DECADE catalog

exhibition catalog

516 ARTS is an independent, nonprofit contemporary arts organization, operating a museum-style gallery in Downtown Albuquerque. We offer programs that inspire curiosity, dialogue, risk-taking and creative experimentation, showcasing a mix of established, emerging, local, national and international artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Our mission is to forge connections between art and audiences, and our vision is to be an active partner in developing the cultural landscape of Albuquerque and New Mexico. Our values are inquiry, diversity, collaboration and accessibility.

www.516arts.org Click here for DECADE video

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

STAFF & CONSULTANTS

Danny Lopez, Chair Suzanne Sbarge, President Clint Wells, Vice President Juan Abeyta, Treasurer Kymberly Pinder, Secretary Hakim Bellamy Patricia Kurz Tim Price Mark Rohde Arturo Sandoval

Suzanne Sbarge, Executive Director Teresa Buscemi, Communications Manager Claude Smith, Exhibitions & Fulcrum Fund Manager M. Paige Taylor, Education Coordinator Jane Kennedy, Development Associate Janice Fowler, Bookkeeper Kathy Garrett, Accountant Melody Mock, Website Designer

ADVISORY BOARD Michael Berman Sherri Brueggemann Diane Burke Christopher Burmeister David Campbell Andrew Connors Debi Dodge Idris Goodwin Deborah Jojola Manny Juarez Jane Kennedy Arif Khan Brian McMath

Elsa MenĂŠndez Henry Rael Mary Anne Redding Rick Rennie Augustine Romero Paula Smith-Hawkins Rob Strell Randy Trask Marta Weber Will K. Wilkins Robert Wilson

COVER: Continuum (detail), 2016, hand-cut adhesive vinyl & acrylic paint, photo courtesy of the artist

October 15, 2016 – January 7, 2017

CONTENTS Celebrating the Decade, Pondering the Future

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by Lucy Lippard

Artists 13

Site Projects 28

Biographies 34

Support 37

Tom Joyce, Penumbra XXVI, 2016, charred drawing on wood fiber, photo by Kate Joyce

Celebrating the Decade, Pondering the Future

by Lucy R. Lippard

Few small cities are lucky enough to have an alternate space like 516 ARTS, which keeps artworkers attuned to national, international, and — perhaps most important — local contributions to cutting edge arts. (Seven of the fifteen artists in the DECADE show are from New Mexico.) 516 ARTS is also the fountainhead of various downtown Albuquerque revitalization projects, not least of which are the talks, performances, murals, and other site specific events it produces. To celebrate this first decade, the staff has selected a formally motley and significantly multicultural collection of works that demonstrates its strengths and diversity and, better yet, takes some risks.

When I first moved to New Mexico twenty three years ago, looking to escape the bigtime artworld after 35 exhilarating years in Lower Manhattan’s funky and often politicized scene, I found myself missing the fringes. I asked an artist (who has since decamped) where were the alternate spaces in Santa Fe? He said I should go to the bars— that’s where the action was.

I’d been there and done that. I was getting older and lived out of town.

I just wanted to be able to see some exciting local art before it had been coopted by the art market. Albuquerque, I soon realized, was bigger and livelier, but too far away for casual consistent drop-ins. ¡Magnifico!, 516 ARTS’ predecessor (also directed by the indefatigable Suzanne Sbarge) proved that thinking outside the predictable boxes, organizational savvy, local support and support for the local are more crucial than keeping up with the biennials. Today there are more burgeoning artist-run spaces along New Mexico’s Cultural Corridor (like Central Features Contemporary Art, The Sanitary Tortilla Factory, GRAFT and Small Engine Gallery in Albuquerque; Meow Wolf, Radical Abacus and Axle Contemporary in Santa Fe; and The PASEO in Taos, among others).

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Having worked with Chicano artists and activists in Denver, I also wondered where Santa Fe’s Latino art center was. Since then, El Museo Cultural and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe and the impressive (if under-used) National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque have addressed that void. But others remain, and 516 ARTS continues to fill the gaps with energy, acumen, and knowledgeable enthusiasm (sometimes aided by the Albuquerque Museum, The University of New Mexico Art Museum and sister spaces in Santa Fe — the Center for Contemporary Arts, SITE Santa Fe, and the Alcove shows at the New Mexico Museum of 2 of color are not represented in the DECADE show to be Art). Communities politically correct, but to spread the word to mainstream institutions that they are neglecting some spectacular work.

