Southwest Contemporary publisher Lauren Tresp’s guide to museum and gallery exhibitions to see across the Southwest this spring.
It might not feel like it yet, what with the uncomfortable winds and muted brownness of New Mexico around me, but spring has arrived. Around these parts, the NM art community is waking from sleepy winter and prepping for a dynamic summer season. Elsewhere, seasons are winding down. However, the so-called shoulder season has a lot on offer all across the greater Southwest. If I can hit the road before getting caught up in the summer fun, here are the exhibitions on my list.
Arizona Art Exhibitions
Cecilia Vicuña: Sonoran Quipu
January 27–September 10, 2023
MOCA Tucson
If you’ve seen Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña’s monumental quipu sculptures at, say, the Tate Modern or the Venice Biennale, you know this exhibition is a special entry for MOCA Tucson—and the region. Sonoran Quipu belongs to Vicuña’s latest evolution of her quipu (an Indigenous form of communication) and precario sculptural forms, which she calls “a quipu of encounters.” Working collaboratively, Vicuña sourced detritus and debris from the human and natural worlds of the Tucson community and has woven these discarded items into a constellation or web that describes narratives and relationships suspended in a kind of visual poetry.
Desert Triangle Print Carpeta
June 3–December 21, 2023
University of Arizona Museum of Art
The Desert Triangle Print Carpeta was born in 2014 as a project to highlight contemporary printmakers living in the desert triangle between El Paso, Tucson, and Albuquerque, and has since grown to include further stretches of the Southwest, including across the U.S.-Mexico border. The brainchild of Karl Whitaker, this exhibition features twenty-nine artists from across the region who each created a print on a twenty-two-by-thirty-inch paper.
California Art Exhibitions
Desert X 2023
March 4–May 7, 2023
Coachella Valley, California
I may have written critically of Desert X 2021, but I still can’t help but wish I was Palm Springs-bound this spring. This Coachella Valley biennial brings large-scale, site-specific installations to the desert and invites viewers to drive around the valley on a scavenger hunt of sorts. While the 2021 edition focused on the desert as an intersection between the human and natural worlds, this year’s edition seeks to further this theme by considering water.
Colorado Art Exhibitions
Exit Paradise
March 18–April 30, 2023
Seidel City Contemporary Art Gallery, Boulder
Denver’s Month of Photography put the group exhibition Exit Paradise and art space Seidel City on my radar. The exhibition includes work by Mark Sink, a longtime Denver artist and photographer and founder of Denver MOP, and Kristen Hatgi Sink, whose work never fails to provoke a visceral reaction, as well as a collaborative performative photography series by Colorado artist Sherry Wiggins and photographer Luís Filipe Branco. While MOP was technically celebrated in March, this show continues through April 30 with an artist talk on Saturday, April 15, 2-4 pm.
Nevada Art Exhibitions
Modern Desert Markings: An Homage to Las Vegas Area Land Art
March 14–July 8, 2023
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Curated by Southwest Contemporary contributor and art historian Hikmet Sidney Loe and president of Nevadans for Cultural Preservation Katie Hoffman, Modern Desert Markings presents works by ten contemporary artists that respond to or critique Land Art works by Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, and Jean Tinguely. Considering historical land art pieces left vulnerable to erosive forces as well as the impacts of future land works on the environment, this exhibition confronts the history of the movement and provides insight into the future of these kinds of artistic interventions in the environment. The exhibition is accompanied by virtual symposia on April 6 and June 8, registration is available online.
New Mexico Art Exhibitions
Going with the Flow: Art, Actions, and Western Waters
April 14–July 31, 2023
SITE Santa Fe
Following Southwest Contemporary’s own investigations into water and artistic responses to ongoing water crises throughout the Western region in our latest issue—Finding Water in the West—of course I’m eager to see SITE Santa Fe’s exhibition exploring similar themes this spring. Curated by Brandee Caoba and Lucy Lippard, Going with the Flow will include work by Basia Irland, Paula Castillo, Sharon Stewart, artist collective M12, and the multidisciplinary project There Must Be Other Names For The River. In addition to the gallery presentation, I’m most looking forward to the off-site activations and performances that will engage materially with the element in question. See SITE’s website for programming dates.
Jugnet + Clairet: Midnight Blue _A Survey
March 10–April 10, 2023
GF Contemporary, Santa Fe
I first had the pleasure of encountering the work of Galisteo, New Mexico–based artists Anne-Marie Jugnet and Alain Clairet at now-closed Mayeur Projects in Las Vegas. Catching this mini retrospective survey on Canyon Road is a special opportunity to see this duo’s conceptual collaborative work, which has been shown frequently internationally but has too often flown under the radar here in New Mexico despite their work’s engagement with the landscapes of the American Southwest.
Dina Perlasca: Campos de Fuerza / Force Fields
June 16–August 27, 2023
Roswell Museum
El Paso-based Mexican American artist Dina Perlasca will have her first solo museum exhibition at the Roswell Museum this year, presenting Campos de Fuerza, or Force Fields. In this exhibition, Perlasca takes the physics of force fields—non-physical forces such as gravitational pull—as an imaginative tool to bring together her ancestral past with present-day sense of community cohesion. “I believe that there are universal systems of engineering, spirituality, and practical practices, as these systems are functional, useful, and needed by all,” she says. “We share the need for a greater entity to believe in, the need for stability, the need for shelter, the need for nourishment, the need to hold on to something bigger than oneself, and the need to be part of a community.” The exhibition will open with a reception and artist talk on Friday, June 16, 5:30-7 pm.
Texas Art Exhibitions
Day Jobs
February 19–July 23, 2023
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin
It’s no secret that many, if not most, artists have “day jobs” alongside their creative practices. The Blanton’s exhibition Day Jobs is the first major show to consider not only how day jobs economically and fiscally facilitate an artistic practice, but also how working across different fields and industries can creatively impact an artist’s work. The exhibition is positioned as a corrective to idealistic narratives of insular artistic genius and a reconsideration of artists’ careers as falling within multiple intertwined concerns and demands.
Wyoming Art Exhibitions
Field Guide: Teresa Baker + Anthony Hudson + Jessica Mehta + Eliza Naranjo Morse
March 3–July 30, 2023
Ucross Art Gallery, Sheridan
Curated by Andrea Hanley (Navajo), curator of the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe, Field Guide presents work by four Indigenous artists who have been recipients of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists, a program established by the Ucross Foundation in 2017. Works by Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa), Anthony Hudson (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians), Jessica Mehta (Cherokee Nation), and Eliza Naranjo Morse (Santa Clara Pueblo) will be on view at the Ucross Art Gallery through July 30, with an artist talk scheduled for May 5, 11 am at Sheridan College.
