THE STORY OF MODERN ART in New Mexico often begins with the tale of Ernest Blumenschein, Bert Geer Phillips, and their broken wagon wheel on the outskirts of Taos. In 1898, the vehicle mishap resulted in the two painters being grounded for the time being, which led to the formation of one of the nation’s first art colonies.
The region’s Indigenous and Hispano artistic communities were present long before these transplants, however, and their legacies can be seen in even the most radical contemporary visions coming out of New Mexico. Our art scene is still magnetic, from headline-grabbing exhibitions at the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum, SITE Santa Fe, and the Vladem Contemporary to the timeless inspirational power of the Fechin House and the Couse-Sharp Historic Site in Taos to cutting-edge Albuquerque hotel spaces such as Gallery Hózhó at Hotel Chaco and Secret Gallery at Arrive Albuquerque. We gathered a group of New Mexico curators, gallerists, and artists to ask what continues to fuel this thriving artistic landscape.
What kinds of art and artists are foremost in your mind when you think “New Mexico art”?
BRANDEE CAOBA
Curator, SITE Santa Fe
I think of New Mexico as a place of beauty and complexity and how art and artists participate in shaping, amplifying, and/or resisting this.
JANA GOTTSHALK
E. Boyd Curator and Museum Director, Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum
The art I like to see is really diving into difficult questions and confronting them head-on. What makes New Mexico art so exciting is that it’s—not heavy, but so full of information.
TONY ABEYTA
Artist, Independent Curator
New Mexico’s boasted some really amazing people: Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, and certainly artists like Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Emmi Whitehorse, and Fritz Scholder. A lot of these artists have been vital to bringing attention and building a community here.
SUZANNE NEWMAN FRICKE
Director, Gallery Hózhó at Hotel Chaco
I look to the Institute of American Indian Arts. It’s really quite remarkable, the number of high-quality artists that come from IAIA.
MARISA SAGE
Executive Director, New Mexico Museum of Art/Vladem Contemporary
I see a lot of artists dealing with place. Our next exhibition will open in two different places, but they are related. One, opening September 5, is called Reclaiming the Future, about the reverberations of Japanese American incarcerations in the United States, a starting point of which is the four camps that were in New Mexico—one of which is only one mile from the Vladem. At the Plaza Building, we’ll have an exhibition opening in October called Legacies on the Land. Patrick Nagatani and Joan Myers went to the camps and took photos many years after the incarcerations.
JAKE CISNEROS
Site Manager and Exhibition Specialist, Couse-Sharp Historic Site
In college, I was seeing contemporary artists coming out of New Mexico like Brandon Maldonado, who stands out in my mind. Once I started working in contemporary art, I discovered a lot more: Vicente Telles is one of my favorites. Erin Currier has spent a lot of time here in Taos too, and Eric Romero, who I’m collaborating with on a show at Secret Gallery in Albuquerque this fall.
How has New Mexico’s art scene changed?
GOTTSHALK: There’s a lot more exploration within tradition. Younger artists have reinterpreted those traditional cultural arts to make them relevant to themselves.
ABEYTA: When I first moved to Santa Fe in the ’80s, there were only a few major galleries. You had Elaine Horwitch, who built careers for a great many artists here. There were places along the Plaza showing artwork, but it was blue chip. You’d go into Elaine Horwitch’s and there would be a Picasso on the wall or a Larry Rivers. Back in those days, you would only go to one or two openings on a Friday night. Now, in the summer, there could be 30. Every obscure alley and backstreet in Santa Fe has an art gallery.
CISNEROS: The Native American art scene is huge. I’m hoping the Hispano or Chicano art scene gets to that point as well because it’s not just painters: It’s furniture makers, santeros, weavers, jewelry makers. Those art forms aren’t going away. One of the first shows I did here at the museum was called Aún Aquí, which means “Still here.”
Where is your current favorite place to see contemporary art?
SAGE: The Anderson Museum [in Roswell], which partners with the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. Don Anderson started this museum, which is all his collection, and includes many works by artists from the residency since as long as it’s been around. It’s a treasure trove of contemporary artists.
GOTTSHALK: The student shows at the Institute of American Indian Arts are incredible.
CISNEROS: One of my favorite places in Albuquerque is Secret Gallery. I also enjoy going to Evoke Contemporary in Santa Fe. I love everything that Jana’s doing at Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum.
ABEYTA: For me, to go to the Harwood Museum [in Taos] and just sit and contemplate that group of paintings by Agnes Martin is really amazing. The Fechin House in Taos is another place. If you go down to Magdalena, there’s galleries down there. You can be in the middle of nowhere and find creative art spaces that you wouldn’t have expected.
