UNMAM to Open Celebratory High Five Hall of Fame: Highlights from the UNMAM Collection

The UNM Art Museum (UNMAM) is pleased to announce High Five Hall of Fame: Highlights from the UNMAM Collection, opening to the public Friday, April 18, 2025 in the UNMAM Raymond Jonson Gallery. The exhibition pairs selected works from the permanent collection with personal narratives that illuminate how art influences and inspires the people who engage with it.

The public is invited to join an exhibition tour with Arif Khan, UNMAM Director and High Five Hall of Fame Curator, from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Saturday, May 3, 2025. Tours of other UNMAM exhibitions, Push & Pull: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler and Her Contemporaries and Graphic Art and Revolution, will follow from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM, led by Exhibition Curators Mary Statzer and Angel Jiang. 

High Five Hall of Fame spotlights the lasting impact of the museum’s collection, sharing first-person stories from alumni, artists, and arts professionals about the artworks that shaped their thinking, careers and lives. Together, these memories evoke the joyful gesture of a congratulatory, communal “high five,” celebrating lifelong moments of connection and growth.  

Artworks in the exhibition are from the UNMAM permanent collection and include select paintings, works on paper, sculpture and an archived virtual seminar.

High Five Hall of Fame centers on narratives of connection – the emotional bonds and enduring influences that artists and artworks may generate. “This exhibition reflects the personal ways in which the museum’s collection has touched the lives of people who have connected with it, shared through memorable stories,” said UNMAM Director Arif Khan, who curated the exhibition. “It celebrates the meaningful connections we form with art and with each other, sharing that uplifting, collective spirit, like a celebratory ‘high five.’” 

Featured artists include Ansel Adams, Agnes Martin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Rose B. Simpson.  

Contributors include noted UNM alumni Miguel Gandert, Photographer and UNM Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Communication and Journalism; Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator of Photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and April Watson, 
Senior Curator of Photography, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo. 

 

In many instances, the stories in the exhibition link back to transformative moments of learning sparked at UNM. For example:

• In UNM art and art history classrooms in the 1970s, the passion of UNM Art Professor Beaumont Newhall inspired a student’s lifelong commitment to art and education. 
• A Tamarind Institute Curator Fellow working at the UNMAM in the late 1970s encountered a Roy De Forest painting and was drawn into its vibrant intensity, realizing: “This is genius.”  
• For a graduate student in the early 1990s, Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs came alive through the inspired teaching of UNM Art Historian Eugenia Parry, whose lectures made the wonder and “wackiness” of nineteenth-century photography unforgettable.  
• More recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 175 students engaged with the Rose B. Simpson: Seminar project, which opened up a deeply personal and interdisciplinary dialogue on the virtual UNMAM.ART platform.  

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The exhibition highlights the impact of a UNM education and how UNM students have gone on to successful careers in the museum field throughout the world. “What people may not realize is that several contributors to this exhibition, including Sarah Greenough and April Watson, are UNM alumni,” said Khan. “Their time at UNM and exposure to the museum’s collection helped set them on a path toward the prestigious roles they hold today.”  

High Five Hall of Fame reflects UNMAM’s mission to serve as a teaching museum for UNM faculty and students, with the collection itself playing a critical role. The quality of the collection and opportunities to interact with it, such as in the Beaumont Newhall Study Room, provide exposure and knowledge that cannot be acquired in a classroom.  

UNM students have access to world-class works that they might otherwise encounter only in major institutions in large cities, notes Khan. “Moving forward, the works that have inspired past alumni will continue to inspire future generations of students. We hope this exhibition starts an ongoing tradition for current and future students of celebrating their inspiration together.”  

High Five Hall of Fame: Highlights from the UNMAM Collection is on view in the UNMAM Raymond Jonson Gallery through Saturday, May 17, 2025. 

 

Featured Artists

High Five Hall of Fame featured artists include: 

Contributors to the Exhibition

Contributors to High Five Hall of Fame are as follows:

The exhibition also includes excerpts written by Douglas R. George, UNM Professor of Art History, and Peter Walch, UNMAM Director from 1985-2001, originally published in The University of New Mexico Art Museum: Highlights of the Collection (2001). 

UNMAM.ART was built in collaboration between the University of New Mexico Art Museum and MediaDesk, a creative agency based in Albuquerque. The UNMAM team was led by Mary Statzer, Curator of Prints & Photographs, and Arif Khan, Director. The MediaDesk team was led by Sommer Smith, Creative Director. 

 

Exhibition Events & Programs 

We invite you to join us for an exhibition tour with Arif Khan, UNMAM Director and Exhibition Curator, from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Saturday, May 3, 2025, at the University of New Mexico Art Museum. Tours of the exhibitions, Push & Pull: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler and Her Contemporaries and Graphic Art and Revolution, will follow from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM, led by Exhibition Curators Mary Statzer and Angel Jiang. 

Further events and programs will be announced at artmuseum.unm.edu/events. 

 

Press Contact 

Kathy Freise, UNMAM Communications and Outreach Specialist
kfreise@unm.edu