Participants in a fundraiser for the UNM Harwood Museum of Art in Taos will be treated to star quality. The Artist Reunion Dinner party on Sunday, May 3 celebrates the 40 years of friendship of six important artists of the west coast contemporary art movement featured in the “Hopper at the Harwood” exhibition, May 8-Sept. 20. The exhibit, curated by Dennis Hopper, shows the work of Larry Bell, Ron Cooper, Ronald Davis, Ken Price and Robert Dean Stockwell, as well as Hopper.
Photo: Dennis Hopper
The dinner, which sold out almost as quickly as tickets were available, is sponsored Antonio’s Taste of Mexico, Eight Modern Gallery in Santa Fe and the Heritage Trust Company of New Mexico. Many guests from New York and Los Angeles are flying in just to get a sneak preview of the exhibition and join the celebration.
On Tuesday, May 5, the Harwood Museum in conjunction with the Mandelman-Ribak Foundation presents a lecture with art historian and scholar Douglas Dreishpoon at 5 p.m. The program focuses on the Taos Oral History Project, with a preliminary discussion of the “Hopper at Harwood” exhibit. The lecture is free to Harwood Alliance members, UNM community and participating artists of the Oral History Project, or $8 for all others.
The Oral History Project originated in 1999 as a collaboration between the Mandelman-Ribak Foundation in Taos and Douglas Dreishpoon, chief curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y. The project’s initial concept called for a series of video-taped interviews with individuals who had been associated with the Taos Moderns, a group of artists living in Taos during the 1940s and 1950s, including Beatrice Mandelman and Louis Ribak. As the Oral History Project evolved, the objective for the interviews broadened to encompass subsequent generations, the influx of artists and writers who came to Taos in the 1960s and 1970s, and others who contributed to culture and arts in Taos.
Dreishpoon will discuss his involvement with the Oral History Project, while also touching on “Hopper at Harwood.” In addition, film footage from a number of the interviews will be shown during the presentation.
The Harwood Museum of Art is located at 238 Limoux Street, Taos, N.M., and is open Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Admission $8, or free on Sundays to New Mexico residents. Visit Harwood Museum or call (575) 758.9138 for more information.
Media Contacts: Juniper Manley, (575) 758-9138 or Lucy Perera-Adams, e-mail: lperera@aol.com