NM2007 - Visual Art - Santa Fe

Located in a former beer warehouse on unpaved land at The Railyard at South Guadalupe and Paseo de Peralta, SITE Santa Fe has proved its mettle as a magnet for contemporary art collectors, curators, and dealers worldwide — and snapped the rest of this slow-to-grow city to attention: While it was sleeping, Santa Fe became a nexus of local and international artists.

A decade ago, the city purchased the last 40 acres of undeveloped downtown land for $21 million with ambitious plans to transform the property into a culture, retail, and entertainment destination.

SITE Santa Fe was first to plant its flag in the mud, opening a world-class space in 1995 with a mission "to bring global contemporary art dialog to the Southwest region of the United States." Cherry-picked guest curators organize biennial exhibitions at SITE. Three of the past six curators went on to serve as directors of the Venice Biennale, widely considered the world’s most important contemporary art fair, and another won a MacArthur Genius Award.

"We take major risks in the middle of the desert, with no one looking over our shoulders," says Director/Chief Curator Laura Steward Heon, who suggests that guest curators expand the capacity of intellectual thought.

The next SITE Santa Fe biennial opens in July 2008 and continues through January 2009. It will be in the hands of curator Lance Fung, whose resume includes Crossing Parallels at the SSamzie Space in Seoul, Korea; Going Home at the Edward Hopper Historical Museum in Nyack, N.Y.; Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark at the Venice Architectural Biennale in 2002; and The Snow Show Preview at UNESCO’s Palazzo Zorzi for the 2003 Venice Biennale. The Snow Show — exhibited in 2004 in Lapland and in 2006 in Torino, Italy, for The Cultural Olympiad of the XX Winter Games — presented the collaborative works of more than 30 internationally recognized artists and architects, including Tadao Ando, Daniel Burden, Norman Foster, Morphosis, Yoko Ono, and Kiki Smith.

SITE has attracted top-flight galleries to The Railyard, creating an alternative to downtown and Canyon Road, the heart and soul of Santa Fe’s gallery scene.

Across the street from SITE Santa Fe, blue-chip James Kelley Contemporary, Evo Gallery, Tai Gallery, and Victoria Price Contemporary Art & Design each took a piece of the former Sears warehouse and opened tall, wide-open spaces that defy the confining downtown and adobe spaces that remain the charm and prevailing character of Santa Fe.The Bernar Venet arc sculpture, shown in Evo Gallery on opposite page, punctuates the world-class caliber of art to be found at The Railyard.

Gebert Contemporary — with internationally recognized artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jun Kaneko, Marcia Myers, Udo Nöger — has four galleries, including the newest in The Railyard district. (The others are on Canyon Road, on Camino del Monte Sol, and in Scottsdale, Ariz., the latter two retaining the gallery’s previous name, Chiaroscuro). The Railyard location opens July 6, 2007, with video and interactive installation art by Mariano Sardon.

And William Siegal Galleries — which specializes in ancient and historic museum-quality textiles and objects from pre-Columbian, Aymara, Asian, and African cultures — moved to The Railyard from its downtown location and has added contemporary art with a focus on minimalism.

El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe and Warehouse 21 round out The Railyard tenants, while Box Gallery demonstrates that emerging and mid-career artists have a place here, too.

The event of summer 2007 will surely be the seventh edition of Art Santa Fe (July 12-15) at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe. The boutique fair (relative to the mega-fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach) presents a carefully selected collection of contemporary and modern art. This year’s event includes a strong contingent of Asian, European, and Latin American galleries, as well as plenty of U.S. (particularly New York) dealers.

Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and his motorcycle-riding buddy/architect Frank Gehry will be the "great minds discussing art and architecture" at Art Santa Fe on July 14.During Art Santa Fe, local museums including SITE Santa Fe, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts will also feature exhibitions.

Art Santa Fe's director is Charlotte Jackson, who has a gallery downtown that is among only a few in the country specializing in monochromatic paintings. Charlotte Jackson Fine Art also shows California/Albuquerque abstractionist Frederick Hammersley and dynamic works by Los Angeles painter Charles Arnoldi.

Jackson, past president of the Santa Fe Gallery Association, spearheads many of the city's efforts to attract "creative tourism" and reportedly predicted this contemporary boom 20 years ago. Many other galleries join hers in downtown Santa Fe — perhaps most notably Riva Yares Gallery, whose blue-chip roster includes Manuel Neri, Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Milton Avery, Jules Olitski, Robert Graham, Joan Mitchell, Elias Rivera, and Fletcher Benton.

