Contact: Eva Gabriella Flynn,
Education and Outreach Coordinator, NMSU Art Museum, artmuseum@nmsu.edu, 575-646-2185
Art History: Reduce, Reuse, Recylce.
Exhibition Dates: August 7th - September 19th, 2026
Las Cruces, NM–The University Art Museum (UAM) is excited to announce Art History: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, a pop-up exhibition curated by current and recently graduated NMSU students. This exhibition invites viewers to learn about the many ways in which iconic artworks and themes from the past have transcended their periods of creation, and are continuously recycled in contemporary art. Artworks from regional, international, and student artists from the NMSU Permanent Art Collection are paired with recognizable works from a broad spectrum of art history to explore how the past lives on and is disrupted by contemporary art. This exhibition will guide viewers through educational text and interpretive suggestions, revealing how contemporary art both inherits and challenges the artistic conventions that came before it.
The featured artists in Art History: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, demonstrate what it looks like to draw from traditional art historical imagery in a myriad of ways, from mere coincidence, to shared themes and intentional appropriation. Several of the featured artists engage with issues of colonialism, labor, class, gender, and the borderlands, offering fresh perspectives of traditional western motifs found within art history. Monica Martinez’s La Chingada (2017) responds to the quintessential art historical practice of still life, as represented in a pivotal Baroque painting by Juan Sanchez Cotán, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus arrives not on a shell but through a camera lens, and Velazquez’s Las Meninas is brought to the streets of Bel Air. These artists recycle traditional art historical narratives in order to provide viewers with a more expansive foundation to understand contemporary art.
Art History: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle will be open to the public starting on August 7th through September 19th, 2026, in the Bunny Conlon Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery. Please join us for the Public Reception on Friday, August 28th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.
