Hindsight Insight 3.0: Portraits, Landscapes, and Abstraction from the UNM Art Museum is the second version of the UNM Art Museum’s hybrid project space and exhibition devoted to complicating existing narratives about racism, colonialism, and gender stereotypes while de-centering curatorial authority and institutional voice. Created and curated by museum staff and collaborators, the exhibition features portraits, landscapes, and abstract artworks from the permanent collection that complement the curricula of the University of New Mexico’s Department of Art and Art History during the Fall 2023 semester.
The intention behind this ongoing experimental project is to honor and engage student and faculty perspectives, interests, and concerns to make art relevant and alive for the UNM Art Museum’s core audience. From Spring 2023 through Fall 2024, the museum staff is developing multiple iterations that engage the university community to generate critical dialog that resists static presentation and fixed interpretations.
-Mary Statzer, Curator of Prints & Photographs
Hindsight Insight 3.0 is an extension of the classroom created by museum staff and UNM professors Amanda Curreri, Kevin Mulhearn, and Ray Hernández-Durán. Students in each class will activate the exhibition and contribute research, writing, and presentations. These collaborations celebrate UNMAM’s role as a teaching museum that engages the broader campus community.
Created & Curated By:
Collective Constructs is Marcella Ernest, Marina Perez, Francis Reynolds, and Anna Rotty – a group of artists and scholars who work collaboratively.
The intellectual platform of Collective Constructs applies an Indigenous-based methodology for unsettling colonial normativities of place and power and forwarding relationality within the Art Museum. The group is informed and guided by American Indian Curatorial Practice as work that is long-term and based on mentorship that is reciprocal and mutually meaningful. Collective Constructs applies transdisciplinary responses to Hindsight Insight 2.0 and 3.0, centering art historical analysis combined with visual sovereignty and remix strategies that facilitate original research, critical thinking, and collaborative learning.
Artist and Assistant Professor of Drawing & Painting, UNM Department of Art and Art History
Amanda Curreri, originally from Boston, Massachusetts, holds an MFA from the California College of the Arts, a BFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a BA from Tufts University in Sociology and Peace & Justice Studies. She is currently Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting in the Art and Art History Department at University of New Mexico. Curreri’s artwork is situated between textiles and painting, characterized by an engagement with social hxstories of resistance. She exhibits her work nationally and internationally and has recently received commissions from Facebook Open Arts and the Cincinnati Museum of Art. Her artwork has been featured in the New York Times, Artforum, VICE, Hyperallergic, and more.
Professor of Art History, UNM Department of Art and Art History
Ray Hernández-Durán, originally from San Antonio, Texas, completed his B.A. in Psychology/Pre-Med and B.F.A. in Studio Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, his M.A. in the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his Ph.D. in Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Latin American Art History at The University of Chicago. He is currently Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico, specializing in the history of Spanish Colonial Art and Architecture. His courses and research focus primarily on the visual and material cultures of New Spain/Mexico/U.S. Southwest from 1496 to the present.
Curator of Collections & Study Room Initiatives, The University of New Mexico Art Museum
Angel Jiang is the Curator of Collections & Study Room Initiatives at the University of New Mexico Art Museum. After growing up in the southwest, she moved to New York City, where she earned a BA in the History and Theory of Architecture and PhD in Art History and Archaeology from Columbia University, and an MA in the History of Art from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. She is a specialist in Italian and Spanish Renaissance art, the history of architecture, and graphic art across periods. At the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Jiang oversees the Study Room and organizes permanent collection exhibitions.
Assistant Professor of Art History, UNM Department of Art and Art History
Born and raised in New Jersey, Kevin Mulhearn attended Haverford College, receiving a BA in History. After serving as a Congressional speechwriter and working in various capacities at museums in New York, he attended the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, earning a PhD in Art History. He specializes in contemporary global art with a particular interest in the history of photography in Africa, especially South Africa. He is currently Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at University of New Mexico, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of photography
Curator of Prints & Photographs, The University of New Mexico Art Museum
Mary Statzer is a curator and educator who is most at home in museums. Statzer grew up in Illinois and moved to the southwest where she has lived and worked in Arizona and New Mexico. Statzer trained as an artist and art historian, earning a BFA in printmaking and drawing from Illinois State University, an MFA in printmaking from Arizona State University, and PhD in the theory and history of art from University of Arizona. Photography and print are Statzer’s specialties. She is currently Curator of Prints and Photographs at University of New Mexico Art Museum, where she has organized exhibitions in all mediums of art for the past six years.
