Thoughts on the Untitled Work by Daisy Quezada Ureña
For last in our four-part series covering the Albuquerque exhibition of Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’, we highlight the untitled work by Daisy Quezada Ureña on display at Exhibit/208. As with the other pieces we have reviewed, “Alien Species” by Eric J. Garcia at El Chante: Casa De Cultura; “Santa Librada” by Brandon Maldonado at the South Broadway Cultural Center and Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”at Tortuga Gallery, we are sticking with the “Here” portion of artists in this show with New Mexican artist Daisy Quezada Ureña. I will keep my thoughts on this piece brief.
Thoughts on “Road Tripping: Midwest” by Dana Patterson Roth
Riding in cars for long distances when you’re a kid is brutally dull. Those of us old enough to have suffered through this before the rise of cell phones and other such electronic devices remember a time when your options were minimal. Sit there. Do nothing. Look out the window. I guess you could read, if you knew how and it didn’t make you car sick.
Thoughts on “Alien Species” by Eric J. Garcia
For the third part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we stay with a New Mexico artist, Eric j. Garcia, and spend some time with a work that is very much a product of New Mexico, “Alien Species,” currently on exhibit at El Chante: Casa De Cultura.
Much has been written about Garcia lately in local publications and deservingly so. I see no need to rehash what they have said, but clearly his body of work is both thoughtful and accessible, a rare combination. In “Alien Species” we again see these qualities. The point is made plain; cows are the aliens here in the Southwest.
Thoughts on Eyeshine by Adrian Pijoan
Adrian Pijoan is not an apologist ufologist. He’s been at this kind of stuff for a while as host of the YouTube series Alien Hour, in character as paranormal researcher Dr. Howard. In his exhibit at the Harwood Art Center, Pijoan uses the paranormal palette – Aliens, Bigfoot, Mothman – to tell personal stories much like a retablo painter renders the saints and for many of the same reasons. They all form the characters in stories we tell each other here in New Mexico. The truth is, after all, out here.
Thoughts on “Santa Librada” by Brandon Maldonado
For the second part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we again stay with an Albuquerque artist Brandon Maldonado and take a look at his “Santa Librada” at the South Broadway Cultural Center.
Much has been said about this venerated, bearded woman here in New Mexico making this piece an excellent choice for inclusion in this exhibit. I don’t want to dive too far into Santa Librada’s story here because, like the stories of all saints, it is filled with so many diverging origins and ever-evolving interpretations (as well as the fact she is not an actual saint according to the Catholic Church) that this particular work could be easily swamped.
Thoughts on Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”
I’ve always thought that Pema Chodron’s suggestion to start where you are could be applied to just about anything, if for no other reason than it requires no travel time. When it comes to the ambitious 60-artist, four-venue exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’, starting with a work from here also makes sense. Artists from Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas have efforts to show here in Albuquerque at Exhibit/208, the South Broadway Cultural Center, El Chante and where we begin our four-part look at this exhibit at Tortuga Gallery, with Albuquerque-native Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”.
Thoughts on Legacies by Sam Elkind
Contemporary landscape photography is often plagued by the type of photographer that heads out into the American West to find the exact spot where Ansel Adams or some other such person made a famous photograph. They will seek out the exact tripod holes in the ground (sometimes even finding them there in the dirt left by some previous photo-geocacher with a similar goal) in order to recreate the same photo. Don’t think for a moment that it is like Hunter S. Thompson retyping The Great Gatsby to get the feel of the words. It is lamer.
Thoughts on the Photography of Lee Marmon
The new retrospective exhibit of photographer Lee Marmon’s work, Between Two Worlds, at the Albuquerque Museum is a tribute to a photographer who was pivotal in the shifting of perceptions of Native Americans that began after WWII and continues to this day. While the impact Marmon had on how Native Americans were seen in the mid-20th century is undeniable, the remarkable thing about Marmon’s photography itself may be how unremarkable the photographs actually are. I say that not to run the man down, but to highlight what truly makes Marmon a remarkable photographer.
Thoughts on Lucy Barna's What I Know Is True
Lucy Barna’s new album What I Know Is True treats the Madrid singer/songwriter’s songs softly and honestly. It is an album full of tight compositions and straightforward orchestration. It is a fair reflection of Barna’s years playing live but goes beyond that to make good use of the studio, allowing the songs to be absorbed without distractions.
Thoughts on the Breaking Bad Sculpture
It was a lovefest at the Albuquerque Convention Center on Friday for the unveiling of the Walter White and Jesse Pinkman statue and why not? Breaking Bad was transformative for Albuquerque. It changed the way we saw ourselves and the world saw us. It made the film industry in this town. People bought houses with the money they made working on the show. Locals flocked to be background actors so they could point themselves out to their friends on the TV. While there are critics of the statue, in a city where a guy got shot two years ago over a dispute about the kind of statues we should have here, things could be more controversial.