Variety is the spice of art life, especially in “regional” cities, where it is both desirable and necessary to attract a wide spectrum of audiences and artists.

So as an intentionally non-cohesive group show with four geographically distributed public art outliers, DECADE is a good place to survey the choices that artists need to make when they ask themselves some crucial questions: What is the function of art? How do they want to communicate with their David Leigh, Krud! (You don’t have to wait for more color instructions) (detail of installation process), 2016, ink marker & latex on wall

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viewers (or not)? Do they want to distance, overwhelm, envelop, entertain, awe, educate, irritate, agitate? Is the viewer a spectator or a participant or a collaborator? The breadth of practice that 516 ARTS has dealt with, which includes street art, public art, performance, environmental issues, climate change, and socially engaged projects and new media, is hard to bottle. Which is a good thing. In New Mexico, where tourism is a necessary evil (or good, depending on where you stand), it is particularly important to pay attention to local needs. But more is required than merely testing and satisfying the tastes of those who darken the doors of 516 ARTS. As the mediums in which artists work have expanded, merged, and overlapped in the twenty first century, categorization has become irrelevant.

A group show like DECADE lends itself to no immediate definition. While the viewer will have a field day, it is challenging for a writer to cast a verbal net over such a varied collection. Nor is it possible for an outsider to unearth the networks that connect the artists and their works. Even the term “multimedia” has become omnivorous. Science and technology have found an unprecedented home in the arts, where artists dare to create what scientists can be hesitant to state. Many of these artists are young (I’m not) and concerned with the future (I am too). Nature continues to 8

Aaron Noble, Subterranean (detail of installation process), 2016, ink marker & latex on wall DECADE Site Project at Tamarind Insitute • 2500 Central Ave. SE, Albuquerque • Made possible in part by Tamarind Institute

hold its own in the high desert, where climate change is a matter of life and death. The apocalyptic visual languages of some of the DECADE works are all too appropriate. It is up to us to figure out how to survive, and artists are our social imaginers.

Aaron Noble’s peasant in the gallery exhibit bears a fantastical burden that can be variously interpreted. David Leigh’s liberated graffiti-style pays tribute to technology’s monstrous or miraculous infiltration of our lives. Jessica Angel’s dizzying futuristic installations immerse the viewer in imaginary interior landscapes through her “paradox of digital and traditional.” (It borders on “Big Fun Art,” as Hyperallergic writer Ben Davis recently dubbed the Meow Wolf collective’s massive installation in Santa Fe.) At the other end of the spectrum from such razzle dazzle are Patrick Nagatani’s meditative Buddhist “tape-estries” of Asian deities, which he has been making since 1982. Or Leticia Bajuyo’s ode to silence and to the silenced: made from recycled CDs and DVDs, her great horns promise amplification but instead observe the rules of the library in which they are installed: Shhhh.

Leticia Bajuyo, Ad Infinitum II, 2016, recycled CDs & DVDs, ratchet straps, zip ties, monofilament, metal hardware, wood, paint • DECADE Site Project at Tony Hillerman Library, 8205 Apache Ave. NE, Albuquerque • Made possible in part by City Councilor Diane Gibson, District 7

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One of the issues raised by the works in DECADE is the relationship of material to content and intent to communication. Formal power is always important, but depth is provided by less quantifiable means. Would Adrian Esparza’s handsome abstractions be as compelling if they were not woven of unraveled serapes, T-shirts and posters? If he didn’t have an Hispano name and come from El Paso? Would Erika Blumenfeld’s glowing otherworldy orbs be less awe-inspiring if we were not told that they depict the North, South, East, and West light of Antarctica, that she works with scientists to record light? Would former blacksmith Tom Joyce’s earthier charred rings be as moving if we did not know that they were formed by fire? Or that his iron sculptures have been liberated from their government, corporate and military origins? Would Floyd Tunson’s pop versions of Black history pack less of a wallop if they were made by a white artist? Such questions were once considered rude, even irrelevant to art, but fortunately impurities and downright resistance have crept into execution and perception — even of art for art’s sake. For instance, the erosion of the great-male-artistworking-alone-against-all-odds syndrome. Feminists are still trying to take care of that one. The best strategy turns out to be great female artists working with others to change the world.

