LA MESA OF SANTA FE

Stuart A. Ashman has long been part of the New Mexico arts scene as a photographer, museum director, and curator. He has coauthored books, like Abstract Art and Photography New Mexico, and was appointed Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs in 2003. He grew up in Matanzas, Cuba, forging a lifelong interest in the Caribbean nation and its art. Last year he and his wife, Peggy, opened Artes de Cuba, a gallery on Lena Street in Santa Fe.

New Mexico-born Elmo Baca is a historic preservationist and author; his books include Rio Grande High Style and Santa Fe Design. He has served as program associate for New Mexico MainStreet, an organization that works to preserve historic townscapes throughout the state. In his hometown of Las Vegas, he restored a landmark 19th-century building near the plaza as a 50-seat, first-run movie theater. He is chairman of the Las Vegas New Mexico Community Foundation.

Audrey Derell’s lifelong journey in the arts began as a child in Finland. She lived and studied performing and visual arts in the Philippines, Belgium, France, Spain, and finally New Mexico. After a 20-year career in dance arts, Audrey transitioned into photography. Twelve years ago a pollenladen bee in the heart of a desert bloom captivated her mind and heart. Derell specializes in macro-botanical studies and dance imagery, and she enjoys meeting the fascinating artists whose portraits and oeuvre she captures for Trend magazine.

Lucy R. Lippard is a writer, activist, sometime curator, and author of 25 books on contemporary art activism, feminism, place, photography, and archaeology, most recently Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics and Art in the Changing West, and Pueblo Chico; Land and Lives in the Village of Galisteo Since 1814. She is cofounder of several activist and feminist organizations, and lives off the grid in Galisteo, New Mexico, where she has edited the monthly community newsletter for 26 years.

Raised in Southern California, Peter Ogilvie studied Art and Architecture at University of California at Berkeley, then pursued documentary filmmaking, and finally still photography, both fine art and fashion. “My passion for photography grew out of my love of looking at images,” he says. “Since I was a child, magazines and books full of pictures were magic worlds for me. I love capturing and creating those moments of the absurd and the divine that tell us the stories of who we are.”

Vani Rangachar, a longtime journalist, has written and edited many articles for leading US newspapers and publications on two coasts. She was deputy travel editor at the Los Angeles Times and most recently served as senior digital editor for Westways and AAA Explorer, magazines published for members of AAA. She serves on the board of directors for the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) Foundation.

Simon Romero, born and raised in New Mexico, is a national correspondent for The New York Times, covering the Southwest. Based in Albuquerque, he travels widely to bring stories alive with on-the-ground reporting on issues, including energy politics, Indigenous sovereignty, the US-Mexico border, immigration, and climate change. Before joining The Times, he worked at Bloomberg News in Brazil, where he opened the news agency’s bureaus in Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. He is a recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Robert Spiers Benjamin Award for best reporting in any medium in Latin America.

Kate Russell is a photographer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The subjects she has covered are as varied as her background and include action, architecture, art, circus, fashion, food, friends, life, and travel. Kate also worked with New Mexico’s Meow Wolf as an artist, collaborator, photographer, and director of photography. Her photos define the Meow Wolf brand. Her work has been featured in Art Forum, New Mexico Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and many others.

Rose B. Simpson is a mixed-media artist who lives and works in her ancestral homelands of the Santa Clara Pueblo, about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. She has degrees in art and creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work is held by the Denver Art Museum and New York’s Guggenheim Museum and has been exhibited at a host of museums and galleries, including Mass MoCA, the University of South Carolina School of Art and Design Museum, and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.

Cyndy Tanner is a Santa Fe-based freelance writer and co-owner of Parasol Productions, an events and photo styling company. Visual and verbal branding, book projects, and social media campaigns for clients keep her busy. Road trips, thrift stores, and mostly successful baking endeavors keep her happy.

Esther Tseng is a food, drinks, and culture writer based in Los Angeles, as well as a judge for the James Beard Foundation awards. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and more. When not dining out, she enjoys snowboarding, Pilates, bike packing, and tending to her plot and leadership duties at her community garden. To unwind, she loves spending time at home with a book or streaming television accompanied by her cat, Chester. R

BY KATHRYN M DAVIS

At its inception, the New Mexico Museum of Art was a contemporary museum. Opened on the historic Santa Fe Plaza in 1917— long before such distinctions as “modern” and “contemporary” had specific meaning in the art world—the museum was intended to exhibit works by the new colony of artists living and working along Canyon Road.