Thoughts on Remnants
Working with found objects, that is objects found in the natural world, or more specifically, dead objects, is a tradition that finds virtue in its ability to directly reconsider the object’s original purpose. The latest exhibit at Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitor Center brings together two veterans of the craft, Carolyn Berry and Margy O’Brien, whose paring was described as two people who “thought it was the most natural thing in the world to examine roadkill and pluck butterflies from car grills in parking lots.”
Thoughts on Surface 2022
The Harwood Art Center’s Surface show this year again focuses on what has been dubbed “emerging” artists in New Mexico. I’ve always found the word “emerging” an awkward description of a time in someone’s career, but the name has found its footing and does the job of conveying the circumstance so I guess we are stuck with it until something else comes along. Let not the name, nor my thoughts on it, cast aspersions on the artists participating in this year’s Surface: Emerging Artists of New Mexico exhibit.
Thomas Bowers’ Childlike Behavior
Ah, to be young and talented. After being awarded last year’s Harwood Art Center Solo Exhibition Award at the Surface show, Thomas Bowers produced a stellar collection of new work, primarily at Harwood’s Sixth Street Studio for the new exhibit Childlike Behavior. Bowers creates work that is unrestrained and appropriately dubbed “childlike.” With paintings physically larger in scale than last year, Bower’s exhibit makes full use of the Front Gallery by hanging the works and then taking crayon to wall to emphasize the, um, childlike behavior. Augmented by smaller, childish objects and written pieces, the result is an integrated installation that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Thoughts on Stormclouds Like Unkept Promises
I dislike songs without definitive endings. When the recording just sort of fades out and the engineer turns the volume to zero. Am I to assume the band played on? Did I lose conciseness? You know that they don’t do that kind of thing when they are playing live so why can’t they just write an ending so you know when the piece is over? The poet Margaret Randell doesn’t play her poems that way. Randell’s poems end strong.
Orlando Leyba’s “King Solomon's Double-wide”
King Solomon – The king of the mines. The king of the baby math. The king of over 3,000 proverbs. The king of so many ancient stories, and with Orlando Leyba’s “King Solomon's Double-wide” on exhibit at the South Broadway Cultural Center, a contemporary one. What I truly enjoy about this piece is that it allows me to entertain myself by thinking of wise old King Solomon, the temple built, kicking back in a double-wide somewhere maybe outside Chimayo, writing Ecclesiastes. I do wonder how the 700 wives would fit in there.
Ben Harrison’s “Firebird”
Several years ago, when I was living in Old Town about 500 yards from Ghostwolf Gallery that hosts the work “Firebird” by Ben Harrison, I witnessed a convention of Pontiac Firebirds in the parking lot across the street. The Detroit heyday beer tent racers filled the lot to the tune of close to 100 on a bright, sunny Albuquerque summer day. Out of the clear blue sky, golf ball-sized hail fell in buckets, slamming against the hoods and T-tops of the defenseless birds. Firebird decals and custom paint jobs were quickly marred and dented. Guys stood helpless under colonnades watching countless Saturday afternoon’s restoration work pummeled by falling ice. It was a sad sight when the hail cleared after not more than five minutes and the car owners rushed out to inspect the damage. Tears were shed. James Garner rolled in his grave.
One + One = One
Simply named Collaboration, the new show at the Placitas Community Library features the work “Eclectic Echoes” as a collaboration between painters, Rebecca Nolda and P.K. Williams. Now, unless you live in Placitas, odds are you may have missed their local library. It’s also likely that if you are an art fan in Albuquerque, you may have failed to consider the place among your must-see list of art venues. Let me dissuade you of that notion. Discount Placitas and their Community Library at your own peril. I am constantly surprised at what I find there.
Opening Thoughts on a Bagel
Bagels have been a problem for as long as I can remember here in Albuquerque. I grew up in New York and I drove straight to Albuquerque from Harlem, so consider that when I say my first impression of the things that passed for bagels here was not positive. There were many good things about long-gone Fred’s on Central, but the bagels were not really one of them. That said, I was ready to put bagels behind me anyway. If I wanted New York I would have stayed in New York. BTW, what is this carne asada you speak of?
WildFire
In myriad ways, it seems appropriate to start this new magazine about the art of Albuquerque with a review of Mary Lambert’s small, unassuming mixed media piece “Wildfire” tucked away in a corner of the Open Space Visitor Center. This piece speaks to much of what I want to say about art in this town by simply existing in the Open Space Visitor Center gallery at this time. Like we’ve all heard a million times, context is everything.