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BioCultura (Andrea Polli & John Donalds), The ‘T’ House, 2016, mixed media & performances DECADE Site Project on the grounds of Farm & Table, 8917 4th St. NW, Albuuerque • Made possible

by Farm & Table

In her sculptures and wall paintings, Eliza Naranjo Morse, who is based in and near her ancestral home at Santa Clara Pueblo and dedicates some of her energies to permaculture, blurs the boundaries between forms of organic life, identifying with the insect-like/humanoid figures that seem to emerge from another world. Michael Berman’s subtle black and white photography reflects his training as a biologist and his long-term commitment to the environmental gories and glories of New Mexico’s landscapes and land uses, focusing most recently on the Chihuahuan desert. His lyrical seven panel screen of cinematic close-ups of birds on branches offers a counterpoint to the bold, bright, hi-tech driven imagery of some of the younger artists.

Chip Thomas (jetsonorama), Golden Migration, 2016, photographic wheatpaste mural • DECADE Site Project on the dairy barn at valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, 7851 2nd St. SW,, Albuuerque Made possible by Friends of Valle de Oro, Kurz Foundation, New Mexico Humaniies Council

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Collaboration is at the heart of social practice. Andrea Polli and John Donalds, working together as BioCultura, perform an intimate participatory “T” ceremony on the symbiosis between native plants and people. The collaboration between Lisa Nevada and Chip Thomas promises to be just the kind of hybrid experience so often proffered by 516 ARTS. Thomas, aka jetsonorama, a physician/street artist who has worked for almost thirty years with residents and young artists on the Navajo Nation, has developed a body of large scale photographs wheat-pasted on rural walls and homes, reflecting daily lives and the environment. His current focus on human responses to climate change will be a wall piece to be “animated” by similarly inspired dancer/choreographer Nevada in a site-specific dance tour through the Bosque at the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge in Albuquerque’s South Valley. Chaz Bojórquez, who has been called the godfather of LA Graffiti, will exhibit (indoors) his dazzling black, white, and gray We Come Spinning Scattering Stars (after a Rumi poem). Its frozen fireworks will be amplified by Idris Goodwin’s spoken word performance.

Of course the ultimate “alternate space” is the public domain. Unlike commercial galleries, 516 ARTS has long been committed to public and sometimes socially engaged works on the streets, the walls, the cyberspaces of its home city. In her introductory essay to GREEN, 516 ARTS’s opening volley in 2006, Sharon Udall presciently wrote that it would be “a portal to the extraordinary.” Many Albuquerqueans have now walked thru that portal, pronounced it good, and returned often. A precarious experimental enterprise like 516 ARTS that reaches the ripe old age of ten is indeed cause for celebration.

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Lucy Lippard is a writer, activist, and sometime curator. Since 1966, she has published 24 books on contemporary art and cultural studies, including Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (1990), The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society (1997), Down Country: The Tano of the Galisteo Basin 12501782 (2010), and, most recently, Undermining: A Wild Ride through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West (2014). She has been co-founder of various artists’ groups including Printed Matter, Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D), Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, and the guerrilla performance groups Outside Agitators and Damage Control. She has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Creative Capital, various awards, and nine honorary doctorates in fine arts.

JESSICA ANGEL Colombia / New York

“This piece is inspired by the idea of the multiverse and the possibility of higher dimensions. After Euclidean perspective was demystified and the concept of parallel lines debunked, our understanding of space starts to curve, and our perception of an infinite flat space becomes bounded in an enclosed sphere. New questions arise in regards to where the new infinity of space lies and how our bounded universe could be entangled with an multiplicity of other universes. This installation aims to engage viewers into a new experience of space by breaking the horizon and visually curving the apexes of the room.”

Jessica Angel’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Digital Latin America (2014). Her artist residency for DECADE is made possible in part by NPN/ Visual Artists Network.

