Santa Fe Reporter - Art Reviews

Post-Industrial Discourse - Ghosts in Armour brings focus to collaborative artistic practice

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 MDT

This column is a plea for the art communities of Santa Fe to begin a dialogue that furthers artistic practice—which naturally includes conversations about the notion of artistic practice and our understanding of community—inspired by a one-week exhibition at Santa Fe Complex.

Relapse - Time travel is really the act of standing still

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 MDT

You are not the person you were a decade ago. You regenerate your cells every 7-10 years, becoming fundamentally different. The Time-Lapse exhibition at SITE Santa Fe, which closes May 20 after a three-month run, changes just subtly and frequently enough to remind us of this metamorphosis.

Meta Observations - The difference between intended and unintended interventions

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 MDT

I’m stuck on the words “human interventions in landscape” accompanying Nancy Holt’s early photographic series, “Western Graveyards.” The collection of dilapidated and overgrown burial sites, photographed in 1968, occupies a corner of the exhibition Nancy Holt: Sightlines at the Santa Fe Art Institute.

Step Aside, Miss O’Keeffe - SFUAD seniors take Santa Fe art to new places

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 MDT

A brief trip to the Santa Fe University Art and Design for the graphic design senior thesis exhibit proved a refreshing reminder of the potential (and potential capital gain) of art.

Visit with a Bear - An out-of-town journalist on his encounter with a Santa Fe legend

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 MDT

Looking to have a silver turquoise ring cut down to size, I found a rough-hewn silversmith nicknamed Bear tucked away in his den at the downtown Santa Fe Village, where he’s been for 27 years.

Unintentionally Undercover - Live Previews of Tamale-wood’s Future

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 MDT

I recently worked on the set of Longmire, a new television series for the A&E network starring Robert Taylor. Filming in the Santa Fe area, the show is based on the hero of the Craig Allen Johnson novel series, Sheriff Walt Longmire.

Interpenetration of Opposites - Cannupa Hanska and the chimera effect

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00:00 MDT

Sculptor Cannupa Hanska shares a multi-acre compound in Nambé with at least three other people, including his partner (the vivacious Santa Fe DJ and performance artist Ginger Dunnill) and their newborn, Io (pronounced E-O). The main house tells of its prior life as a mill, the remnants of a wheel fixed to the outside and the gears plastered into surfaces in the kitchen.

The Skinny: Just Imagine It - A Primer in arts marketing

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 MDT

Scott Shuker scours press releases and website for updates, hirings/firings and more from Santa Fe's arterati.

Art of Story, Story of Art - Artists and poets collaborate, then deconstruct

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 MDT

Take this apart: “cut down her presence remains comforting me no accusation recrimination just her love.” What are you left with? Syllables, a rhythmic cadence, layers of meaning left to interpretation...

Reclaiming a Symbol - Tattoo artist Guido Baldini revisits the origins of the swastika

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 MDT

With the opening of his show Tales of the Whirling Log and Auspicious Marks on Canvas, local tattoo artist Guido Baldini hopes to retell the story of the swastika based on its original intentions.

Letters to... - When a constituent speaks, who listens?

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 MST

So I’m back at Caldera Gallery, this time for a letter-writing event, in advance of the March 6 elections. I’m sitting across from Houston Johansen, justifying why I’m thinking about abstaining from the vote. Having humored me a conversation on politics as art, he contains his annoyance no more.

Making Money...er, Art - How does a price tag change a work's value?

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 MST

Money is a pedestrian way to value art…I mean life…I mean art. I voice this truism Sunday afternoon, walking up Canyon Road with my baby mama. She huffs a laugh, and says, “Duh.” So I’m comp

Time, And Again - SITE Santa Fe exhibition loops past, present and future.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 MST

Moments into a media walk-through of SITE Santa Fe’s exhibition Time-Lapse, I’m mentally preparing to retract comments I made about the absence of active culture in museums [The Curator, Nov. 9, 2011: “Where Culture Happens”], when a SITE employee approaches.

To Go Under - In 5 Submerging, committed artists show the depths of their practice

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 MST

The phrase “to experience art” has its origins in the teachings of John Dewey. He wrote that art could evoke simultaneous intellectual and emotional responses—art is not “seen” like an object on the street, but “felt” and “told.”

Envelopes and Pink Suits - Caldera Gallery hand-delivers art to your Valentine, or whomever

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 MST

The trio of artists over at Caldera Gallery consistently opens my mind— by way of my prejudices —to the possibilities in art.

A Night at the Museum - Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s abstract landscapes

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 MST

In September 1987—frustrated by lengthy negotiations over the preservation of a 17-mile cluster of remarkably conscientious Native American rock paintings on the site of a potential housing development—a wealthy landowner started up his forklift, removed a petroglyph-marked boulder, loaded it into the back of his pickup truck and dumped it onto the Albuquerque courthouse steps—spitting in the face of 7,000 years of spiritual history.

Free, Found and Cheap - Pleasure as the profound and foremost purpose of art

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 MST

I began building a list of places to buy inexpensive, original artworks.

The Body, Undone - Matthew Chase-Daniel’s new book lets viewers see what they will

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 MST

The human body contains infinite configurations, compositions and possibilities for reframing and re-examination. In photographer Matthew Chase-Daniel’s new book Body, it becomes the canvas for organically abstracted and dizzyingly decontextualized images, leaving us anxious for reference points.

Donne with Solo Work - Jordan West on working alone and the horror of consumerism

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 MST

Local artist Jordan West reminded me of the John Donne poem containing “No man is an island” on my visit last week to West’s Second Street studio. We’d been talking about the difference between working in isolation and in a group.

Final Pilgrimage - A last visit to Leonard Knight’s 30-year endeavor on the Salton Sea

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 MST

The outsider artist closest to my heart is Leonard Knight. Formerly a mechanic in the US armed services with no artistic training or experience, Knight has spent the last 30 years or so building and maintaining a 150-foot-tall installation in Niland, Calif., on the banks of the Salton Sea. He calls it Salvation Mountain; you may recognize it from the films Into the Wild and Bombay Beach.