However, Lew Allen Contemporary might have been the first gallery in the city to show non-Southwest contemporary art (it was also among the first woman-owned galleries here). Lew Allen has a broad scope with nationally known artists such as Janet Fish, Judy Chicago, Robert Brady, and Ed Mieczkowski, as well as local and regional favorites, such as Forrest Moses. Lew Allen also participates in Santa Fe’s popular Indian Market, contributing tapestries by Ramona Sakiestewa, who bridges modernism and Native American traditions.

Other downtown galleries worth visiting include Addison Arts, where William Betts, Gretchen Wachs, and Daniel Brice stand out; Tad Tribal Art, which emphasizes fine African, Oceanic, Australian, and Native American works; Owings-Dewey Fine Art, which exhibits 19th and 20th century American art; and Verve Fine Arts, which specializes in contemporary photography.

Diversity prevails on Canyon Road, the epicenter of the gallery scene in Santa Fe. World-renowned, mid-career, and emerging artists from New Mexico and around the world converge on this narrow street.

From art informel mixed-media paintings by Antoni Tàpies at Bellas Artes to Timur Tsaku's "dog as Holy being" panel paintings at Klaudia Marr Gallery, collectors' many curiosities and desires can be satisfied without driving from one place to another.

Turner Carroll Gallery, as daring as it is traditional, features Russian realist paintings by Igor Melnikov and irresistible mixed media works by Mary Bennett. Karan Ruhlen Gallery offers sweet abstract geometric gouaches on paper by Annell Livingston, as well as botanically themed abstract canvases by Daniel Phill.

Seven-O-Seven Contemporary catches the eye with figurative and representational sculptures by Dimitry Gerrman and raku works by Dawn Renee. And Niman Fine Art Gallery and Roxanne Swentsell Tower Gallery specialize in Native American contemporary art.

At Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, large-scale abstract paintings by Harold Larsen are the perfect foil for intricate sculptures by Ted Gall. Chalk Farm Gallery enters the realm of the metaphysical and the surreal.

On Paseo de Peralta, where Canyon Road begins, Gerald Peters Gallery exhibits classic Western art, Taos Society and Santa Fe Art Colony, American Modernism, and contemporary art. Sculptures by James Surls and Will Clift and paintings by John Gibson and John Fincher are winners in the contemporary wing, which wows visitors with blue-chip sculptures by Magdalena Abakanowicz and Deborah Butterfield.

On the edge of town, Center for Contemporary Arts has begun transforming a 6,000-square-foot former military tank-maintenance garage into a new exhibition space that will be called Muñoz Waxman Gallery. The campus will eventually include Santa Fe Children's Museum, Bataan Memorial Military Museum, and Santa Fe Performing Arts Theater. CCA continues its mission to recognize and promote the work of emerging, commercially nonviable, and overlooked artists in the region, says Director Cyndi Conn.

CC'’s summer 2007 installation — Chopped, Chromed, Customized — explores the stereotype that men use cars as and outlet for customization. Central to the installation is Liz Cohen's female-infused Bodywork project, which investigates American desire for acceptance, human identity, and group membership.

Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz’s exploration of the Desaparecidos, a generation of Latin Americans who literally disappeared as a result of three decades of military dictatorships, opens Nov. 10 and continues through Jan. 5, 2008. Organized by the North Dakota Museum of Art, the CCA exhibition is part of a collaboration with College of Santa Fe/Center for Documentary Film Studies, Institute of American Indian Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe Art Institute, and SITE Santa Fe. The installations feature 10 South and Central American artists in addition to Muñoz.

Bernar Venet’s Cor-Ten steel 217.5° Arc x13 (2005) punctuates the world-class art environment at The Railyard.
Photo: Evo Gallery

Woody Gwyn shows oil paintings on linen, like the 36x48-inch Abiquiu, at Gerald Peters Gallery.
Photo: Gerald Peters Gallery

Red-hot Ricardo Mazal opens a solo exhibition in 2008 at Dwight Hackett Projects.
Photo: Buschlen Mowatt Galleries

Hans Schabus’ East, West, South, North (2007), a three-screen, high-definition video installation with sound, runs on a 12-minute loop.
Photo: SITE Santa Fe

Dynamic paintings by Charles Arnoldi defy the monochromatic aesthetic at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art.
Photo: Charlotte Jackson Fine Art

The photograph Hood, is part Liz Cohen’s Bodywork project in the Chopped, Chromed, Customized exhibition at the cutting-edge Center for Contemporary Arts.
Photo: Center for Contemporary Arts

The Wave, a classic mark by Robert Motherwell, bespeaks the quality at Zane Bennett.
Photo: Zane Bennett Contemporary Art