From left, graduate assistant Olivia Juedeman and collections curator Courtney Uldrich in the room where more than 2,000 retablos are currently stored in the University Art Museum. (NMSU photo by Chloe Dunlap)
Digitizing NMSU’s massive retablo collection opens art to scholars and public
by Chloe D. Dunlap Feburary 19, 2024
New Mexico State University’s Art Museum holds the largest public collection of Mexican retablos in the United States. Soon it will be available at your fingertips thanks to the beginnings of a large-scale digitization project funded by NMSU’s Office of Research, Creativity and Economic Development. Visitors can see some of NMSU’s more than 2,000 works on tin, wood, copper and canvas in addition to other objects of sacred art in the Margie and Bobby Rankin Retablo Gallery at the University Art Museum located on campus inside Devasthali Hall. “It has never been properly inventoried or integrated into our current collections database system with updated photographs,” said Courtney Uldrich, Collections Curator at the University Art Museum. “We have a lot of photographs of old pieces, but they’re from the nineties and really don't function well for our current database system. So, one of my first priorities coming into this position was to kind of try and get things more manageable.”
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New exhibit at the University Art Museum at NMSU explores nuclear weapons development in the United States
by Scott Brocato June 27, 2023
The NMSU Art Museum’s latest exhibition, “Specter New Mexico”, analyzes questions surrounding the history of testing bombs and mining uranium in the American West in the Atomic Age and Cold War era, and the devastation it inflicted in parts of states such as New Mexico.
Scott Brocato spoke with “Specter New Mexico’s” artist, Cara Despain, and the NMSU Art Museum’s director, Marisa Sage, about the exhibit.
“Love One Another”, a Mormon hymn that plays over a compilation of actual filmed test site nuclear explosions, is an affecting juxtaposition during “Test of Faith”, the centerpiece of “Specter New Mexico” at the New Mexico State University Art Museum in Devasthali Hall. Its artist is Cara Despain, who explained to me what “Specter New Mexico” is about and what inspired her to create it.
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A Contemporary Look at Devotion
by Edgar Picazo Merino November 9, 2022
In Contemporary Ex-Votos, Mexican and Mexican-American artists analyze their identity beyond external ideas.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — There is a constant struggle between the Latinx communities and our representation in the mainstream media. The public craves stories that focus on pain and struggle, constructing fetishizied images of violent clichés. Contemporary artists, whether part of these communities or not, continue to create work feeding into these narratives. The problem is not, of course, the fault of any particular sector, but the arts that inform, educate, and lead us are a massive instrument of the tropey dynamic. Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium, on view at the University Art Museum at New Mexico State University (NMSU), creates a space in which 15 Mexican and Mexican-American artists can analyze their identity beyond the ideas we have been taught to associate with our experience.
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Mexican devotional art re-imagined by a cohort of contemporary artists
by Alice Fordham November 2, 2022
When curator Emmanuel Ortega thinks of New Mexico State University's trove of Mexican religious artworks with their intricate paintings of sacred subjects, often on small pieces of tin, he doesn't think of them as folk art.
"I don't believe in those categories, I think they only create difference," he said.
The university's art museum in Las Cruces houses the country's largest collection of Mexican artworks known as retablos.
Now Ortega, who is the Assistant Professor in Art of the Spanish Americas at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has brought some of the collection back on display, and invited the creation of new artworks inspired by the old ones.
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Currently at NMSU Art Museum - Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium
by Emily Guerra October 30, 2022
Las Cruces, NM – On this edition of PUENTES a la comunidad, bridges to the community, host Emily Guerra spoke with New Mexico State University Art Museum Director, Marisa Sage, about their current exhibition curated by Dr. Emmanuel Ortega: “Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium,” through December 22, 2022. The NMSU Art Museum houses the largest collection of Mexican retablos in the United States. She says this exhibition demonstrates the important place retablos hold in the history of the Americas. More information available at: uam.nmsu.edu.
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Country’s Largest Mexican Retablo Collection, Once Stored Underneath Bleachers, is Paired with Contemporary Devotional Works
by Joy Miller October 18, 2022
Contemporary Ex-Votos at NMSU University Art Museum sheds light on the understudied iconographic and ideological aspects of retablos depicting miracles on tin and found materials.
LAS CRUCES, NM—In the 1970s, the New Mexico State University art department retrofitted D.W. Williams Hall, which was originally home to the school’s basketball teams, to house its art classes and university gallery. It was here that the largest collection of Mexican retablos (devotional paintings) in the United States was stored—below the old bleachers.