More than 100 years later, a new moment in New Mexico’s artistic evolution is on the horizon and it has a new showcase. Slated for its grand opening in the summer of 2023, the Vladem Contemporary will focus on the contemporary side of New Mexico art. Dated roughly from the 1970s to the present, contemporary American art is distinguished by theorists from Modernism, which is typically seen as lasting from the mid-20th century to the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s, the art world was a different place, and the Vladem will reflect that.

Executive Director Mark White says that the New Mexico Museum of Art will

The Contemporary Side of Things

The New Mexico Museum of Art moves to include contemporary art in its focus by opening a new showcase at the super-cool Santa Fe Railyard remain a singular institution, with dual campuses: the historic plaza site and the Vladem in the Railyard. Although each location’s exhibitions may be different visually, these paired establishments present a continuum of New Mexico’s significant trajectory within the history of American art.

The inaugural exhibition at the Vladem’s Railyard site will further that continuum. Shadow and Light focuses on New Mexico’s indefinable yet incredible light, which has attracted “artists and photographers to the region for decades,” as the museum’s assistant curator Katie Doyle says in her exhibition prospectus. She has selected artworks by such luminaries as Larry Bell and Ron Cooper of the Light and Space movement, renowned Earthworks artist Nancy Holt, installation superstar Yayoi Kusama, and Agnes Martin, whose deliberately quiet paintings are said to pulse with meaning.

Susan York is creating a graphite piece to be installed for the exhibition. Doyle has also chosen one of James Drake’s most stunning video pieces, Tongue-Cut Sparrow. The exhibition will feature the striking Indigenous futurism of Cochiti Pueblo’s Virgil Ortiz, feminist icons Judy Chicago and Harmony Hammond, and self-described “culture witch” Erika Wanenmacher. In all, more than two dozen artists have been selected for this inaugural exhibition.

Designed by the architectural firm DNCA + Studio GP of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, the Vladem complex offers exhibition, storage, and education spaces, as well as a gift store on the Railyard side of Guadalupe Street. The new museum is named after Ellen and Robert Vladem, who made the lead contribution in a recent private-public fundraising campaign. (Steps from the Vladem, the Santa Fe Depot, the northernmost terminus for the Rail Runner commuter line, is receiving a facelift.)

A second entrance to the Vladem on Montezuma Street provides access to the spacious classrooms. Shadow and Light premieres in Gallery One on the first floor, with nearly 5,000 square feet of exhibition space. Upstairs, Gallery Two comprises some 4,000 square feet of raw exposition space. An artist-inresidence area and 4,100 square feet of open storage allow visitors a perspective of the backstage functions of a contemporary museum.

With plenty of valuable wall space— not only necessary for exhibitions but also to keep the natural light from harming artworks on display—there is an abundance of our state’s celebrated light saturating the museum. Windows are thoughtfully situated, as are scrims.

And speaking of windows, the public will be able to see several of the Vladem’s ongoing installations during nonbusiness hours. The Windowbox Project on the northern side of the complex consists of an eight-foot-byeight-foot storefront window. Analogous to the Museum of Art’s previous—and well-attended—alcove shows, the Windowbox Project is designed to showcase regional artists, who will display their work quarterly. The museum is partnering with community-based Vital Spaces for the first year of window exhibitions.

Artists Cristina González and Morgan Barnard are scheduled for 2023.

A video window faces Guadalupe Street. The mural by Gilberto Guzmán that was on that side of the Halpin State Archives Building (formerly the Charles Ilfeld Company Warehouse) is to be permanently re-created by the artist inside the museum. Finally, always accessible to those who approach from the Railyard will be a light sculpture in the breezeway above the gift shop and the south entrance. At press time, artist Leo Villareal was completing the site-specific piece.

Together, the dual campuses of the Museum of Art will elevate the place of New Mexico in the narrative of American art. Santa Fe has long drawn visitors and residents, artists and their audiences alike. The Vladem will solidify New Mexico’s place in the art of today and our multicultural past as we look forward to an inclusive future. R

Hat Ranch Gallery is the most refreshing approach to acquiring art we have ever experienced Drive out to the beauty of the high desert, enter a home and learn about the artists, their methods and their subjects Don't miss the Hat Ranch Gallery ~ Marlene Elliot (Chicago , IL )

The most amazing experience we've ever had at a gallery The selection is wonderful and the customer service is over the top A MUST SEE when you're in Santa Fe

~ Sheri Autrey (Dallas , TX )