María Berrío, Virgin & Child I, mixed media on canvas, 60 x 40, 2014. Image Courtesy of Anna Getty and Scott Oste

Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020
On view: February 28 – August 16, 2020
Opening reception: Friday, February 28, 2020, 6:30 PM
Viewing Gallery and full press release  

In Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020, the inaugural exhibition of the new University Art Museum (UAM) at New Mexico State University (NMSU), will open on February 28, 2020 and remain on view until May 28, 2020. This exhibition, co-curated by museum director Marisa Sage and artist Laurel Nakadate, aims to expand and enrich the compelling conversations regarding motherhood in today’s socio-political climate. Through video, painting, installation, sculpture, film and photographic works, a diverse group of artists explore themes of empowerment, empathy, intimacy, selflessness, vulnerability, failure, anxiety, and choice. Situated in the Borderplex region of Southern New Mexico,Labor confronts and challenges historic and contemporary ways mothers and mothering have been represented in both art and popular culture. This exhibition strives to create a space of inclusivity and support that offers opportunities not only for internationally-celebrated artists, but also for the regional community, through local programming and the exhibition of work by New Mexico-based artists that speak to their own experiences relating to motherhood.  

Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020 features the work of artists Tracey Baran, María Berrío, Patty Chang, Lenka Clayton, Amy Cutler, Joey Fauerso, Tierney Gearon, Kate Gilmore, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Mary Kelly, Justine Kurland, Marilyn Minter, Laurel Nakadate, Hương Ngô & Hồng- Ân Trương, Yoko Ono, Catherine Opie, Laurie Simmons, Wendy Red Star, and Mickalene Thomas. Labor builds off MOTHER, a fall 2018 exhibition of photography and video co-curated by Laurel Nakadate and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects in New York. Many of the artists in Labor openly address the choice of becoming mothers, in particular pausing over the emphasis on childlessness in the arts, while looking back at their own mothers’ lives for insight into the mercurial experience of mothering. Many of the works reframe motherhood within the context of artistic practice, finding this recalibration necessary, urgent, and inspirational.

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More information regarding upcoming 2020-2021 exhibitions coming soon.