Bert Benally and Ai Weiwei: Part II – Pull of the Moon

07.24.14
original article from CFile

Ai Weiwei

Public Art | Bert Benally and Ai Weiwei: Part II – The Performance of Pull of the Moon

This the second part of a report on the collaboration between Navajo artist Bert Benally and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei as part of TIME (Temporary Installations Made for the Environment), a program of New Mexico Arts. You can read part one here. In this case the performance on the night of June 28, 2014 was not the public part of the event. It was witnessed by a small group that included CFile Chief Editor Garth Clark. The public program includes an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, July 16-October 15, 2014) of the 3D modeling digital landscape created by xRez Studio of Pull of the Moon, which shows a fly-over view of Coyote Canyon featuring Benally and Ai’s art installations. Also, there was a showing of a film produced by xRez (nothing to with reservations) in a 50-foot diameter dome screen at Museum Hill in Santa Fe on July 18th and the 19th. You can read the interview with Ai Weiwei and Garth Clark about the performance here.

Among the first of many transcendent moments during Ai Wewei and Bert Benally’s performance (June 28 2014, Coyote Canyon, Navajo Nation) Pull of the Moon was when the cliff edge on which I was seated seemed to lift and gently float forward. Seeing as I and several others of the 30 or so witnesses to the performance were seated a couple of feet from a sheer 40 to 50 foot drop, the feeling was initially disconcerting and I saw some, alarmed, scoot back from the edge.

Of course nothing actually moved. It was an optical illusion caused by the growing darkness that merged between the cliff top and the canyon floor. However, the sense of suspension, of floating while viewing Ai and Benally’s sand drawings below, never quite left me.

The sand drawings by the two artists were related, but were not an actual collaboration. Ai’s was a mandala of interlocking bicycles. It was drawn with crushed white porcelain from Ai’s studio (from recent work but not ancient shards) atop a circle of black sand found in another part of the canyon and trucked to the site. It was executed with perfect precision by Benally and staff of the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock and until the sunset faded the porcelain glowed as though it was neon. (To read about Ai’s thinking behind this piece read his interview with Garth Clark here.)

Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei’s bicycle mandala.

Benally’s drawing was simply gouged into the sand itself and then detailed with wood and sticks. He decided to include some points of connection to both Ai’s career and drawing. He viewed the symbolism of the interlocking bicycles (from Ai’s Forever series, named after the leading Chinese bike manufacturer) as the industrial machine that powered China with the energy coming from those who pedaled. And that caused him to wonder what machine represented his own people’s labor. He came up with something more benign, weaving and silversmithing, (the Navajo Nation has no manufacturing industry to speak of) and so patterns and symbols from those crafts were laid out inside the drawing with sticks.

A few minutes before the sun dropped below the Western rim of the Canyon, Benally began his performance. The moon was nearly dark, just a pencil-thin crescent of light showing. Away from any light pollution the setting was powerful; the velvet black bowl of sky shimmered with stars, the most dazzling display I have ever seen (even in my years in Africa). The night was still, virtually no breeze, and silent. As if on cue, insect, bird and animal noises abruptly turned off.

In the middle of Benally’s drawing was an enormous pot made of woven rushes from the canyon and plastered with clay. Symbolically, it stood as the container of all the depressing and erroneous stereotypes about the Navajo that Benally had encountered in his travels. Fire began rising out of this giant pot, slowly at first, just an interior glimmer and then it quickly flared, high to sky like a beacon burning with extraordinary intensity.

The pot soon began to sag and crater inwards and as it did two things happened. A metal sculpture of a corn stalk was revealed, standing for the true Navajo identity with, cleverly and subtly, the ears of corn made from coiled bicycle chains. Second, the fire now began to spread at ground level into the four quadrants of the drawing, heading toward a pyre at each compass point, which burst into flame. As flames traveled across the stick patterns, weaving and silver stamp marks came to life in the low-flickering firelight.

