SantaFe.com

Nedra Matteucci opens a double exhibit of paintings by Wilson Hurley and his wife, Rosalind Roembke on Friday, November 7 (Nedra Matteucci Galleries, 1075 Paseo de Peralta, 5 – 7 pm). "Many ask what I see in this country that attracts me so. They insist it is an empty land where nothing ever happens. I tell them I find a poem every day." So said the late Wilson Hurley, whose majestic renderings of the Western landscape, and New Mexico, in particular, allow others to see the poetry in that landscape whether they are in the West and inured to the sight or from elsewhere, being tutored in the...

Friday, October 31, 2008 at 1:00 PM
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

Who can resist the allure of imagining oneself about to engage in manoeuvres dans les couloirs, otherwise known as “dirty dealings in the hallway”, in the mid-eighteenth century Les Liaisons Dangeureses? You’re about to take on the known world as a youthful (and no doubt better looking than the original) Elizabeth I in green velvet. Fashion in Film: Period Costume from the Screen, with a free opening reception at the New Mexico Museum of Art on October 18. (New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 West Palace Avenue, Saturday, October 18, 12 - 2 pm. The event will be hosted by the Women’s Board of the...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

As the United States economic situation devolves to the point where no one can actually deny a glitch, a massive correction or, indeed, a recession, we can look to art as a bedrock of thought, creativity, critique and energy. At the moment, it feels like freefall. We may, indeed, end up seeing a renewal of faith and support of the arts in general as we rebuild the economic infrastructure.

On Friday, October 3rd, Peyton Wright continues its re-presentation of mid-twentieth-century artists with an exhibition of Raymond Jonson. (Raymond Jonson [1891 -1982]: Paintings, 1940 – 1970, Peyton...

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

I was once accused in the pages of a well-known local art monthly of hating painting. After much laughter with a couple of friends over a drink in the old Palace who knew my lust for wonderful pictures, I could barely resist the urge to call up the artist in question and point out that it was not painting in general that I disliked, but simply that I disliked HER painting that managed to be both grandiose and remarkably weak at the same time. Good sense, however, precluded my following through on my threat and no doubt kept a whole contingent in our small town from dissing me forevermore.

Monday, September 15, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

Indian Market is Santa Fe’s biggest event of the year. Approximately 100,000 people come from around the world to see more than 1,200 artists from a hundred or so tribes. The rules for entry are strict and the quality, especially among the traditional arts, is high. The best quillwork, jewelry, pottery, baskets and other media are presented directly to the public by the artists.

It’s also a blast. The Plaza is packed starting at six am on Saturday, the mutton and frybread are cooking and participants, buyers and those just looking are dressed to the nines.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 3:00 PM
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

Jason Berger is one of the last painter’s painter. On a lovely afternoon this July, I had the chance to speak with this charming, intense eighty-three-year-old while he smoked an old and elegant Meerschaum pipe. As we sat under a tree on the patio of Ernesto Mayans Gallery at 601 Canyon Road (currently featuring Jason Berger – The Master at 80), Berger looked at me quizzically as he decided whether my questions and comments were well-founded or simply silly.

Berger was born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1924. A clever student, he became known early on for his puns and wickedly funny use...

Monday, August 4, 2008 at 4:00 PM
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

Nearly one hundred works of art by the late Fritz Scholder are included in Fritz Scholder: An Intimate Look at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, (108 Cathedral Place, July 18, Reception for Indian Market, August 20, 4 – 6 pm). “As one of IAIA’s most illustrious professors from its founding decade, the 1960s,” writes Curator Joseph Sanchez, “Scholder is known for deconstructing the myth of the American Indian, and constantly examining the concept of identity. Considered controversial at first because of his realist take on Indian life, his contribution to the success of...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

Forrest Moses and Joe Ramiro Garcia at LewAllen Contemporary
129 West Palace Avenue
Reception, July 4, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

On July 4, be sure to go by LewAllen Contemporary before going to a barbeque, to the fireworks or to The Marriage of Figaro at the Santa Fe Opera. Two very different exhibits at the gallery there provide tasty fare for the eyes.

Forrest Moses’ monotypes push the artist’s explorations of nature’s forms and rhythms to the forefront of the image. Moses’ series Forest Impressions distills his marvellously naturalistic renderings of landscape into the sensations that underlie...

Monday, June 30, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

There you are, walking through downtown Santa Fe, and see a painting you really like through a window. Now what? The sun is glinting off the designer sunglasses of a well-dressed older couple that are walking into the gallery while three scruffy looking young people dressed in tattered black gesture heatedly between them. A quick glance down at your clothes and those of your companion reveal that you look like neither group. Can you, should you, go in?

Having gotten inside the gallery, you look around and… see a lot of stuff that could be art, but this one painting still seems like a...

Friday, June 27, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

Lucky Number Seven opens at Site Santa Fe (1606 Paseo de Peralta, Sunday, June 22, 12-5 pm)

Ah! Biennials! Since the creation of the Venice Biennial in 1895, the art world and the Beau Monde have been on a circuit through an increasingly large number of venues. During the 1980s and 90s, the biennial format boomed; all of a sudden, there were biennials not just in Europe and New York but throughout Latin America, in Istanbul, in Taipei, in Shanghai, in Dakkar and, not least in Santa Fe. But, came various arguments from the left, the right and the curatorial classes: Who is shown at these...

Sunday, June 15, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com