“The basketball court became the [University Art Gallery] with bleachers surrounding it. They were underneath the bleachers on chicken wire,” says director and head curator of New Mexico State University Art Museum Marisa Sage, who adds that relocating the retablos was one of her biggest charges when she came aboard in 2014.
Last month, a number of retablos went on display to the public in the NMSU University Art Museum’s new Devasthali Hall in Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium. The exhibition pairs 19th- and 20th-century retablos from the university’s permanent collection with contemporary works by thirteen Latinx artists. Guest curator Emmanuel Ortega presents the exhibition as a historical exploration of the iconology and ideological facets of ex-votos as viewed past and present.
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‘Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium’ explores the understudied iconographic art formThoma Foundation Support for Education and the Arts in Southern NM Starts with $600,000
by Kathaleen Roberts September 23, 2022
Cultural historians have often dismissed ex-votos as folk art or relegated them to curiosities sold as souvenirs.
These small paintings are a type of retablo or small devotional work depicting miracles on tin.
A group of artists and curators have designed a New Mexico State University exhibition to persuade critics that these personalized objects deserve to be categorized as fine art.
Opening on Sept. 30, “Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium” sheds light on this understudied iconographic art form.
“I’m always looking at the discriminatory history of the inclusion of more elite members of society in Mexican history,” said curator Emmanuel Ortega, an assistant professor of art of the Spanish Americas at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Thoma Foundation Support for Education and the Arts in Southern NM Starts with $600,000
2, 2022
The University Art Museum at New Mexico State University and Ngage New Mexico have each received $300,000 grants to be used over three years to support capacity building.
SANTA FE, NM - The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation, a private family foundation with offices in Santa Fe and Chicago, has made its first grants to support educational and arts nonprofit organizations in southern New Mexico. Ngage New Mexico and the University Art Museum (UAM) at New Mexico State University (NMSU) have each received a $300,000 grant to be used over three years. These grants will help the two organizations build staff capacity and create greater impact within the communities they serve.
“What drew us to these two organizations was not only their strong leadership, but that both are at a critical inflection point in their growth,” said Holly Harrison, Director of the Thoma Foundation. “In the landscape of New Mexico philanthropy, the southern part of the state is frequently overlooked, so we also felt strongly about accelerating the innovation and collective impact efforts endemic to this region.”
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Conversation with Joey Fauerso on the Occasion of her Exhibition, “Wait for It,” at New Mexico State University Art MuseumReview: Joey Fauerso’s Weighty Metaphors at NMSU Art Museum
, 2022
Four of us went down to Las Cruces for Joey Fauerso’s opening on June 10. A few days later I sent Joey some questions.
Hills Snyder (HS): Is your work cinematic?
Joey Fauerso (JF): This is a good question. What do you think? I would hope that some of the pieces function that way. When I think of something being cinematic, I think of a transportive experience, something that is immersive and uses scale to trigger an emotional, physical experience in the viewer. I recently saw Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s film Drive My Car in the theater with my brother, Neil. It was such a beautiful movie; the sound design blew me away, you physically felt like you were inside of the scenes, sometimes inside of the body of the characters, almost like some of Janet Cardiff’s sound installations. With my video works, I love the editing process — the rhythm and orchestration of editing across multiple screens. I guess in all of my work, the physicality is really important. A lot of my work resides at the intersection of painting and performance. One of my favorite all-time works is Jasper Johns’ painting Bitten by a Man from 1961; it is so direct and immediate, it feels like it just happened, and that maybe you were the one who took the bite. Getting back to the cinematic, I would like to continue to push the scale of my work, both with the videos and paintings.
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Review: Joey Fauerso’s Weighty Metaphors at NMSU Art Museum
12, 2022
Heavy. That’s how I would describe Joey Fauerso’s exhibition Wait For It at the New Mexico State University Art Museum in Las Cruces. But heavy things are also strong and, given the right balance of conditions, can be buoyant. And there lies the beauty and complexity of Fauerso’s work.
Balance and strength are undercurrents of the artist’s practice, including what happens when stability is off-kilter, in question—things shatter, structures collapse, worlds topple. Wait For It, which traveled from the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin (where it was organized by director MacKenzie Stevens with gallery manager Clare Donnelly) presents these ideas through a selection of Fauerso’s work including video, mural-size wall and floor paintings, steel armatures, and monoprints and includes a poem of the same name by 2017 Texas poet laureate Jenny Browne.