Ai Weiwei
From the performance of Pull of the Moon.

Given the drama of Benally’s performance (music was a part as well but I will speak about that in a moment) I worried about Ai’s drawing. Would it just lie there inert, motionless and passive? The fire took care of that. At the beginning when the flames were high, Ai’s drawing was pulled in by the light and became a witness- a voyeur almost- to what was happening alongside. Stylistically it was an alien counterpoint, so absolutely precise and mechanical adjoining Benally’s more organic expression, two worlds but one light.

As the pot burned down, the angle of light striking Ai’s drawing began to fade and then something remarkable and serendipitous happened. The porcelain sand used to draw the bicycles was in relief, about three inches higher than the ground. It was also shaped into a triangle, flat on each side and sharply peaking in the middle. It looked like a prism and responded to the fire.

At this point the drawing began to lose structure and cohesion as light came from different directions, flared and fell. Soon the drawing appeared to be warping, twisting. It lost its bicycle imagery. Indeed, toward the end what it most closely resembled was the randomly scattered remains of a giant skeleton. (I kept that observation to myself that night; the Navajo have an aversion to death and death symbols.)

The masterful music by Benally wrapped everything in sound. It covered everything like a blanket. The observers, the performance on the canyon floor, the canyon itself, and the sky were all gathered into an intimate embrace. The artist wove a soundscape drawn from different indigenous music sources across the world. It issued forth from the canyon wall opposite us and the acoustics were perfect. Every tremble, murmur and note was clear.

Often heavy on pulsing bass, the music moved through chant into feral sounds and melodic surges. The transitions were slow, carefully metered and blended so that one was never aware of a shift in sound until one was already into the next movement. One’s ear became the mediator between eye and mind and then the music ended, slowly fading in volume. I was left in absolute pregnant silence, floating on my rock in nature’s cathedral, breathless.

Garth Clark is the Chief Editor of CFile. He is reporting from The Penland School of Crafts, high in the Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina until July 30 as the 2014 recipient of the Andrew Glasgow Writer in Residence Fellowship, an honor he is thrilled to receive.

Featured image: Ai Weiwei’s bicycle mandala lit by the fires of Bert Benally’s installation during the Pull of the Moon performance.

Any thoughts on this post? Share yours in the comment box below.

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Process photographs showing the construction of Pull of the Moon.
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Ai Weiwei wearing a gift from the Navajo Nation.

Public Art | Bert Benally and Ai Weiwei: Part I – Shí kéyah (My country)

07.24.14
original article from CFile

Bert Benally

Public Art | Bert Benally and Ai Weiwei: Part I – Shí kéyah (My country)

This the first part of a report on the collaboration between Navajo artist Bert Benally and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei as part of TIME (Temporary Installations Made for the Environment), a program of New Mexico Arts. You can read part two here. In this case the performance on the night of June 28, 2014 was not the public part of the event. It was witnessed by a small group that included CFile Chief Editor Garth Clark. The public program is an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, July 16-October 15, 2014) of the 3D modeled digital landscape created by xRez Studio of Pull of the Moon, which shows a fly-over view of Coyote Canyon featuring Benally and Ai’s art installations. Also, there was the showing of a film produced by xRez (nothing to with reservations) in a 50-foot diameter dome screen at Museum Hill in Santa Fe on July 18th and the 19th. You can read the interview with Ai Weiwei and Garth Clark here.

What follows is a description of the project from Bert Benally:

Bert Benally
Process photograph of Benally’s piece for Pull of the Moon.

The total area of the piece is 40 feet in diameter, with a centerpiece that is 15 feet high with a 6-foot diameter. The centerpiece is a Navajo-style utilitarian clay pot, that was plastered onto a wooden frame weaved from saplings. A corn sculpture welded from metal and bicycle parts was placed inside the pot and was revealed when the clay pot burned and crumbled.

