Nic Nicosia Isn’t Doing This on Purpose (or Maybe He Is)
Is Nic Nicosia's work utterly surreal? Deeply autobiographical? His Dallas retrospective plumbs an oeuvre brimming with play and pain.
July 21, 2026
sculpture
Critics Called the Whitney Biennial “Weird”—These Southwest Artists Say That’s the Point
New Mexico–based besties Erin Jane Nelson and Sarah M. Rodriguez are both in New York's Whitney Biennial. They have notes on its critical reception.
June 30, 2026
Nani Chacon’s Whitney Biennial Sentinels Tell of Southwest Extraction, and Rematriation
Nani Chacon's steel gods at the Whitney Museum match Manhattan's skyline. Now she's bringing the project home to the Navajo Nation.
June 25, 2026
Dual Colorado Exhibitions by Ana María Hernando Unfurl Revolutionary Ideas in Tulle
In the wake of Argentina’s last dictatorship, Ana María Hernando's artwork only grew softer. Her practice is undergirded by "unstoppable" community.
June 11, 2026
Feature2026 New Mexico Field GuideNew Mexico
Adobe Eternal
This summer, Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros brings together six artists working in adobe, tracing the material from ancestral building tradition to radical contemporary art practice.
May 22, 2026
Artist Lily Reeves Believes Neon is Magic—Can She Convert the Rest of Us?
Neon nearly died at the altar of the LED revolution. Phoenix-based artist Lily Reeves is working to resurrect it, with literal witchcraft.
May 14, 2026
César Chávez Allegations Trigger Artwork Removals—and Concerns of Cultural Erasure
Before a recent fall from grace, Chávez was a rare Latino hero in Southwest public art. Now, arts leaders are asking how to de-center an icon without obscuring entire histories.
April 30, 2026
Mother-Daughter Show in Arizona Surveys the Melding—and Mitosis—of Artistic Inheritance
In their first-ever joint show in Scottsdale, Beth Ames Swartz and her daughter Julianne Swartz draw from shared esoteric knowledge to astonishingly varied ends.
April 28, 2026
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 13 The Road
Return of the Buffalo
On a road trip across the former rangelands of the American bison, Cannupa Hanska Luger envisions a new monument.
March 20, 2026
The Road: Hannah Spector
Inspired by recurring trips to an almost-ghost town in Texas, Hannah Spector makes haunting multimedia installations.
March 20, 2026
Arrows on the Quanah Parker Trail
The “largest art installation in the world” covers the land in Texas once shared by bison, Comanche, and their horses. As a memorial, it represents but does little to repair.
March 20, 2026
The Road: Verónica Gaona
Houston-based artist Verónica Gaona sculpts car parts, twisting and denting patriarchal notions of the American gestalt.
March 20, 2026
PhotographyArizonaVol. 13 The Road
Bikini-Clad in the Body Shop, Liz Cohen Reframes Women’s Labor
Photographer and sculptor Liz Cohen visualizes "radically transformed bodies," revealing how labor reshapes machines and people.
March 20, 2026
An Artist Who Put His Stamp on the Southwest—and Vice Versa
After Ed Mell’s passing, his Phoenix studio tells the story of a low-key artist whose Southwest images reached the nation on a postage stamp and beyond.
January 29, 2026
Guided by Pueblo Artists, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Unclenches from Foundational Myth
Tewa artists and scholars offer a challenge—along with tea, letters, and a remarkable map—to an institution whose namesake claimed their ancestral lands.
January 27, 2026
An Artist Who Recasts Care as Ceremony, from Kitchen to Nail Salon
Tucson-based artist Anh-Thuy Nguyen declares "rice is mother" in her current solo exhibition. At her studio, a visit begins with a meal.
January 20, 2026
Unpacking the Uneasy Cultural Hybridity of Paula Castillo’s Denver Monoliths
In Paula Castillo's three new public artworks across downtown Denver, cultural fusion is an optimistic and ideologically risky proposition.
January 15, 2026
Sprung from Suburbia, Summer Raine Young Seeks Inherent Queerness of a Desert City
In cyanotypes and soft sculptures, genderfluid artist maps queer elements of Phoenix—from dilapidated signs to their own body.
January 08, 2026
Places Planted in the Mind: Jorge Ruiz Brings Together Cross-Border Towns, in Miniature
Jorge Ruiz intertwines Tucson and Nogales in his exhibition at Arizona's Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. His "imperfect" process is grueling.
October 28, 2025
Don’t Call it “O’Keeffe Country”: Two Pueblo Artists Take Back New Mexico’s Map
From a courtroom to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Native artists Mateo Romero and Jason Garcia are correcting the records.
September 30, 2025
PhotographyTexasVol. 12 Obsession
Phoebe Shuman-Goodier Transfigures Trash into Tender Monuments of Care and Possibility
Phoebe Shuman-Goodier’s photography marks her sculptural collaborations with her father, and a shared obsession with transforming a junkyard into art.
September 05, 2025
ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession
Obsession: Taylor Engel
Artist Taylor Engel’s varied and chaotic artworks envelop viewers in a shared experience of all-consuming obsession, codependency, and repetition.
September 05, 2025
ReviewNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession
In Abstracting Nature, New Mexico Artists Collaborate with Wild Entropic Powers
Natural entropy is a tool—and a sustainable ethos—for ten artists in Abstracting Nature at the Albuquerque Museum.
September 05, 2025
The Medium is their Message: Compulsion and Identity in Zion
Artists Stephanie Leitch, Angela Ellsworth, and Nancy Rivera use materially obsessive processes to reflect on the mythos of Utah.
September 05, 2025
Peek Inside Mysterious Southwest Land Artworks You May Never Visit
From James Turrell’s Roden Crater in Arizona to Charles Ross’s Star Axis in New Mexico, some Southwest land art is stubbornly elusive.
August 14, 2025
An Artist Who Braids Cultures, from the Porcelain Trade to Beyoncé
Jennifer Ling Datchuk's live-wire practice is rooted in ceramics but branches into performance, installation—and biting cultural critique.
July 24, 2025
Modern Nature: The Contemporary Art Guide to Southwest Botanical Gardens
Southwest botanical gardens have reshaped their grounds as living museums for stunning—and challenging—contemporary art. Discover seven culture-filled desert oases.
July 03, 2025
Guide to the SITE Santa Fe International: Every Artist, Venue, and Special Project
SITE’s citywide exhibition Once Within a Time is about surreal flow—not completionism. Here’s your primer, with tips from insiders Cecilia Alemani and Brandee Caoba.
June 24, 2025
Texas Artist Michael Tracy Channeled the Violence and Transcendence of the Borderlands
Late artist Michael Tracy hit the Texas border village of San Ygnacio like a "cyclone." His creative aggression melded with an empathic awareness of his adopted home.
May 29, 2025
Travel2025 New Mexico Field Guide
Unique New Mexico: Cognition Enhancer
Cognition Enhancer in Santa Fe is a colorful public sculpture, molecular puzzle, and wild local legend all in one.
May 23, 2025