DECADE SITE PROJECT: The Fall of the Ten Suns (see p. 33) Long-term mural at Silver Street Market, 205 Silver Ave. SW, Downtown Albuquerque. Presented in partnership with Downtown ABQ MainStreet Initiative. Made possible by The City of Albuquerque Public Art Urban Enhancement Program, Geltmore LLC and YES Housing.

Continuum (detail), 2016, hand-cut adhesive vinyl & acrylic paint, photo courtesy of the artist

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LETICIA BAJUYO Indiana

In Leticia Bajuyo’s artwork, compassion and a critique of capitalism fuel her studio production, as she explores perceptions of value in order to foster an awareness of the role of social amnesia on consumer behavior. The compact disc is situated in a technological history of automated devices that read inscriptions and codes to reproduce experience. As old CDs and DVDs are donated, the collection becomes a visually displaced consciousness and collective memory, which is woven into a fabric. By creating shiny tunnels and horns with visible construction methods with this fabric, the CD/DVD installations at 516 ARTS and the Tony Hillerman Library are designed to foster awareness and enthusiasm for the discs.

Leticia Bajuyo’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Here & There: Seeing New Ground for LAND/ART (2009).

DECADE SITE PROJECT: Amplitude II (see p. 32) Temporary sculpture at Tony Hillerman Library, 8205 Apache Ave. NE, Northeast Heights, Albuquerque. Made possible in part by City Councilor Diane Gibson, District 7.

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Ad Infinitum II, 2016, recycled CDs & DVDs, ratchet straps, zip ties, monofilament, metal hardware, wood, paint, Theremin,speaker, amplifier, photo by Renée Romero

MICHAEL P. BERMAN New Mexico

Michael Berman wanders deep into the wilderness with his large-format camera, searching for untrammeled and solitary ecosystems, allowing the natural environment to reveal itself. He is fascinated with connectedness and the quality of our current culture, which he dubs “hyper-insular.”

He says, “We shut ourselves into little spaces and become alone and this happens because we have energy, we have gasoline, and can travel so easily.

The corollary is that we rarely look closely at landscapes — even at one another — because we remain in transition. We don’t know how to dwell, much less ‘dwell poetically,’ as the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard describes a resonant and thoughtful way of witnessing the world.”

Michael Berman’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Grasslands for LAND/ART (2009) and GILA (2013).

Janos Birds, 2016, carbon pigment prints, acrylic & pigment on aluminum

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BIOCULTURA New Mexico

Inspired by a traditional Japanese teahouse, The ‘T’ House, a site project at Farm & Table in Albuquerque’s North Valley, provides a physical, virtual and radio ‘platform’ for the performance, discussion and experience of the complex symbiotic relationships of humans and plants in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico and beyond. Through the physicality of The ‘T’ House, the BioCultura artists Andrea Polli and John Donalds imagine a future in which architectural systems are microbial and function in ways similar to mechanisms within a living tea plant. Codified during the Edo period when Japan closed itself off from the outside world, a traditional Japanese Teahouse was an example of extreme sustainability, a system in which all materials were re-used and waste was very limited. The sound installation at 516 ARTS features interviews about tea and plants with architectural historians, Arita pottery masters, solvent chemists, synthetic biologists and herbalists, foragers and Fukukoka inspired farmers.

Andrea Polli’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Artificial Selection (2010) and she was the Artistic Director of ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness produced by 516 ARTS (2012).

DECADE SITE PROJECT: The ‘T’ House (see p. 30) Temporary installation and performances at Farm & Table, 8917 4th St. NW, North Valley, Albuquerque. Made possible by Farm & Table.

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The ‘T’ House at Farm & Table, 2016, event with Zen Buddhist monk Gicko David Rubin

ERIKA BLUMENFELD Texas

Erika Blumenfeld’s work is concerned with the wonder of natural phenomena and our relationship with our natural environment. She approaches her work like an ecological archivist, and works with scientists and research institutions including NASA. In Northerly Light (Antarctica), Southerly Light (Antarctica), Easterly Light (Antarctica), and Westerly Light (Antarctica), Blumenfeld oriented herself toward each of the “grid” directions and recorded the amount of light radiating toward her. Antarctica is the southernmost place on Earth, meaning that our lines of longitude converge making traditional map navigation difficult. Blumenfeld’s experience of being in Antarctica, where whiteout conditions and the merging of land and sky at the horizon during certain times challenged one’s ability to sense direction at all, inspired her to investigate locality and place by recording the light emanating from the grid directions.

