New Mexico Museum of Art — 2 Dynamic Locations Where Art is for Everyone - SantaFe.com
New Mexico Museum of Art on the Plaza, historic 1917 building. Courtesy of NMDCA.

A division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, New Mexico Museum of Art was conceived in 1917 as the first building in the state dedicated to art. Since its inception, the museum has been dedicated to representing the full scope of artistic practice, media, and time periods.

In particular, the museum strives to represent American artists with an emphasis on artists working in the Southwest, works by local artists, and fosters relationships with the broader community through educational programming. Its more than 20,000-piece collection includes paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, photographs, new media, and conceptual works cements Santa Fe as an international art center.

Historic and contemporary buildings

New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary in the Railyard, 2023. Photograph by Tira Howard.
New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary in the Railyard, 2023. Photograph by Tira Howard.

New Mexico Museum of Art’s flagship building is its 1917 adobe building, now listed as a National Historic Landmark. Initially built to promote art throughout the region, the museum has surpassed its founding mission, not only for its extensive collections of the Taos Society of Artists and Los Cinco Pintores, five painters who helped establish Santa Fe as a famous art colony in the 1920s, but also with powerful displays of contemporary art in all media.

New Mexico Museum of Art on the Plaza is a prime example of the pueblo revival style architecture that is a staple of Santa Fe. The building itself is considered a work of art with its stepped and terraced forms, wooden balconies, projecting vigas, and squared beams set on corbels. The plaza museum also includes the beloved Saint Francis Auditorium, which has been a centerpiece of Santa Fe’s cultural life hosting prominent arts organizations, lectures, recitals, and weddings year-round.

New Mexico Museum of Art also expanded to the Santa Fe Railyard Arts District with an additional space for contemporary art. New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary opened September 23, 2023, to create new avenues to make art available to everyone. This state-of-the-art venue adds 4,100 square feet of collections storage, 2,300 square feet of education programming space, and two floors of gallery and exhibition space.

Moving beyond the restrictions of the intimately scaled galleries of the historic museum building, Vladem Contemporary provides large and flexible exhibition space, expanding the opportunities for large-scale installations, multi-media projects, and performance-based works central to 21st-century artistic practice. Promoting state-of-the-art ideas and bringing living artists back to the heart of exhibitions and public programs is entirely in keeping with the history and future of New Mexico Museum of Art.

Exhibitions and artists

As the museum’s collection has diversified, so have its exhibitions and collaborations with artists and art organizations, crossing time periods and featuring little-known and prominent artists alike. The museum offers a view into the changing nature of art in the American Southwest, starting with the earliest Clovis-culture artists, whose names are lost in time, to artists whose names are known well. Among them are Gustave Baumann, E. Irving Couse, Agnes Martin, Maria and Julian Martinez, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

The inaugural exhibition at New Mexico Musuem of Art Vladem Contemporary is Shadow and Light which examines how twentieth-century artists use light and shadow as both physical media and an exploration of conceptual ideas. The exhibition features artists who are from or were influenced by New Mexico. Works by Judy Chicago, Angela Ellsworth, Nancy Holt, Yayoi Kusama, Florence Miller Pierce, Virgil Ortiz, Susan York, Leo Villareal, and many others fill the museum.

A key pillar of the museum’s mission is the commitment to providing spaces and platforms for emerging, local artists. New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary has greatly expanded the museum’s artist engagement and educational programming. Vladem Contemporary has a large education center where staff hosts hands-on artmaking activities, classes for students and adults, and lectures. The building also has an artist’s studio space for the Artist-in-Residence and the Window Box which allows visitors 24/7 access to rotating artists’ works.

"Shadow and Light" exhibition installation view, Gallery 2, New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary in the Railyard. Photograph by Tira Howard
“Shadow and Light” exhibition installation view, Gallery 2, New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary in the Railyard. Photograph by Tira Howard.

Visit New Mexico Museum of Art

New Mexico Museum of Art on the Plaza and New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary in the Railyard are open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (May through October). From November to April, the daily hours are the same, but the museum is closed on Mondays.

Visitors purchase one admission for both locations. Admission is $7 for New Mexico residents and $12 for non-residents. Children 16 years and younger are admitted for free. Admission is free for New Mexico residents on the first Sunday of each month, and Wednesdays are free for New Mexico Seniors with identification.

Be sure to retain your ticket or use your New Mexico CulturePass for free admission at New Mexico Museum of Art as well as at all other state museums and historic sites. Learn more about the New Mexico CulturePass here.

Top image: New Mexico Museum of Art on the Plaza, historic 1917 building. Courtesy of NMDCA.

 

STORY SPONSORED BY THE NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

 

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This article was posted by Cheryl Fallstead

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