chamberlain: THE TIGHTER THEY’RE WOUND, THE HARDER THEY UNRAVEL
December 15, 2023–April 7, 2024
Aspen Art Museum
The Aspen Art Museum presents the first museum survey of John Chamberlain’s work in more than a decade. Curated by artist Urs Fischer, the exhibition will bring together Chamberlain’s classic sculptures made of crushed and folded automobile parts with early and late sculptural experiments, along with lesser-known foam sculptures and photographic works.
Nevada Art Exhibitions
The Emotional Show
August 28, 2023–March 16, 2024
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas
If the holiday season and/or current affairs more generally are making this an emotional time for you, The Emotional Show is here for it. Though it’s perhaps a rather curious exhibition title, who better than artists to give us visual representations of our most flummoxing internal sensations?
New Mexico Art Exhibitions
Shadow and Light
September 23, 2023–April 28, 2024
Vladem Contemporary, Santa Fe
The inaugural exhibition of the new Vladem Contemporary museum, Shadow and Light is a crowd-pleasing exhibition that contemplates the play of, well, shadow and light, as perceptual elements within sculpture, installations, drawings, video, and wall pieces. With modernist and contemporary works in a bright and shiny new building, this show is family-friendly enough for casual viewing and contains some real gems of New Mexico’s modern art history.
Oklahoma Art Exhibitions
Here be Dragons: Mapping the Real and Imagined
January 17–December 29, 2024
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
The phrase “here be dragons” comes from the Medieval practice of illustrating monsters or mythological creatures in the areas of maps yet to be charted—thus illustrating the potential danger of the unknown. The exhibition Here be Dragons at the Philbrook Museum of Art takes this phrase as a jumping-off point to explore artworks and images of places and lands based in reality and fantasy, which in turn serves to explore more “abstract conceptions of land,” such as history, memory, and “the contested nature of property and ownership.”
Texas Art Exhibitions
Border Biennial/Bienal Fronteriza
December 15, 2023–April 14, 2024
El Paso Museum of Art
A binational collaboration organized by the El Paso Museum of Art and the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez, the Border Biennial returns for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2024 exhibition in El Paso includes fifty artists living within 200 miles north and south of the U.S.-Mexico border, and will be followed by a companion exhibition at MACJ in Juárez opening on January 19, 2024. With more than 100 artworks on view, the biennial explores various themes as they relate to the unique identity and experience of the border region, including family, gender, race, migration, environment, labor, politics, and more.
Guadalupe Maravilla, Mariposa Relámpago
November 4, 2023–March 16, 2024
Ballroom Marfa
Guadalupe Maravilla’s large-scale sculpture Mariposa Relámpago, which translates to “lightning butterfly,” looks like it is part vehicle and part shrine, ready to take you up and away. Inspired by his personal history of migration from El Salvador to the United States and the trauma and recovery from cancer, Maravilla’s art practice often considers ancient methods of healing, brings awareness to trauma, and emphasizes access to healing—in particular, through the use of vibrational sound.
Mexico Art Exhibitions
Mexico City Art Week 2024
February 7–11, 2024
various locations, CDMX
In 2023, I had the opportunity to attend Mexico City’s Art Week, and I wish I could return again in 2024! From the grande-dame influential art and design fair Zona Maco to the ultra-contemporary Feria Material and artist-driven Salón Acme (to name a few), CDMX’s art week is an incredible opportunity to get out of your bubble and discover artists and galleries in Mexico, Latin America, and all over the world—not to mention exploring all that Mexico City’s art scene has to offer.