Erika Blumenfeld’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Mapping Bodies (2008).

Northerly Light (Antarctica), Easterly Light (Antarctica), Southerly Light (Antarctica), Westerly Light (Antarctica), 2009/2015, chromogenic prints, aluminum panels, lamination film, edition 1/3 courtesy of the artist

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CHAZ BOJÓRQUEZ California

Chaz Bojórquez chose to show We The People in DECADE because of the current moment in the political environment. He says, “I painted this after I came back from exhibiting in Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian. The globe represents the world, and as a humanity we are a majority ‘people of color.’ In the background are the words and typeface ‘We The People’ from the Constitution of the United States. The flames are the first part of the Constitution that states ‘In order to form a more perfect union.’

Even though we as a country are always trying to become a better society, a ‘perfect union’ is very hard to achieve; that’s why it’s on fire and nontangible.” This painting has been exhibited at the Mexican Museum in Chicago and at the Casa Encendida in Madrid, Spain.

Chaz Bojórquez’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Art From the Coasts for STREET ARTS: Celebrating Hip Hop Culture & Free Expression (2010).

Made possible in part by Beyond Poetry, LLC

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We The People, 2007, acrylic on wood panel with paper

ADRIAN ESPARZA Texas

Adrian Esparza unravels acrylic, stripped “Mexican” blankets, or serapes, to create geometric wall constructions that reference a specific landscape. He states, “The serape pieces are about transformation—about a history that is used in order to construct a new form.” Esparza’s work references border neighborhoods as gatherings of producers that contribute to the power and welfare of their country that, in turn, treats them as poor outliers, thousands of miles from the center of influence in the capital of Mexico City. Due to our globalized marketplace, the source blankets that Esparza uses today are usually manufactured in India or China. Consequently his art speaks to tenuous relationships between nations, between citizens and their governments, and between past and present.

Adrian Esparza’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Art at the Border: 21st Century Responses (2013).

X10, 2016, nails, wood, serape thread, photo by Renée Romero

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TOM JOYCE New Mexico

Created specifically for DECADE, this Penumbra is the largest of an ongoing series of process driven transfer drawings made by pressing glowing hot, raw forged, machine parts onto recycled wood-fiber boards. The seared shadows in these 30 panels record industrially produced forms made in one of the largest forging facilities in the U.S. where Joyce generates his work several times a year. These impressions offer a rare glimpse of an astonishing array of technologically diverse parts literally “hot off the press” in the factory. Respectful of a confidentiality agreement he signed 11 years ago when initiating an agreement to gain access to the plant to begin forging sculptures there in 2005, Joyce has chosen to represent graphic abstractions of these projects branded upon the drawing boards, leaving their mark just before being set in a cooling pit to anneal. All of the components, many strategically classified in nature, are now deployed in the world performing an indispensable task in space, on land and in the sea.

Tom Joyce’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in its inaugural exhibition GREEN (2006).

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Penumbra XXVI, 2016, charred drawing on wood fiber

DAVID LEIGH New Mexico

David Leigh says, “Krud! (You don’t have to wait for more color instructions) is a 20 foot expansion of three small ink drawings. The original drawings were intuitive and automatic, developed without an underlying pencil structure or the corrective possibility of erasure. In this way, what you make is what you have, and the drawing builds in ways that feel fresh, expansive and unknown. The scale of the wall drawing at 516 ARTS magnifies my humorous, layered imagery while also allowing for the effect new tools (markers) have on the impact of my drawn forms and spaces.”

David Leigh’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Snap Crackle Pow! (2008) and his mural Mirrored Robots for ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness and the Wells Park Rail Runner Murals Project (2012).

Krud! (You don’t have to wait for more color instructions), 2016, ink marker & latex on wall

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ELIZA NARANJO MORSE Santa Clara Pueblo / New Mexico

Eliza Naranjo Morse says, “Before we defined art through Western constructs, we looked at our entire lives as a creative process, inspired by an organic sense of renewal, relationship and resourcefulness. The lives we lead today are filled with doings and objects that exist outside of natural pattern. To examine the potential balance in this incredible and challenging relationship is the subject matter of my recent artwork. The Universalities series depicts characters that are interpretations of aspects of our world. This sculpture is part of a larger story about time. My big job in helping the story along is to make sure influences beyond intuition don’t get in the way of where it needs to go.”