The area surrounding the clay pot was divided into four quadrants in correlation with the four directions. There were two lines separating the four quadrants, made from painted 4-inch PVC pipe cut in half and filled with water. The four quadrants have images made from lines which are on fire. On the outside perimeter of the circle there are four smaller circles, each with a fire in the middle and a design made with shadows.

Bert Benally
Benally’s rendering during the process of its installation in Coyote Canyon.

The pot that burns and crumbles follows the lead of Ai Weiwei’s artistic protest of breaking historically significant pots in his own country. In this instance, the pot represents the general stereotypes and misunderstandings of the outside world’s view of the Navajo people. The pot crumbling and revealing the corn sculpture is the breaking down of those views and showing the world the beauty of the Navajo philosophy, culture, language and people.

The corn sculpture, which remains after the pot has burned down and crumbled away, symbolizes the Navajo both culturally and spiritually. The colored lines made from PVC pipe filled with water represent rainbows. They are painted red and blue. For Navajos rainbows represent protection and also beauty.

Bert Benally

Again using Ai Weiwei’s image as a source, four images were developed using what I see as his idea of people as industry. In this piece the industry was a traditional one, the industry of rug weaving and silver-smithing. Using the Navajo philosophy of the four directions, images were developed for the quadrants and for the outlying circles. Two of the quadrants have designs that came from rug-weaving traditions and the circles on the perimeter came from silver-smithing stamps. In the quadrants, the east has a rug design that came from the eyedazzler era and it has a complex, geometric pattern. The south quadrant had a bear and a mountain, images which were derived from the stories told to me by the local residents about the origin of their clan, “Tsinajinnie.” The west had another rug design from chief blankets. The last quadrant, the north, had another design derived from the origin stories of the “Tsinajinnie Clan;” it was of a thick forest. The four circles on the outer perimeter had shadow designs of old silversmithing stamps, of the early days of silver work by the Navajo.

All the materials used for the artwork were collected right from the canyon. Particular attention was paid to artistic traditions of the Navajo as well, such as sand painting, weaving, silver smithing and clay pottery. Each tradition was reinterpreted and used in a more contemporary fashion. The piece was made with a Navajo audience in mind and contained many elements that were only perceivable by a person with knowledge of Navajo history and culture. The piece was accompanied by a collage of sound made from samples and loops of indigenous cultures from throughout the world mixed with traditional sounds and music of the Navajo.

Bert Benally is an art teacher, installation, sound and music artist living in the Navajo Nation.

Featured image: Bert Benally, Pull of the Moon, 2014. Part of the Pull of the Moon performance with Ai Weiwei.

Any thoughts about this post? Share yours in the comment box below.

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Bert Benally, Pull of the Moon, 2014. Note the observers for scale.
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Benally’s and Ai Weiwei’s pieces side-by-side.

Unsettled Landscapes SITE Santa Fe

Unsettled Landscapes

SITE Santa Fe Introduces 

A new biennial exhibition series that explores contemporary art from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego  
July 20, 2014 – January 11, 2015 
Opening Festivities July 17-19

11 Jan 2015 / 20 Jul 2014

SITElines: New Perspectives on Art of the Americas is a six­-year commitment to a series of linked exhibitions with a focus on contemporary art and cultural production of the Americas. The exhibitions will take place in 2014, 2016, and 2018 and will be organized by a different team of curators, from locations throughout the Western Hemisphere. Through SITElines, SITE will establish a new programming hub called SITEcenter to generate connectivity between and during the exhibitions.

SITElines signifies a radical rethinking of SITE Santa Fe’s signature biennial exhibition, originally established in 1995. It represents a collaborative structure for planning its biennials, a vision for continuity between biennials, a commitment to community and place, and a dedication to new and under­recognized perspectives. This new multi­dimensional approach—together with a strong geographic focus—redefines SITE’s role at the forefront of biennial exhibition making and proposes new curatorial frameworks for biennials globally.