From the Collection
Hindsight Insight 3.0 is organized into thematic sections that will be activated by UNM faculty and students throughout the Fall 2023 semester.
But History and I features seven pieces by Amanda Curreri, UNM Assistant Professor of Painting & Drawing, that explore themes of immigrant experience, labor history, and community. The inclusion of Curreri’s queer and activist work fills a gap in the museum’s collection. Curreri’s contributions also include ongoing activations that involve students in her course “ACT_ON/ACT_IN” and the public.
Evolving Vision: 20th Century Photography was conceived by Mary Statzer, UNMAM Curator of Prints and Photographs, and Kevin Mulhearn, UNM Assistant Professor of Art History. This section features American and European avant-garde photography from 1917 to 1950. It includes a cross section of technological and stylistic developments in photography during that period. Throughout the semester, students in Mulhearn’s “Twentieth Century Photography” course will research the photographs to provide written contributions to this section.
For Every History Told: Chicano and Latinx Art and Representation was developed by Angel Jiang, UNMAM Curator of Collections & Study Room Initiatives, in collaboration with Ray Hernández-Durán, Professor of Art History at UNM. This section highlights the ways that artists use varying visual strategies and devices—from portraits to personifications—to critique historical narratives and represent personal and communal identities. Students in the class “Chicano and Latinx Art” will study, research, and present on works featured in this section.
The Reading Room holds a variety of books selected by the collaborators – Marcella Ernest, Amanda Curreri, Ray Hernández-Durán, and Kevin Mulhearn. The books are thematically paired to each section of the exhibition. A computer and scanner are available in the reading room, allowing visitors to access digital works and scan chapters.
Along with the materials in the Reading Room, this section of our website features a variety of digital resources such as articles, databases, museum collection pages, and videos that expand on the themes of the exhibition. Explore the digital resources selected by each collaborator below!
Amanda Curreri
- The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study, by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten. (2013)
Ray Hernández-Durán
- Documents of Latin American and Latino Art, from ICAA (the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston).
- Mexican American Art Since 1848.
Kevin Mulhearn
- Reclaiming a Legacy: Photography in Germany and German History (1991) by Klaus Honnef and Joachim Neugroschel.
- Siegfried Kracauer, Photography (1927) Translated by Thomas Y. Levin.
- The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism (1981) by Rosalind Krauss.
- The Thomas Walther Collection at the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art).
- Bauhaus: Building the New Artist from the Getty Research Institute.
- Manhatta (1921) a film by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler.
- Ballet mécanique (1924) a film by Fernand Leger.
- Emak-Bakia (1926) a film by Man Ray.
- Impressionen vom alten Marseiller Hafen (Vieux Port) (1929) a film by László Moholy-Nagy.
- The Aviary (1955) a film by Joseph Cornell with Rudy Burkhardt.
Student Advisory Council
- Robin Rhode in “Johannesburg” – Season 9 “Art in the Twenty-First Century,” by Art 21.
- The Tamarind Institute Honors the Fine Art of Printmaking, by New Mexico Magazine.
- National Museum of Women in the Arts reopening after $70M renovation, by NPR.
- How Can Museums Truly Shake Off Their Colonial Legacy? by Hyperallergic.
- 20th Century Photography, from the Museum Ludwig Cologne.
- Interaction of Color, by Josef Albers.
- The Art of Rebellion: World of Streetart, by Christian Hundertmark.
- Feminist Writings, by Simone de Beauvoir, Edited by Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann; Foreword by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir.
- Landscape Approaches: A State-of-the-Art Review, from the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.
Collaboration in process…
Hindsight Insight 3.0 is an ongoing process. Watch this space for new articles, upcoming events, and invitations to engage with the exhibition.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Click here to view all upcoming events supporting Hindsight Insight 3.0.
LEARN MORE:
Looking Back
Hindsight Insight 3.0 is part of an ongoing exhibition series that began in the spring of 2023. Through this ongoing initiative, UNMAM invites the university community and other collaborators to actively participate in the development, presentation, and interpretation of the exhibition. Review previous iterations of the series here:
Hindsight Insight 2.0: March 3 – July 29, 2023
Hindsight Insight 2.0 and 3.0 were made possible by a generous grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art. The Terra Foundation for American Art, established in 1978 and having offices in Chicago and Paris, supports organizations and individuals locally and globally with the aim of fostering intercultural dialogues and encouraging transformative practices that expand narratives of American art, through the foundation’s grant program, collection, and initiatives.