Frontier Energy: Feminism, Women Artists, and the Southwest

_{Museum guests view Elaine de Kooning’s Taurus (1973) series during the opening reception for Push & Pull: Helen Frankenthaler and Her Contemporaries, on January 31, 2025.} 

Presented by the Allene H. and Walter P. Kleweno Lecture Series Fund

On March 7th, from 5:00 – 6:30 PM, the UNM Art Museum invites you to “Frontier Energy: Feminism, Women Artists, and the Southwest” a panel discussion led by Amy Von Lintel, Professor of Art History and Director of Gender Studies at West Texas A&M University, in conversation with writer and activist Lucy Lippard; artist Sabra Moore; and social activist Margaret Randall. The panel will be followed by a light reception held in the Center for the Arts lobby from 6:30 – 7:30 PM. 

The discussion, focusing on artists Helen Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning, will explore feminism and the artists’ connections to the American Southwest. Von Lintel and the panelists will explore these artists’ careers as well as their own, how attitudes towards feminism evolved in the artworld, and what it has meant to leave New York City – the center of the artworld – for New Mexico. 

This panel will be held in connection with the museum’s current exhibition, Push & Pull: Helen Frankenthaler and Her Contemporaries. Featuring Modern and contemporary abstract prints and drawings, the exhibition focuses on the works of Helen Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning. Displayed alongside their contemporaries, this exhibition demonstrates important collaborations with American publishers such as Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), Tyler Graphics Ltd., and Tamarind Institute. Push & Pull will be on view at UNMAM from January 31 to May 17, 2025.  

“Frontier Energy: Feminism, Women Artists, and the Southwest” will be held in memory of Walter Kleweno, Jr. (1929-2024), a dedicated supporter and long-time friend of the UNM Art Museum. In 2008, Walter and Allene established The Allene H. And Walter P. Kleweno Lecture Series Fund at the UNM Art Museum, with the goal of enhancing exhibitions by offering scholarly insights, new perspectives, and overall enlightenment and enjoyment.

Learn more about the panelists below.

Amy Von Lintel is Professor of Art History and Director of Gender Studies at West Texas A&M University. Her areas of research include modern and contemporary art of the American West, women and gender, fakes and forgeries in art, and the history of art history. Her publications include Three Women Artists: Expanding Abstract Expressionism in the American West (Texas A&M UP, 2022); Georgia O’Keeffe’s Wartime Texas Letters (Texas A&M UP, 2020; paperback 2024); Georgia O’Keeffe Watercolors (Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Radius Books, 2016); and, most recently, Art at the Crossroads: The Surprising Aesthetics of the Texas Panhandle (Texas Tech Press, 2025). Born and raised in the Midwest, in Kansas City, she now lives in Amarillo, Texas where she has raised three children adopted out of the Texas foster system and co-owns a brewery on Historic Route 66 with her brewmaster husband.

Lucy R. Lippard is a writer/activist/sometime curator, author of 30 books on contemporary art activism, feminism, place, photography, archaeology, and land use. She is co-founder of several activist and feminist organizations, and recipient of nine honorary degrees, among other awards. She lives off the grid in Galisteo, New Mexico. where for 28 years she has edited the monthly community newsletter, El Puente de Galisteo.  

Sabra Moore is an artist, writer, and activist. She is a major figure in the feminist art movement in 1960s New York City, and served as President of the Women’s Caucus for Art from 1980-1982. 

Between 1979 and 1991, Moore was a member of the Heresies Collective and a contributor to their feminist art and politics journal, Heresies. She organized diverse exhibitions of women artists, was an organizer of the 1984 Demonstration at MoMa, and was a member of Women Arts in Revolution. Her work is featured in the documentary film, The Heretics, directed by Joan Braderman and distributed by Women Make Movies. She is the author of Openings: A Memoir from the Women’s Art Movement, New York City 1970-1992 (New Village Press, 2016), with forewords by Lucy Lippard and Margaret Randall. 

Moore’s work and life are documented in her artwork, photographs, posters, clippings, newsletters, and cards kept in the Barnard Archives and Special Collections. She continues to work as an artist and activist in New Mexico.

Poet, photographer, translator, and social activist Margaret Randall was born in New York City and grew up in New Mexico. Taking active part in the Mexican student movement of 1968 and then living in Cuba for eleven years and Nicaragua for four, Randall returned to the United States in 1984, only to face deportation when the government declared her writings “against the good order and happiness of the United States.” With the support of many, she won her case in 1989. Randall is the author of more than two hundred books, including Che on My Mind, Artists in My Life, and I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary. Recent titles include Luck, Home, and This Honest Land. She’s received the Poet of Two Hemispheres award from Poesía en Paralelo, Ecuador, AWP’s George Garrett Award, Albuquerque’s Creative Bravo Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of New Mexico, among other recognitions.