Unsettled Landscapes will look at the urgencies, political conditions and historical narratives that inform the work of contemporary artists across the Americas – from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego. Through three themes – landscape, territory, and trade – this exhibition expresses the interconnections among representations of the land, movement across the land, and economies and resources derived from the land.

“With Unsettled Landscapes, we build connections from Santa Fe to the rest of the Americas, we explore untold stories and perspectives, and we link between our past and our present,” said Irene Hofmann, Phillips Director and Chief Curator of SITE Santa Fe. “First Native American land, then a Spanish Kingdom, a Mexican Province, and an American Territory, all before statehood, New Mexico is a rich microcosm of the Americas. We are proud of the selection of artists participating in Unsettled Landscapes. These artists represent multiple generations and regions throughout the Western Hemisphere. Our show includes important new and existing works, 13 new commissions and several off­site installations. In addition, we have also included key works of art from previous decades that further expand the ideas of the show. Our aim was to curate a dynamic exhibition that shows how themes of landscape, territory and trade weave throughout the work of artists from every corner of the Americas.”

SITELINES 2014 TEAM

Curatorial Team:
Candice Hopkins, Curator (b. Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada; lives in Albuquerque)
Lucía Sanromán, Curator (b. Guadalajara, México; lives in Mexico City)
Janet Dees, Curator of Special Projects  (b. New York; lives in Santa Fe)
Irene Hofmann, SITElines Director (b. New York; lives in Santa Fe)

Satellite Curatorial Advisors
Christopher Cozier (b. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; lives in Port of Spain)
Inti Guerrero (b. Bogota, Colombia; lives in Costa Rica and Singapore)
Julieta Gonzalez (b. Caracas, Venezuela; lives in México City)
Eva Grinstein (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina; lives in Buenos Aires)
Kitty Scott (b. St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada; lives in Toronto)

SITElines Advisors
Ana Paula Cohen (b. São Paulo; lives in Sao Paulo and San Francisco)
Luis Croquer (b. El Salvador; lives in Seattle)
Douglas Fogle (b. Chicago; lives in Los Angeles) Rosa Martínez (b. Soria, Spain; lives in Barcelona)
Gerald McMaster (b. Saskatchewan, Canada; lives in Philadelphia)
Ryan Rice (b. Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada; lives in Santa Fe)
Osvaldo Sánchez (b. Havana, Cuba; lives in México City)

 

“Shape Shifter” David Solomon

Shape Shifter, an exhibition of new paintings
July 11 – August 3, 2014
Artist Reception July 11, 5:00 – 7:30pmPatina Gallery
131 West Palace Ave.
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
505-986-3432

The second of the exhibitions, Shape Shifter, features the abstract, mystical paintings of David Solomon. Originally from Florida, Solomon attended San Francisco Art Institute and worked as a studio assistant to the painter Frank Lobdell and sculptor John Henry Waddell. Solomon explores color and form, loosely drawn and organic in places. The ocean, beach and nearby woods were his refuge growing up and many of his paintings bear the organic forms he found there. At times primitive and biomorphic, at others reduced and geometric, his paintings can differ greatly from each other. Some are dreamscapes of floating forms and warm, diffused palette while others are laser focused and hard edged. Motifs morph and repeat, an eye form or is it a seed pod? An angular shape spears the composition. Is it an arrow, pyramid, shaft of light or all of those?

Solomon is a passionate and focused seeker whose need to understand is palpable. He maintains a large library of reference works, books about artists, materials and techniques, to which he refers frequently. He cares deeply about his work, cares about everything, and has been active in the artist community of Santa Fe at all levels. In addition to his own painting, he has worked as a curator, a framer, handler, gallery associate and conservator.

Solomon paints on sheets of aluminum using specially mixed pigments. The metal imparts luminosity to his paintings as reflected light gleams back through the layers of color. Their hard, smooth surface takes on texture when Solomon embeds unmixed pigments into his paints. His interest is gesture and suggestion, streaks and drips are part of the vocabulary. Uneven applications of color, or mottled layers of it, soften the character of the metal and lend a quality of dimension and depth to the work. “Painting is the automatic pursuit of perfection. Each painting informs the next and yet perfection is beautifully unattainable. It is a type of path.”

