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NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF ART
Fiscal Year Feats
$243,000
received for special projects, including $200,000 to restore the pipe organ in Saint Francis Auditorium
$21,000
raised for exhibitions
$21,000
raised for education
$154,000
in endowment payouts
$12.5 million Centennial Campaign completed
New Mexico Museum of Art
Museums will always matter A Year of Milestones
Mark A. White, the new executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Art, has committed to memory what attorney Frank Springer said at the museum’s opening more than a century ago. “While the past may teach us, it is the future that calls and beckons us,” Springer told a crowd at the dedication of the 1917 museum building. At the close of fiscal year 2020 (July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020), with construction in progress on the Vladem Contemporary building in the Railyard, the call for the future of the museum is upon us.
With two buildings representing a unified vision, White says the institution is setting its sights on providing a “forum for the ongoing dialogue regarding where we come from, what we are, and where we’re going.” White’s appointment to the museum directorship was announced in April, weeks after the building closed to the public due to COVID-19. Despite the slowdown, the Museum of New Mexico Foundation raised $505,000 for the art museum in FY2020. And as the Centennial Campaign reached its capital funding goal, work began on the next goal, says Museum of New Mexico Foundation President/CEO Jamie Clements.
“A major milestone for the Museum of Art in FY2020 was the completion of the $12.5 million Centennial Campaign,” says Clements. “With the capital funds in hand to construct the Vladem Contemporary, we now look to raise over $1 million in the next two years to support exhibition development and educational programs at the 1917 building on the Plaza as well as during the Vladem’s 2022 inaugural year.”
Considering the Collection
During the closure of the downtown Museum of Art, head of curatorial affairs Merry Scully declared, “What matters more than ever is the collection and the public engagement with it.” That philosophy was translated by museum staff into participation in the #NMTwinning competition, in which social media users presented their own interpretations of artworks in the museum’s collection.
Will Shuster, The Santo Domingo Corn Dance, 1929, oil on canvas. Gift of Will Shuster, 1934. New Mexico Museum of Art Collection. Photo by Cameron Gay.
Curators also assembled a series of virtual exhibitions curated around timely themes, with artworks crowdsourced from artists on social media, or taken and re-contextualized from the collection.
The Solitary Figure, organized by 20th century art curator Christian Waguespack in May, capitalized on paintings in the collection that spoke to newfound feelings of isolation. Waguespack described it this way, “In this time of uncertainty we may choose to embrace the gifts that isolation brings, with the realization that, unlike these paintings, our own instances of peace and self-reflection are all too fleeting.” Waguespack now prepares to unveil A Fiery Light: Will Shuster’s New Mexico in 2021. The show celebrates the centennial of the influential artist’s arrival in New Mexico in 1920. The exhibition explores Shuster’s friendship with John Sloan and his collaboration with Gustave Baumann to create the ultimate Santa Fe boogeyman, Zozobra. Waguespack recently discussed the exhibition in front of an online audience. Hear a recording of his talk at museumfoundation.org/online-event-recordings.
Fueling Private Support
Going into 2021, other areas of museum work that need private support are heating up. The Foundation is closing in on its $40,800 goal to prepare the Beaumont Newhall Library collection for eventual installation at the downtown museum building. The library’s 3,500 photography books and catalogues will anchor a museum research and study center for photography. Finally with additional exhibition support, museum visitors have two compelling new shows to look forward to: Breath Taking, a collection of works devoted to the act of breathing, and the much-anticipated Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Elaine Horwitch.