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NMSU Art Museum NEA grant to support fall exhibition
12, 2022
The National Endowment for the Arts has approved a $40,000 grant for the University Art Museum at New Mexico State University, among $1.6 million in NEA awards recommended for arts projects in New Mexico.
The NEA recently announced more than $91 million in recommended grants to organizations in all 50 states and United States jurisdictions. Grants are in three NEA funding categories: Grants for Arts Projects, Our Town and State and Regional Partnerships.
The NEA grant to the University Art Museum will support “Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium,” a two-part exhibition displaying 19th and 20th century retablos from the NMSU Permanent Art Collection alongside new works by Latinx artists, which will open in September.
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NMSU Art Museum grant approved by NEA to support fall exhibition
by May 27, 2022
LAS CRUCES - The National Endowment for the Arts has approved a $40,000 grant for the University Art Museum at New Mexico State University, among $1.6 million in NEA awards recommended for arts projects in New Mexico.
The NEA recently announced more than $91 million in recommended grants to organizations in all 50 states and United States jurisdictions. Grants are in three NEA funding categories: Grants for Arts Projects, Our Town and State and Regional Partnerships.
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NEA Awards $91 Million to Over 1,200 Arts Organizations
by May 25, 2022
Funded projects include an exhibition of contemporary and historical retablos and a residency that pairs glass artists with creators in other mediums.
At the New Mexico State University (NMSU) Art Museum in Las Cruces, curator Emmanuel Ortega wants to do more than just exhibit the museum’s vast collection of Mexican ex-votos (traditionally Catholic devotional paintings) — the largest in the country at around 2,000. Ortega also wants to shift the narrative around Mexican art outside the canon. Instead of having visitors understand the works simply as “folk art,” Ortega hopes museum-goers will reflect on the larger themes these paintings explore.
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Behind the Scenes With Three New Mexico Curators
by Jordan Eddy May 24, 2022
These university museum leaders are bridging cultural chasms through elaborate and generative work with their students.
SANTA FE, NM — New Mexico’s university art museums are an important forum for bringing together urban and rural communities that otherwise have little contact. Three university museum curators, vertically spanning the state, are determined to bridge cultural chasms through elaborate and generative work with artists and students. Behind the scenes, they toil amidst complex social and economic forces on campus and beyond. Every aspect of their work, from composing wall text to securing funding, is in flux.
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National Endowment for Arts Announces Second Round of Grants for FY 2022
May 18, 2022
Washington, DC—For its second major grant announcement of fiscal year 2022, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is announcing more than $91 million in recommended grants to organizations in all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions. Grants are in three NEA funding categories: Grants for Arts Projects, Our Town, and State and Regional Partnerships.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts and cultural organizations throughout the nation with these grants, providing opportunities for all of us to live artful lives,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”
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NMSU Mellon Foundation
by KFOX14 Staff February 20, 2022
EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — In Sunday's Built in the Borderland show, Robert Holguin, interviews a former prosecutor who is now focusing on his art.
Patrick Gabaldon explains why he loves the desert landscape so much.
He then showcases Brave Books.
The library is hosting an event honoring the late Dr. Diana Natalicio.
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NMSU Art Museum lands $300K grant
by ABQJOURNAL NEWS STAFF February 07, 2022(*Updated February 08, 2022)
The New Mexico State University Art Museum has been awarded a grant of $300,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
“These funds make it possible for us to take the next step toward our vision of growth, including improving operations and hiring a collections curator,” said Marisa Sage, director of the University Art Museum, in a statement.
“With this support, we can expand public access to collections, and holistically support artists throughout the creation and exhibition process.”
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NMSU Art Museum awarded $300,000 Andrew W. Mellon grant
by EPHP PromotionsFebruary 08, 2022
NMSU Art Museum is among a select group across the country to receive a competitive grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The art museum was among those invited to apply for a grant of between $150,000 and $500,000 from the Mellon Foundation’s Art Museum Futures Fund. The $300,000 grant will be used to support general operations for the NMSU Art Museum.
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NMSU Art Museum awarded $300,000 Andrew W. Mellon grant
by February 05, 2022
LAS CRUCES - The New Mexico State University Art Museum is among a select group across the country to receive a competitive grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The art museum was among those invited to apply for a grant of between $150,000 and $500,000 from the Mellon Foundation’s Art Museum Futures Fund. The $300,000 grant will be used to support general operations for the NMSU Art Museum.
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