New Media New Mexico

"Synthesis" / Luftwerk @ Currents 2014 and "Surface Tension" / Raphael Lozano-Hemmer / photo Maxime Dufour @ Digital Latin America

“Synthesis” / Luftwerk @ Currents 2014 and “Surface Tension” / Raphael Lozano-Hemmer / photo Maxime Dufour @ Digital Latin America


New Media New Mexico
June 6 – 29, 2014

CURRENTS 2014: Santa Fe International New Media Festival
June 13 – 29, 2014

Digital Latin America Opening Weekend
Albuquerque
June 6 – 8, 2014

Visit Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico this June to experience the work of over 100 international new media from 15 countries, all in the 60-mile, central portion of the state’s Cultural Corridor. Explore the spectacular landscape of New Mexico and the exciting world of 21st century art at the same time.

Parallel Studios in Santa Fe and 516 ARTS in Albuquerque announce the launch of New Media New Mexico, an ongoing effort to highlight media arts in our state each summer. In June, 2014, NMNM begins with CURRENTS 2014 in Santa Fe presented by Parallel Studios and Digital Latin America ( view DLA video here ), an Albuquerque collaboration led by 516 ARTS.

Known for both its exceptional environmental beauty and its work in scientific innovation, New Mexico has historically been a mecca for the arts and technology. In recent years, the state has become a gathering place for new media artists and enthusiasts from around the world who converge here to focus on the expanding intersection of art, science and technology.

CURRENTS New Media Festival has grown from its local roots in 2002 into an annual, international, citywide event in Santa Fe. Albuquerque became an international hub of activity for new media art during ISEA2012, the 18th International Symposium on Electronic Art, a massive collaboration led by 516 ARTS that helped put Albuquerque on the map in international art circles. Now, that spirit of collaboration continues with the launch of New Media New Mexico, which is planned to become an annual series of events celebrating new media arts around the state.

The 2014 collaboration kicks of with the Digital Latin America Opening Weekend Symposium and events in Albuquerque June 6-8 and then programs continue through the summer. The three-week CURRENTS 2014 Festival opens the following week, June 13. The lead venues in each city, 516 ARTS in Albuquerque and El Museo Cultural in Santa Fe, are connected by the Rail Runner Express train. It is a short walk to 516 ARTS from the station in Downtown Albuquerque, and the train arrives at the Santa Fe Railyard Plaza, the home of El Museo Cultural.

Come to both events to experience cutting edge, experimental, innovative, playful and poetic new work from around the globe, including interactive and fine art video installations, single channel videos, multimedia performances and web-based art forms to name a few, along with panels, workshops and presentations by world-renowned artists.

KEY DATES:

June 6 – 8:
ALBUQUERQUE: Digital Latin America Opening Weekend Symposium & Events

SYMPOSIUM: Saturday & Sunday, June 7 & 8 , 10am – 5pm
at The Albuquerque Museum of Art & History
2000 Mountain Rd. NW, Old Town, Albuquerque
Admission: $55 general / $50 516 ARTS members / $25 students
Symposium Registration: www.regonline.com/DLA

EXHIBITION OPENING & BLOCK PARTY: Saturday, June 7, 5-9pm
at 516 ARTS, 516 Central Ave. SW & outdoors on Central between 5th & 6th
Downtown Albuquerque
Free
(exhibition continues through August 30)
Visit 516 Arts for information about the multi-site exhibition, opening symposium, Downtown Block Party, and public programs throughout the summer.

June 13 – 29: SANTA FE:
CURRENTS 2014: Santa Fe International New Media Festival

FESTIVAL OPENING: Friday, June 13, 6pm – midnight
at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe on the Santa Fe Railyard Plaza
30,000 sq. ft. of New Media Arts and Multimedia Performances in El Museo
Video Installations, Performances and DJs in the Railyard Plaza
Free
Visit Currents 2014 for the complete schedule of exhibition/event listings and locations of venues across Santa Fe during the 17-day Festival.

