Layers of Meaning

Layered Meanings

Works on Paper features collage, assemblage, montage.

ARTIST AND CNM FACULTY MEMBER

CHANDLER WIGTON was teaching a Collage at Home class on Zoom last summer for the Museum when the idea for a Works on Paper exhibition was born. Wigton used examples from the permanent collection to demonstrate the differences between collage, montage, and assemblage for the class. He showed his presentation to Curator of Art Josie Lopez, and the seeds of Layered Meanings were planted.

The exhibition includes works by Robert Rauschenberg, Valerie Roybal, Jerry Uelsmann and Carlos Quinto Kemm, among others. It also includes a number of local artists who have not been shown before in the Museum, says Lacey Chrisco, assistant curator of art, who worked closely with Wigton and Lopez to curate the exhibition.

The word “collage” comes from the French, “coller” or to stick together. In many cases, collages are made from mundane items, such as newspaper or magazine clippings, pieces of fabric, or other ephemera arranged and stuck together on a single-plane surface. Assemblage is a three-dimensional collage, and montage is an assembly of related images that create a unified composition.

In all three mediums, the items are often discarded, finding a new life and meaning in the the work. Santa Fe artist Dana Newmann, for example, used abandoned piano keys in Ivory, I. Valerie Roybal used collaged paper and historic photographs. “I think my favorite works in the exhibit are the Valerie Roybal collages on old photographs from the Incurable series,” says Wigton. “Knowing the backstory that she was living with breast cancer when she made them makes them incredibly powerful. They are also aesthetically engaging to look at, with the old black and white photos and the color imagery. I also think they took on another life with the pandemic and Covid-19.” The Roybal works were recently purchased for the permanent collection through an intiative with Albuquerque-based Richard Levy Galley to raise funds for breast cancer research.

ON VIEW

LAYERED MEANINGS August 7, 2021–February 20, 2022

Valerie Roybal, Untitled (from the series: Incurables), 2016-2018, collaged paper on historic photograph, Albuquerque Museum, gift of Mark Unverzagt and Laura Fashing, PC2019.61.3

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Cheyenne #31, ca. 1980s, watercolor and collage on paper, Albuquerque Museum, gift of Marge Devon, PC1990.85.3