Exhibitions, Classes, and Collaborations: Spring 2024 at UNMAM
Inside the Beaumont Newhall Study Room, UNMAM Curator, Angel Jiang, works with students from History of Print II taught by Susanne Anderson-Riedel.
This semester at the UNM Art Museum we are continuing to facilitate student learning through a series of engagements with a variety of classes at The University of New Mexico. UNMAM Curator of Collections and Study Room Initiatives, Angel Jiang, and UNMAM Curator of Prints and Photographs, Mary Statzer, have been working with several professors to directly integrate students into multiple levels of exhibition preparation and curation, making the UNMAM galleries and study room extensions of the classroom.
Throughout the spring UNMAM will be working with six classes from across UNM, totaling over 100 students, in developing exhibition materials, researching our permanent collection, and in artistic participation.
This is an exciting time for UNMAM as we continue expanding our collaborative exhibition experiments with UNM students and faculty. Read below to see what we’re working on this semester.
Photo in the UNM Art Museum
Students in Photo in the UNM Art Museum, taught by UNM Assistant Professor of Art History, Kevin Mulhearn, will study the history and development of photography collections with a focus on the UNMAM collection. The class will examine the construction of our collection and reflecting on its future. For their assignments, students will craft exhibition and acquisition proposals.
The class will meet several times in the Beaumont Newhall Study Room to speak with curators, view works in person, and familiarize themselves with the collection. For their assignments, students will craft exhibition and acquisition proposals that are unique to UNMAM.
William Henry Fox Talbot, King’s College Chapel, 1843. Salt paper print from a calotype negative.
HINDSIGHT INSIGHT 4.0 ENGAGEMENTS
In our upcoming exhibition, Hindsight Insight 4.0, we continue our third installment of a hybrid exhibition project between UNMAM staff and UNM faculty and students. Three classes and our Student Advisory Council will be engaging directly with the artists and artworks inside this exhibition.
Art Practices II
Behind-the-scenes image of A Sense of Self installation.
A Sense of Self: Performing Identity for the Camera is a section of Hindsight Insight 4.0. This section, developed by UNM Art Principle Lecturer III, jessamyn lovell, and curator Mary Statzer, enriches curriculum in Art Practices II, a class taught this semester by UNM Art instructors jessamyn lovell and Ellen Babcock.
Using a large range of portraiture from the UNMAM permanent collection as inspiration, students in Art Practices II will create artwork about identity. The artworks created by students enrolled in Art Practices II will be installed in the Van Deren Coke Gallery later in the semester.
jessamyn lovell has worked alongside UNMAM staff to create a working portrait studio inside Hindsight Insight 4.0, available to all museum guests. In the portrait studio, guests will have access to a camera, lighting equipment, and a backdrop. Images taken in the portrait studio will be displayed on the museum’s website, social media pages, and the museum’s public monitor.
Social Transformation Through Art
UNMAM Coordinator of Exhibitions, Steven Hurley, works on the installation of Eco-Pulse: Rise and Fall.
Eco-Pulse: Rise and Fall, another section of Hindsight Insight 4.0, was curated by Mary Statzer and UNM Honors Associate Professor, Megan Jacobs. This section was developed for curriculum in Jacobs’ class Social Transformation Through Art and focuses on the interconnection between humans and the natural world. Artworks include a range of materials – paper, plastic, contaminated water, salt, elk hide, moss, clay, a silver-dipped leaf – signifying complexity and challenging notions of man-made vs. natural art media.
Twice throughout the semester students enrolled in Social Transformation Through Art will install altars inspired by the artworks in this section of Hindsight Insight 4.0. Students will also submit their work for presentation at UNM’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Conference in April 2024.
Student Advisory Council
The UNMAM Student Advisory Council is a volunteer student group serving as a consultative and collaborative body at UNMAM. Each semester SAC works on a project that engages with the museum, its collection, and current exhibitions.
This semester SAC will create a zine that will serve as a student reflection and interpretation of Hindsight Insight 4.0. The zine will represent a larger response of the themes present in the exhibition, while also pursing SAC’s mission of “empowering student voices, creating meaningful student connections, and facilitating ongoing student dialogues about critical subjects.” The zine’s purpose is to encourage UNM students to engage in creative and exploratory multidisciplinary research.
Upcoming Exhibtion Engagements
History of Print II
Students in History of Prints II, taught by UNM Associate Professor of Art History, Susanne Anderson-Riedel, will meet in the Beaumont Newhall Study Room each week to research and explore the UNMAM print collection. With the aid of curator Angel Jiang, the class will contribute to an exhibition titled Print in Action: Lithography and the Modern World, opening this May in UNMAM’s Clinton Adams Gallery.
The exhibition will be organized into six sections: Drawing on Stone, Advertising, Lithography as a Political Tool, The Reproductive Print, Travel, and Collaborative Printmaking and Lithography Today.
Kathe Kollwitz, Tod Greift in Kinderschar (Death Seizing Children), 1934. Lithograph, edition of 100.
Latin American Film
UNMAM Curator, Angel Jiang, displays Latin American political posters from our collection to students in Latin American Film taught by Mariana Sabino Salazar.
Students in Latin American Film, taught by Latin American Studies Lecturer III, Mariana Sabino Salazar, will visit the Beaumont Newhall Study Room several times throughout the semester in order to conduct preliminary research and compile a checklist for an upcoming exhibition on Latin American political posters.
In the fall of 2024 and spring of 2025, a second and third round of students in Sabino Salazar’s classes will continue to engage with the exhibition through a series of research and writing projects. This exhibition will be on view in the Clinton Adams Gallery from October 2024 – March 2025.
Bio Art and Design
UNMAM Curator, Mary Statzer, speaks with students from Bio Art and Design taught by Andrea Polli.
Hindsight Insight 5.0 will be the final installation of UNMAM’s Hindsight Insight series, and is currently being developed. Curator Mary Statzer is working with UNM Professor, Mesa Del Sol Endowed Chair in Digital Media, Andrea Polli; UNM Art & Ecology Lecturer III, Kaitlin Bryson; UNM Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Fiona Bell; and UNM Art & Art History Faculty member, Amy Pilling.
This semester students in Andrea Polli’s class Bio Art and Design will visit the Beaumont Newhall Study Room to analyze artworks relating to the theme of Hindsight Insight 5.0. The exhibition will open in the fall of 2024 – more information to come soon!