Take the Rail Runner Express for Two Weekend Tours

Saturday, June 21, 11am
CURRENTS 2014 Guided Tour at El Museo Cultural, Santa Fe
Railrunner train departs Downtown Albuquerque at 8:58am
Arrives in the Santa Fe Railyard at 10:29am.

Saturday, June 28, 1pm
Digital Latin America Guided Tour at 516 ARTS, Albuquerque
Railrunner train departs Santa Fe at 10:44am
Arrives in DowntownAlbuquerque at 12:12pm.

Rail Runner Express Saturday Schedule

ARTISTS:

Digital Latin America explores the North/South axis of cultural development and exchange between Latin America and the United States. It looks at the ways in which artists negotiate the complex terrain between global and local, virtual and real, and political and private, in the creation of work that proposes alternative understandings of technology, art and cultural exchange. Among the 16 artists featured in the multi-site Digital Latin America exhibition are Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico/Canada), Cantoni & Crescenti (Brazil) and Oscar Muñoz (Colombia). Presenting partners are 516 ARTS, Albuquerque Museum of Art & History, UNM Art Museum and the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

CURRENTS 2014 brings together the work of 95 established, unrecognized and emerging new media artists including Jorg Staeger (Germany), Luftwerk (Chicago) and Jane Tingley (Canada), just to name a few. The Festival introduces the public to new technologies molded by artists into vehicles for expression and the communication of ideas, broadening the definition of 21st century art making and fostering a more expansive use of technology. The Festival is enjoyed by a broad demographic – children spinning through the galleries reveling in interactive new media – seniors contemplating image and meaning – working class families – and savvy collectors.

CONTACTS:

Currents 2014
Frank Ragano & Mariannah Amster, Parallel Studios
505-670-6473
connect@currentsnewmedia.org

Digital Latin America CURRENTS 2014
Suzanne Sbarge & Teresa Buscemi, 516 ARTS
505-242-1445
suzanne@516arts.org • teresa@516arts.org

SHEBANG! CCA Santa Fe

cca santa fe

CCA presents SHEBANG! an all-day party celebrating CCA’s 35th anniversary on June 14th.

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS!
CHOOSE YOUR TASK!
ENJOY THE PARTY!
CELEBRATE WITH US!
please contact volunteer@ccasantafe.org to help out.

As the longest running contemporary arts organization in the Southwest, CCA (and Santa Fe) have a lot to celebrate! This all day event provides entertainment, fun, and local food and drinks for the whole family alongside CCA’s award- winning film and art programs. Experience the best of CCA for FREE with birthday cake served throughout the day.

WHAT: CCA’s 35th birthday celebration Free films, site-specific dance performances, local bands, food trucks, local beer, wine and spirits. Art activities for the whole family. The opening of three new exhibitions.

WHO: *See below for list of music, vendors, activities and more.

WHERE: Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, 1050 Old Pecos Trail.

WHEN: June 14, 2014, 11AM – 7PM

COST: FREE!

SPONSORED BY: Century Bank, The Rothstein Law Firm, The Street Food Institute, TAI Modern

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: Outside In, CENTER, Currents, The National Guard, St Johns College, Only Green Design, FUZE, Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, El Rancho de las Golondrinas, Folk Art Museum, The Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, Federal Dancers, Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, Hutton Broadcasting, Axle Contemporary.

FULL SCHEDULE AND LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Music:

  • 1:00PM – Alohi & the Freelife
  • 2:00PM – Wagogo
  • 3:00PM – Floozy
  • 4:00PM – Nick Pena of La Junta
  • 5:00PM – Pollo Frito
  • 6:00PM – Broomdust Caravan

Film:

  • Newly restored Charlie Chaplin films set to live music, featuring live music accompaniment, in the CCA Cinematheque.

