Students from the class Social Transformation Through Art discuss their artworks with UNMAM Curators, Angel Jiang and Mary Statzer, inside Hindsight Insight 4.0, in February of 2024.

UNMAM has had an overwhelmingly positive and busy spring semester. This spring we welcomed over 5,000 visitors into the museum, directly engaged in the curriculum of seven classes, hosted a symposium on museum careers, and hit a new record of visitors in the Beaumont Newhall Study Room. 

Read about the highlights from this semester below.

Study Room and Student Engagements

LEFT TO RIGHT: Diane Arbus, Patriotic Young Man with Flag, NYC, 1967; Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Mother and Daughter with Make Up), 1990; Patrick Nagatani, Nuki Sushi, 1988.

This semester in the Beaumont Newhall Study Room, Curator of Collections & Study Room Initiatives, Angel Jiang, pulled over 1,000 works of art from our collection for a range of guests including UNM Faculty, students, researchers, and the general public. Jiang and Study Room Assistant, Hannah Cerne, set a record of 82 visits to the study room, with 839 visitors – surpassing our previous record set last fall. 

The top 3 most popular works this semester were: 

1. Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Mother and Daughter with Make Up) from the Kitchen Table Series, 1990, gelatin silver print, Artist’s Proof (98.16) 

2. Diane Arbus, Patriotic Young Man with Flag, NYC, 1967, printed 1975, gelatin silver print (78.259)

3. Patrick Nagatani, Nuki Sushi, 1988, large-format Polaroid print (2007.34.51)  

Student portraits from the class Art Practices II on display in Hindsight Insight 4.0, inside the Van Deren Coke Gallery.

We continued to integrate students into the production of our spring exhibitions, utilizing the UNMAM galleries and study room extensions of the classroom. The classes we engaged with included those in Art, Art History, the UNM Honors College, and the Latin American Iberian Institute. 

Student artworks were displayed in our galleries as part of Hindsight Insight 4.0. Students enrolled in Art Practices II with Principle Lecturer III, jessamyn lovell, and Associate Professor, Ellen Babcock, created artworks about identity that were displayed in the Van Deren Coke Gallery. Our main gallery featured altars created by honors college students from Associate Professor Megan Jacobs’ class Social Transformation Through Art, which spoke to the interconnection between humans and the natural world. Students from Jacobs’ class also presented at UNM’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Conference in April 2024.  

Student artwork from the class Social Transformation Through Art on display in Hindsight Insight 4.0, inside the Main Gallery.

Students enrolled in History of Prints II, taught by UNM Associate Professor of Art History, Susanne Anderson-Riedel, visited the Beaumont Newhall Study Room weekly to research and explore our print collection. These students, with the aid of Jiang and Anderson-Riedel, selected works for our newest exhibition Print in Action: Lithography and the Modern World. You can visit this exhibition when we reopen at the beginning of the fall 2024 semester.  

You can read more about our student engagements in the article Exhibitions, Classes, and Collaborations: Spring 2024 at UNMAM, published earlier this year. 

Student Advisory Council

Students color themed coloring pages and the cover of the UNM ART MUSE/ZINE at the Student Advisory Council Zine Release Party on May 2, 2024.

Following the re-launch of the Student Advisory Council last fall – this spring SAC continued experimenting, collaborating, and researching together. From January to May students in SAC worked with Coordinator of Student Engagement & Technology, Joseph McKee, to create a 24-page zine titled, UNM ART MUSE/ZINE, that responded to UNMAM’s spring exhibition, Hindsight Insight 4.0. 

The creation of SAC’s first-ever zine allowed students to conduct exploratory and multidisciplinary research through art making, text and visual based research. Students were encouraged to research artists, artistic techniques, themes, and topics inspired by Hindsight Insight 4.0. The completed zine serves as a student reflection of the exhibition, and one that exists outside of UNMAM’s institutional voice. 

Read more about the project and view the digital edition of the zine here.  

Exploring Pathways in Museum Careers

Devin Geraci, UNMAM Associate Director of Operations, welcomes guests to the symposium Exploring Pathways in Museum Careers on April 27, 2024.

On April 27, we hosted Exploring Pathways in Museum Careers: A Symposium for Professional Development. Presented in collaboration with the UNMAM Museum Assistant Program and made possible by a generous grant from the New Mexico Creative Industries Division, we invited a wide range of speakers representing 15 museum and creative organizations throughout New Mexico. UNMAM student employees gave input on speaker selection and helped produce the event. 

Some speakers provided insight on their career development in traditional roles such as curators, directors, and educators, while others spoke to their experiences in specialized areas like exhibition design, grant writing, marketing, and technology. Professionals shared their stories, expertise, and passion for museum work to inspire those interested or early on in their career as museum workers.

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The UNM Art Museum’s galleries will be closed to the public over the summer semester, May 12 – August 19, 2024. The Beaumont Newhall Study Room is open by appointment.

Thank you for a great semester, we look forward to welcoming you back this fall!