from the director
During the
summer closure
of the University
Art Museum the
staff remains
creatively
engaged with
a number of
significant,
large-scale
projects. Chief
among these
is a year-long,
comprehensive
inventory of the
over 30,000
items in the
perma-nent collections and the organization
of several exhibitions scheduled for 2009-11. The exhibitions will focus upon a myriad
of mediums and epochs including Land
Arts; a 30-year retrospective of UNM
Professor Emeritus of photography, Patrick
Nagatani; the drawings and watercolors of
the Bauhaus-trained artist and art educator
Friedl-Dicker Brandeis and her students, most
of whom perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau; a
comprehensive survey of the masterful, mid-twentieth
century New Mexico artist, Cady
Wells; a group of paintings created in 1960 by
the internationally renowned American artist
Eva Hesse, which have been overlooked until
now; a celebration of 50 years of the Tamarind
Lithography Workshop; and, the legacy of
Raymond Jonson and the Jonson Gallery.
In each case, the Museum is participating in
or will produce noteworthy publications with
UNM Press, Yale University Press, and the
Museum of New Mexico Press that broadens
our educational mission with groundbreaking
scholarship.
The University Art Museum is very pleased
to be participating with the largest organized
residency program of Israeli artists ever
to launch in the U.S. with the first artist-in-residence
project with the photographer, Roi
Kuper (b. 1956). Mr. Kuper, whose work has
been exhibited at London’s Tate Modern, Tel
Aviv Museum of Art, the Herzliya Museum
of Art, as well as being
included in many group
exhibitions at museums in
New York, San Francisco,
Washington, D.C., Berlin,
Vienna, and Guangdong
(China), among other cities,
will be in Albuquerque this coming September and October. He will both interact with UNM students of
photography, arts and ecology, and with
the New Mexico landscape on a new
series of photographs. Roi Kuper’s visiting
residency has been made possible due to
the generous gift from the Schusterman
Family Foundation www.schusterman.org. Please see EVENTS on this web
page for more information for details about
the artist’s public talk in October.
We look forward to welcoming you to the
galleries for the Land Arts exhibitions which
will be installed through the Fall ’09 term.
Have a good summer!
E. Luanne McKinnon
Director |
exhibitions

at UNM
landartnm.org
smudge studio blog
Dispersal/Return:
Land Arts of the American West
2000-2006
August 28 - December 20, 2009

The University of New Mexico Art Museum presents twenty artists from Land
Arts of the American West, an interdisciplinary field program in the Department
of Art and Art History at UNM.
Bill Gilbert:
Physiocartography 2005-2006
August 28 - December 20, 2009
A one person exhibition of works created by Land Arts of the American
West program founder Bill Gilbert at various sites along his journeys from
2005-2006.
On the Road
Significant works of art from the
permanent collections are sought for a
variety of important, national exhibitions.
We’d like to share the news about these
shows with you to keep in mind as you
art lovers travel the country. Some of the
museum’s treasures which are On the
Road are:
Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian
Smithsonian National Museum of
the American Indian
Washington, D. C.
through Aug. 16, 2009

Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York
Sept. 17, 2009 – Jan. 15, 2010

Illumination: The Paintings of
Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Pelton,
Agnes Martin, and Florence Miller
Pierce
Orange County Museum of Art,
Los Angeles
through Sept. 6, 2009

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news
Closed for Expansion
April 19 - August 28

The UNM Board of Regents unanimously approved a $2.3 million expansion for an additional 8,000 square feet of museum space, to be located directly above the museum.
The renovation is underway and when completed the museum will boast several new features including an elevator which will serve all three floors, a reconfigured, state-of-the-art Prints and Photographs Study Room, a 3,000 square foot gallery intended for new media and video art installations, and new administration offices. As a result of the expansion the Jonson Gallery will move to the museum complex in the Center for the Arts and will occupy the Lower Level Gallery. We are anticipating a GRAND reopening fete in 2010. Updates will be posted as we progress with the expansion.
Bravo Bruce!
The UNM Art Museum salutes the internationally renowned, New Mexico-based artist, Bruce Nauman, who won the Golden Lion Award at the 53rd Venice Biennale in June. This is the first time since 1990 that an American has won the prestigious award. In its citation, the Biennale stated that Nauman’s work “reveals the magic of meaning as it emerges through relentless repetition of language and form.” The artist, who is perhaps best known for his neon sculptures and playful use of language, worked with the Philadelphia Museum of Art to organize the exhibition, which is being shown at three venues at the Biennale through November 22, 2009.

On the University of New Mexico main campus, Nauman’s large-scale outdoor sculpture, “The Center of the Universe,” is
unknown to many residents of New Mexico
and visitors to the state. Located near the Yale Avenue Mall off Redondo Drive parallel to Central Avenue, this public work of art is available to be experienced year round.

Major Gift to UNM
E. Gerald Meyer, (UNM ’51, PhD) from Laramie, Wyoming, has generously bequeathed an extraordinary gift of art valued at approximately $6.2 million for the UNM Art Museum. The gift includes over one hundred Taos School paintings,
European and Modern American paintings, drawings and prints, and contemporary Western art, including works by Thomas Moran, Nicholai Fechin, and Charles M. Russell.

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