Art:

Food:

Spirits:

Art and Activities:

  • Axle Mobile Gallery – Axle will be showing an exhibition of prints on paper by Woody Vasulka and Steina. Included are Steina’s Pyrospheres (published by edition handwerk) and a series by Woody (published by Axle Contemporary) in which he repurposes technological material from the Los Alamos National Labs as a base to explore creative obliteration and reconstruction. Also included are prints by the Steina, Woody, and Rob Shaw collaboration: JARMARK, from 2011.
  • Only Green Design – Green architecture activities.
  • El Rancho de las Golondrinas – Demonstrations and kid’s activities.
  • CENTER and Santa Fe Photographic Workshops – Photo booth.
  • Parker Jennings – Interactive Radio Room
  • Air Force artist, Lee Montgomery – Drone flying demonstration.
  • Federal Dancers – Site-specific dance.
  • FUZE – Food Tastings.
  • National Guard – Kid’s Activities.
  • Folk Art Museum – Kids Activities.
  • Street Artists from New Mexico and Arizona create a mural on CCA’s campus.
  • CCA History Project Video Booth – Tell your CCA stories in our video booth located in the Muñoz Waxman Gallery.

Recycling

Saturday, June 14, 11am – 7pm.

Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984-2014

Marking both her 75th birthday and three decades of living and working in New Mexico, Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984-2014 opens at the New Mexico Museum of Art on June 6, 2014 and runs through October 12, 2014.

PUBLIC RECEPTION: Friday, June 6, 5:30 – 7:30 PM, hosted by the Women’s Board of the Museum of New Mexico. Free and open to the public.

Judy Chicago, The Return of the Butterfly
Judy Chicago, The Return of the Butterfly

The exhibition will focus on both large-scale public projects and smaller scale personal artworks, and will be among the first to spotlight recent works by Judy Chicago.

Like many artists before her, Chicago has made New Mexico her home; when this exhibition opens she will have lived and worked in New Mexico for three decades – a longer stay for the artist than in her birthplace of Chicago (which inspired the last name she gave herself) or in California where she first made her mark as an artist and educator. Based in Belen, NM, where she and her husband renovated the old Belen Hotel, Chicago has said, “Until we moved into the Belen Hotel, I never owned any property as I didn’t want the responsibility – what I wanted was the freedom to work. And that’s what New Mexico has given me, far away from the centers of the art world (i.e., New York and LA) where the international art market presses down on artists and makes it difficult to pursue a personal vision like my own.”

Chicago gained broad public attention in the late 1970s for her monumental feminist installation, The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, now permanently installed as part of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  While her early works gave voice to women’s experience in western art and history these later works broaden the discourse to propose a moral and thoughtful existence – one empathetic towards other humans, other species and the planet as a whole.

Local Color focuses on artworks made in New Mexico, those both large in theme and those more personal in use and content.  Drawn from the artist’s studio, the New Mexico Museum of Art collection, and private collectors, this exhibition features works from the series PowerPlay, Holocaust Project, Nuclear Waste(d), Resolutions: A Stich in Time and Kitty City.  Never one to pull back from controversial discussion, in these works Chicago addresses the complexity of gender, injustice, inequality, the atrocities of war, and the environmental costs of nuclear dependence.

The installation will not only highlight the broad range of topics the artist has addressed in her work but also the broad range of media she has worked in with the inclusion of cast bronze, needlework, stained and painted glass, works on paper, and painted porcelain.

Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984-2014 is one of a series of exhibitions, events, and publishing activities around the country marking the artist’s 75th birthday. More information may be found here: https://app.box.com/s/vr4opvked6uljhyj5clq.

Among the museums where Chicago’s work is in the permanent collections are the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Getty Trust, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

IMAGE CAPTION: Judy Chicago, The Return of the Butterfly, from A Retrospective in a Box, 2012, Lithograph, New Mexico Museum of Art; museum purchase, 2013