24″x48″; watercolor, acrylic, marker, oil paint marker, inkjet prints on mounted watercolor paper; 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
COLLAGE ON VIEW
Many Worlds Are Born
at 516 ARTS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
19 February-14 May 2022
Media Coverage
“Artists Explore Divergent Histories in Many Worlds Are Born“ by Maggie Grimason. Hyperallergic, April 12, 2022.
Exhibit challenges the traditional idea of a singular New Mexico story by Kathaleen Roberts. Albuquerque Journal, April 10, 2022.
“Many Worlds Are Born” is the first of two exhibitions that look at how the divergent histories of race, conflict, and colonialism in New Mexico inform how we imagine our futures. The second exhibition, “Technologies of the Spirit” runs from 11 June to 3 September 2022. Both exhibitions are curated by Ric Kasini Kadour and Alicia Inez Guzmán, PhD, and are accompanied by a series of public conversations and activities that bring together historic content and contemporary art.
“Many Worlds Are Born” takes a cue from the late Chicano writer Rudolfo Anaya, who is best known for his fictional, but still true, portrait of New Mexico, Bless Me, Última, in which he writes, “Millions of worlds are born, evolve, and pass away into nebulous, unmeasured skies; and there is still eternity. Time always.” The light, the land, the mysticism, and the people were all his subjects—kinfolk in a constellation that spanned generations. Along the same lines, the expansive content of this two-part group exhibition also reaches across multiple generations and understandings of New Mexico’s many histories, worlds born from beauty, violence, and a deep sense of place.
Collage in this exhibition includes work by Jeanna Penn (above) and a monumental in-camera collage, The Blue Swallow, the artist duo EveNSteve.
38″x98″; in-camera collage on film with hand-written text pigment on Japanese Kinwashi; 2021. Courtesy of the artists.
To develop the projects on view, many of the artists engaged with the Albuquerque Museum’s Photography Archives, and took part in Artist Lab: Art Meets History in New Mexico, presented by Kasini House’s Art Meets History initiative and Kolaj Institute, in which participating artists were asked to examine personal and collective histories in New Mexico and the Southwest. The resulting artworks acknowledge centuries of conflict, assimilation and erasure, but also resilience, innovation and the power of memory to transform the present and future. In addition to the artists’ projects and installations across many mediums and contemporary art practices, a selection of the historic reference photographs from the Albuquerque Museum Photo Archives are on view.
The artists in the exhibition are: Margarita Paz-Pedro (Laguna Pueblo), Joanna Keane Lopez, Juanita J. Lavadie, Marlena Robbins (Diné), EveNSteve, Jeanna Penn, Leo Vicenti (Jicarilla Apache), Nikesha Breeze, and Diego Medina.
INFORMATION
516 ARTS
516 Central Avenue SW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102 USA
(505) 241-1445
Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday, Noon-5PM