Eliza Naranjo Morse’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Octopus Dreams (2013).

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Space, from the Universalities series, 2016, panty hose, thread, sticks, clay

PATRICK NAGATANI New Mexico

“The taping process is obsessive. It is done with precision and ardor. The subtle color of the tape (strips of 3/4 inch to 2 inch masking tape) creates my range of hues for my ‘painting’ palette. I relish the fact that the tape is an inexpensive and somewhat castaway art material. The Zen of the material and process moves me to spiritual happiness. I’ve been in the zone off and on for over 30 years with this work. Most things seem to now have a place in the cosmic meaning of things, especially in coping with getting older, dealing with cancer and losing both of my parents recently. I believe that the pieces have a life of their own and will change very slowly in time, much like mummies from ancient Egypt have lasted through the centuries but nevertheless have changed.”

Patrick Nagatani’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in his solo exhibition Confessions of a Tapist, and he co-curated the accompanying group exhibition Attention to Detail (2007).

Vajrapani (detail), 2010, lightjet chromogenic prints, masking tape, mixed media, archival enhancing medium

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LISA NEVADA New Mexico

Lisa Nevada is a dancer/choreographer who is compelled to bring dance out of the theater and into non-traditional settings. For DECADE, she has created Golden Migration, a site-specific Dance Tour with seven professional core dancers and five ensemble artists in the fields and Bosque of Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge. This piece is informed and crafted from research, observations and first-hand experiences of dancing at Valle de Oro, collected over the course of the four seasons. Nevada says, “Choreography for Golden Migration reflects repetition and duration, life and destruction, the human and the humane. My findings on recurring patterns in nature are expressed in the way performers and participants are organized so as to be thoughtful of our environment and the intimate experience of both the artists and participants.”

Lisa Nevada’s dance was presented by 516 ARTS in Maratini: 12-Hour Improv Marathon with Ecotone Physical Theatre (2009) and her choreography in From the Ground Up for On the Map: Unfolding Albuquerque Art + Design (2015).

DECADE SITE PROJECT: Golden Migration (see p. 28) Performances at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, 7851 2nd St. SW, South Valley, Albuquerque. Made possible by Friends of Valle de Oro, Kurz Foundation and New Mexico Humanities Council.

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Golden Migration 2016, video, by Kelsey Paschich

AARON NOBLE California

Aaron Noble says, “My core practice is large scale site-specific wall painting with related works on paper and canvas. The work is a synthesis of three distinct practices: comics, collage, and muralism (both traditional and spraycan). The superhero comics of the 1960s and 70s were my first aesthetic training ground. As a fan, collector and wannabe pro-cartoonist, I became conversant with the extraordinarily dynamic and seductive vocabulary of ink line rendering techniques developed by a group of brilliant, mostly working class, mid-century cartoonists including Wallace Wood, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan and the towering figure of Jack Kirby, whose exaggeration and abstraction of the human form paved the way for the deeply fetishistic superhero comics drawn by a later generation in the 1990s.”

Aaron Noble’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in Superheroes: Icons of Good, Evil & Everything In Between (2011) and Heart of the City (2014), and his mural Quantum Bridge on Warehouse 508 (2014).

DECADE SITE PROJECT: Subterranean Temporary mural at Tamarind Institute, 2500 Central Avenue SE, UNM/ Nob Hill, Albuquerque. Made possible by Tamarind Institute.

Burden (detail), 2015, acrylic on canvas

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CHIP THOMAS Navajo Nation

516 ARTS challenged photographer/muralist Chip Thomas and dancer/ choreographer Lisa Nevada to work together, and their collaboration Golden Migration was born. Thomas says, “The mural at Valle de Oro is a call to arms. The time is now for us to address our contribution to the warming of the planet and the detrimental impact this is having on all of the earth’s inhabitants, be they vegetative, animal or human. I chose three images from Lisa Nevada’s choreography to tell this story. Panel 1 questions whether the human interaction with nature is based on fear or curiosity.