FRICKE: I love the O’Keeffe Museum’s Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country, which was curated by Jason Garcia and Bess Murphy. I love that the O’Keeffe Foundation took the criticisms of O’Keeffe, saw that too much adulation is problematic, and addressed that by creating a beautiful and thoughtful show.
CAOBA: Some of the most rewarding experiences happen in artist-run initiatives and smaller nonprofit spaces, where new ideas can unfold in unexpected ways.
What led to your career in art?
ABEYTA: I met a lot of friends in college through the Institute of American Indian Arts. Many of us stayed in Santa Fe. We were from different places. It was like this diaspora of different tribes and commonalities connected to our communities.
CAOBA: In my twenties, I had the good fortune to work as May Stevens’s studio assistant. May’s generosity and commitment to feminist and social justice movements, and her deep belief in art as a catalyst for change, shaped my understanding of what an artistic life might look like.
CISNEROS: I got a job as the administrative assistant at Couse-Sharp. After two years, I started co-curating exhibitions. I wanted to promote underrepresented artists from the Hispano community here in Taos.
GOTTSHALK: Working at Rancho de las Golondrinas, I met some peers like Robin Gavin, and it blossomed from there. It was totally random that I ended up in the museum world.
FRICKE: One area of specialty for me is Indigenous Futurisms, where sci-fi meets Native art. When I discovered this field, which was about 2015, it was such an exciting moment to know that my love of sci-fi and passion for Native art came together. In 2019, I was offered the position at Hózhó.
SAGE: I had a very good friend in grad school who was working for Luis Jiménez in Hondo. We drove from El Paso up north to see the Jiménez sculpture Border Crossing, which is in the west courtyard of the Plaza Building of the New Mexico Museum of Art. We also went to SITE Santa Fe when they had one of their international biennials, and I fell madly in love with New Mexico.
What are the most inspirational places in New Mexico, or New Mexico stories, that you draw from?
CAOBA: Santa Fe and the surrounding region have long been places of exchange, where Indigenous communities sustained networks of trade, knowledge, and cultural connection long before the city’s colonial founding. Those layered histories of encounter, resilience, and belonging continue to shape the present, reminding us that the land itself is an active participant in cultural memory.
CISNEROS: I grew up in Arroyo Hondo, so that’s my special place. I go to the river all the time. I love the mountains. I draw inspiration from the churches and the santeros. I like to integrate that into my art. As a curator, I try to shine a contemporary light on the history of New Mexico.
ABEYTA: You can drive to Taos. You can go to Abiquiú, you can go to Galisteo. You can drive up the mountain and sit in the aspens in the fall and think, Wow, man, I live in a golden, beautiful place. The inspiration in this region happens because there’s just the right balance of nature. There are outcroppings of these amazing mountains with the Río Grande flowing through it all. When we get rain and clouds, it’s theatrical. My work is based in land, so I’m really looking at it all the time. I take the drive to Taos with my dog and hang out by the river.
SAGE: I want to make sure I’m showing artists who draw inspiration from this place, artists that want to, for whatever reason, be impacted by this place and have an impact on this place.
What are your favorite qualities in a piece of art, and what are some examples?
CISNEROS: I like when you look at an artwork and you can feel it and interpret the story behind it because it’s familiar to you. I co-curated an exhibition with the rest of the staff that’s aligning with the 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but it’s depicting what life was like in New Mexico over time. I chose an Oscar Berninghaus depicting a Hispano family out with their burro, gathering wood before dark. I chose The Plasterers by Ernest Blumenschein—just depictions of early New Mexico life.
SAGE: I’m staring at a Terran Last Gun, who is now a Santa Fe–based artist but originally from the Blackfeet Reservation. His work is a perfect example of what I love, which is a continuum. There are nods to so many various types of histories, from the ledger paintings he’s drawn from to work that’s really speaking to minimalist art practice: Color Field painting, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, and the Transcendental Painting Group. There are so many things talking about the importance of place and time, but then there’s a major nod to art history and this obsessional, compulsive mark making.
ABEYTA: The authenticity of an artist’s vision is just tied to who they are and what they do. I’m a huge fan of Agnes Martin because she was making art that doesn’t feel like it was inspired by the landscape. It’s very tranquil with a very simple line running across the canvas, but it had so much to do with who she was as a person.
GOTTSHALK: I love to see history in the art in some way and art that has a family lineage attached to it, where the art process has been passed down. In Córdova carving, there’s such a tight bond in the López family being passed down generation to generation, and the Barela family as well. Tracing who’s related, how wide the spread and influences are, and how these practices have survived different time periods is really cool.