March 16- April 29, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, March 23, 5:30 to 7:30

Linda Swanson installation is comprised to two large scale pencil drawings on paper one 10 foot by 4 foot and the other 4 foot by 10 foot paired with a felt wing stitched with pieces of her daughters hair. The title references Penelope’s travails while Odysseus is away from home. Linda Swanson is the Chair of the Art Department of Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of New Mexico’s statehood, and in anticipation of the New Mexico Museum of Art’s centennial, we are presenting a year-long cycle of alcove exhibitions. The format of these Alcove Shows can be traced back to the 1917 founding of the Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico. Small one-person exhibitions were held in the gallery alcoves through the 1950s, resuming in the mid-1980s and again in the early 1990s.

The museum is continuing this tradition with a cycle of nine exhibitions that will include forty-five artists from across the state. Five artists will exhibit for five weeks at a time from March of 2012 through early April of 2013. These artist-centered showcases feature new ideas, artists at all stages of their careers and artwork that is being made in New Mexico right now.

The first of this series will open at the New Mexico Museum of Art on March 16, 2012 and will include Julia Barello, David Forlano, Jane Lackey, Ted Larsen, and Linda Swanson. All of these artists live and work in New Mexico and all are using unusual materials and shifts in scale in distinctive ways.

The New Mexico Museum of Art, founded in 1917 as the Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico, is housed in a spectacular Pueblo Revival building designed by I. H. and William M. Rapp based on their New Mexico building at the Panama-California Exposition (1915). The museum’s architecture inaugurated what has come to be known as “Santa Fe Style.” For nearly 100 years, the Museum has celebrated the diversity of the visual arts and the legacy of New Mexico as a cultural crossroads by collecting and exhibiting work by leading artists from New Mexico and elsewhere. This tradition continues today with a wide-array of exhibitions with work from the world’s leading artists.The New Mexico Museum of Art brings the art of New Mexico to the world and the art of the world to New Mexico.

Information for the Public

Location:Santa Fe’s Plaza at 107 West Palace Avenue.

Come See Gustave Baumann’s marionettes performing live! Sunday December 18th 1-4pm. Free event open to the public.

Born in Germany in 1881, Baumann emigrated to the United States at the age of 10, returning to Munich in his 20s to study at the Royal School of Arts and Crafts. In 1918, Baumann moved to Santa Fe, married the singer/actress Jane Henderson and together they raised their daughter, Ann. During this time, he and Jane were also developing the marionette theater that would eventually become a part of Santa Fe legend. Though initially intended as a form of entertainment for family and friends, the Christmas performances grew so popular they were eventually moved from their living room to such venues as St. Francis Auditorium. Upon his passing in 1971, Jane and Ann donated Baumann’s work to the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Eric Garduño and Matthew Rana’s The People v. Bruce (parrhesia), an installation in sculpture, photography, and sound explores the first amendment rights that were challenged in the 1960s during the trial of comedian Lenny Bruce.

AGITATED HISTORIES PRESENTS an international and intergenerational group of artists whose works, in a range of media, create a dialogue with historic figures, movements, and events. For some of the artists in this exhibition, history is a subject to be challenged, re-written, or recreated, while for others it is a source of inspiration and creative energy. Through Agitated Histories, our understanding of historic events is upended while new histories are brought to light. The works in the exhibition explore four central themes: the Archive, the Reenactment, the Persona and the Intervention.

Agitated Histories is organized by SITE’s Phillips Director and Chief Curator, Irene Hofmann and was presented at the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore in 2011. It appears in an expanded form at SITE Santa Fe in collaboration with SITE’s Assistant Curator, Janet Dees.