Panel 2 reveals that with time and careful observation a dialog develops.

Panel 3 on the milk tank resolves this dynamic interaction with synchronicity as we appreciate the interconnectedness of life on the planet. “ Chip Thomas’ work was presented by 516 ARTS in The Populist Phenomenon for STREET ARTS: A Celebration of Hip Hop Culture & Free Expression (2010).

DECADE SITE PROJECT: Golden Migration (see p. 28) Temporary mural at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, 7851 2nd St. SW, South Valley, Albuquerque. Made possible by Friends of Valle de Oro, Kurz Foundation and New Mexico Humanities Council.

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Golden Migration, 2016, photographic wheatpaste mural, photo courtesy of the artist

FLOYD D. TUNSON Colorado

“As Aristotle said, learning is the greatest of pleasures. My work reflects my journey to acquire knowledge. Along the way I have become a Janus. Looking at life from one direction, I see the terror of chaos, man’s inhumanity to man, mortality, and the vastness of the unknown. From another direction, the human condition seems like a magnificent, orderly evolution of extraordinary beauty. The totality of my work reflects my quest to comprehend and express these forces and their interconnectedness.”

Floyd Tunson’s work was presented by 516 ARTS in his solo retrospective Floyd D. Tunson: Son of Pop (2014).

Let’s Talk About Race (detail) 2014, acrylic & graphite on canvas

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SITE PROJECT:

GOLDEN MIGRATION

by Chip Thomas (jetsonorama) & lisa nevada 516 ARTS invited photographic wheatpaste muralist Chip Thomas (aka jetsonorama) and choreographer/dancer Lisa Nevada to work together in new ways. Out of that challenge emerged Golden Migration, a multilayered, site-specific project in which visual and performing arts came together around climate change at the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge.

Nevada’s series of public performances featured 12 dancers in the fields of the Bosque. Participants were led by Dance Guides to walk and journey through the enchanting landscape and were met with a series of dance performances along the way. Each dance was informed and crafted from research, observations and first-hand experiences of dancing at Valle de Oro, collected over the course of the four seasons. Nevada’s research and observations of the wildlife refuge were complemented by Chip Thomas’ focus on the environment with an emphasis on migrating birds. Golden Migration poses questions about how we nurture the Earth, ourselves and one another at this pivotal time, and how we can engage people in the topic of climate change to spark awareness, conversation and action.

The mural on the concrete dairy barn is visible from I-25 and can be explored up close by going for a walk at the Valle de Oro. It is on view concurrently with a related Chip Thomas mural on the facade of 516 ARTS. Click here for video by Kelsey Paschich on Golden Migration Dance Tours.

Click here for NM PBS television ¡Colores! episode by Tara Walch on Golden Migration mural.

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South Valley: Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, 7851 2nd St. SW Downtown: 516 ARTS, 516 Central Ave. SW These temporary murals remain on view into 2017.

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SITE PROJECT:

THE ‘T’ HOUSE

by BioCultura (Andrea Polli & John Donalds)

North Valley: Farm & Table , 8917 4th St. NW Inspired by a traditional teahouse, The ‘T’ House provided a physical, virtual and radio ‘platform’ for the performance, discussion and experience of the complex symbiotic relationships of humans and plants in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico and beyond. BioCultura artist Andrea Polli and architectural designer John Donalds imagine a future in which architectural systems are microbial and function in ways similar to mechanisms within a living tea plant. Codifed during the Edo period when Japan closed itself off from the outside world, a traditional Japanese teahouse was an example of extreme sustainability, a system in which all materials were re-used and waste was very limited.

This temporary performative piece closed with the end of the exhibition.

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SITE PROJECT:

SUBTERRANEAN

by Aaron Noble

Southeast/UNM: Tamarind Institute, 500 Central Ave. SE Aaron Noble’s work is based on cutting away the narrative and figurative content of superhero comics, and reconfiguring the component parts into autonomous abstract forms which express the deeper psychological poetry encoded within them. About his mural Subterranean, he says “To escape the relentless blast of light and heat on Central Avenue, we are sometimes tempted to burrow into the earth, to go spelunking in the desert caves.

