PUBLIC FORUM: In Context - New Mexico in the Art World
Thursday, July 13, 2023 6pm – Friday, July 14 7:30
July 13, 2023 6-7:30pm
In this panel, leaders in the contemporary art field will discuss trends and issues in contemporary art in New Mexico and beyond. We will ask questions about how New Mexico is both connected and removed from the broader visual art world and how the state's unique characteristics—such as its art historical legacies and the tourism industry—impact New Mexico's art market and art community. How can artists, museums, and galleries in New Mexico broaden their reach and become more connected internally and externally? How do critical issues in this state, such as diversity, activism, migration, and environmental concerns, relate to national conversations in the cultural sphere? And what makes New Mexico a singular place to create and engage with visual culture?
Forum features Louis Grachos, Philips Executive Director of SITE Santa Fe, Jadira Gurule, Art Museum and Visual Arts Program Manager at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache), writer, curator, and professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Marina Perez, scholar, educator, culture worker, and Ph.D. student at University of New Mexico. The forum will be moderated by Lauren Tresp, publisher and editor in chief of Southwest Contemporary, and co-curator of Southwest Contemporary's 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023. The event will be live-streamed on our YouTube channel.
About the panelists:
Louis Grachos is the Phillips Executive Director of SITE Santa Fe. Grachos headed Buffalo, New York’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery for 10 years after serving as serving as director of SITE Santa Fe from 1996-2003. From 2013-2019 he served as CEO of The Contemporary Austin in Texas. Grachos was previously the Chief Executive Officer and JoAnn McGrath Executive Director at the Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California.
Jadira Gurulé is the Head Curator and Visual Arts Program Manager for the Art Museum at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gurulé finished her BA in Art History at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 2010 and received her MA in American Studies from UNM in 2015. Her curatorial work engages themes of race, gender, pop culture, social justice, and the role of museums in building community and shaping national discourse.
Nancy Marie Mithlo is a Chiricahua Apache curator, writer and professor. Her exhibitions have been shown at the Venice Biennale. Mithlo has worked as the chair of American Indian Studies at the Autry National Center Institute and as a professor of gender studies and American Indian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author and editor of several books about Native Americans and Indigenous art.
Marina Perez is a descendant of the Nahua and Huichol peoples of West Mexico. She is an interdisciplinary scholar, educator, and cultural worker specializing in community and cultural art-making practices. She earned an MA in American Indian Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Art History at the University of New Mexico. Her scholarship addresses emerging themes in contemporary Native arts, archives, and oral histories.