Five new exhibits will open soon at the University Art Museum. “Photography: New Mexico” and “Having an Experience” open Tuesday, Aug. 26. “Art From Fort Marion: The Silberman Collection,” “Spirits of the Underworld: The Mexican Paintings of Ary Stillman” and “The Trickster: A Suite of Prints” open Tuesday, Sept. 2. An opening reception for all exhibits will be held Friday, Sept. 5, 6-7 p.m. The exhibits end Sunday, Nov. 9.
To celebrate the release of Fresco Fine Art Publications’ “Photography: New Mexico,” the UNM Art Museum will present a selection of work from the book, which recognizes some of New Mexico’s most accomplished photographers. A gallery talk by Professor Catherine Zuromskis will be held Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 5:30 p.m.
“Having an Experience” showcases a single work of art, Patrick Nagatani’s photograph, “Contaminated Radioactive Sediment, Mortandad Canyon, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM, 1990.” Two Japanese woodblock prints hang on the wall opposite and initiate a dialogue with the photograph across time and space.
The exhibit invites museum visitors to experience art in a new way. You begin your encounter in observation. Further explorations, including reflection, sketching, entering into the visual dialogue or writing a response, add an experiential dimension, which may result in deeper understanding. Sara Otto-Diniz leads an evening for educators on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 5:30 p.m.
Arthur and Shifra Silberman’s collection of Fort Marion art is an important record of work created in St. Augustine, Fla., 1875-1878, by southern Plains warriors and chiefs who were held there at the end of the southern Plains wars. Through their drawing and painting, the Fort Marion prisoner-artists provided views of their past lives, their present conditions, and their hopes for the future. Joyce Szabo, chair of the Department of Art and Art History, will give a gallery talk on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 5:30 p.m.
Ary Stillman was a noted abstract expressionist painter living and working in New York in the 1950s alongside Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko, and the other “Irascibles.” But in 1957 he left for Mexico, where he developed his most transcendent body of work. The UNM Art Museum presents a selection from this important period in Stillman’s career. Professor David Craven will give a gallery talk on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 5:30 p.m.
In 1999 four artists from New Mexico pueblos and four artists from D’Kar, Botswana joined forces with master printers and senior interns at Tamarind Institute to create a suite of sixteen lithographs based on folk tales about the Trickster. These images, made by artists from two very different cultures, share many characteristics in their portrayals of this universal and enigmatic creature.
Media Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-1593; e-mail: michal@unm.edu