We pass through magnetic fields, through strata of rock and mineral. Our thoughts turn inward as well... Now the inside is the outside and instead of us climbing through the channel, it is the channel which grips us, pushing us through the void.”

This temporary mural remains on view through 2017 or longer.

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SITE PROJECT:

AMPLITUDE II

by Leticia Bajuyo

Northeast Heights: Tony Hillerman Public Library, 8205 Apache Ave. NE In response to the glass atrium and open rafters of the Tony Hillerman Library, Leticia Bajuyo designed a site-specific sculpture inspired by the idea of connecting two victrola horns end-to-end. She describes how, “with the absence of a source for producing sound, this silent sculpture titled Amplitude II can only visually portray amplitude in the arc of the form and abundance of digital memory. As Amplitude II stretches between two sides of the library like a wormhole across space in a science fiction novel, this sculpture makes visible the thin line of perception between desire and discard.�

This temporary sculpture remains on view into summer of 2017.

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SITE PROJECT:

THE FALL OF THE TEN SUNS

by Jessica Angel

,

Downtown: Imperial Building, Silver Street Market, 205 Silver Ave SW The Fall of the Ten Suns by Jessica Angel is on the Imperial Building, which currently houses a new and long awaited Downtown grocery store and is historically where a Chinese laundry was once housed. In response to the history of the site, Jessica Angel's design uses the story of the Ten Chinese Suns, in which all suns belonging to the ten Chinese days decided to go out at once, heating the earth and killing the crops. This mural design shows the fall of these suns into the night, bringing a dynamic change to Downtown Albuquerque, fostering the advent of an era with healthy food and accessible housing, paying tribute to the past while celebrating the future of this community.

This mural remains on view long-term as part of the City of Albuquerque’s Public Art Urban Enhancement Program. It is presented by 516 ARTS in partner with Downtown Albuquerque MainStreet Initiative.

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BIOGRAPHIES JESSICA ANGEL was nominated for the 2014 World Technology Award in the Arts

Category and was invited to represent Colombia as an artist-in-residence at the 2014 Vancouver Biennale. In 2012, she was awarded the Teaching-Artist Residency at The Cooper Union, as well as the Media Arts Fellowship. Angel participated in “City Walls” with the Brooklyn Arts Council, both in 2010, and was the 2009 BOFFO artist-in-residence. In 2006, Angel received an honorable mention at the fourth International Biennial SIART in Bolivia and at the first International Drawing Biennial of the Americas in Mexico. Her work has been exhibited in Bogotá, New York and Miami, Washington, D.C., La Paz, Bolivia, and Mexico.

LETICIA BAJUYO received her M.F.A. in 2001 from the University of Tennessee,

Knoxville and her B.F.A. in 1998 from the University of Notre Dame. Currently, Bajuyo resides, teaches, and makes art in both southern and northern Indiana. Presently on leave from Hanover College where she is a Professor of Art, Bajuyo has returned to the University of Notre Dame as a visiting faculty member till May 2017. Bajuyo is a member of the Board of Directors for the National Performance Network and Visual Arts Network (NPNVAN) and is a member of the Board of Governors for the Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky.

MICHAEL BERMAN received his undergraduate degree from Colorado College, where he studied biology, and an MFA in photography from Arizona State University. Berman currently lives in the Mimbres Valley near San Lorenzo, where he works on local issues that impact the land and brings an awareness of the complexity of the biological world to the political and social dialogue of the West to his art. His photographs are included collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio), the Amon Carter Museum (Texas), Lannan Foundation (New Mexico), and the New Mexico Museum of Art (New Mexico). He has received Painting Fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Wurlitzer Foundation.

His installations and paintings have been reviewed in Art in America, and exhibited throughout the United States.

BIOCULTURA is a collective including Andrea Polli and John Donalds. ANDREA POLLI

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is a Professor in Art & Ecology with a joint appointment between Fine Arts and Engineering at the University of New Mexico. She serves as Mesa Del Sol Endowed Chair of Digital Media, and is the Director of the Social Media Workgroup. Among other organizations, she has worked with the NASA/Goddard Institute Climate Research Group and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Polli’s work with art/science, technology has been presented widely in over one hundred presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally including the Whitney Museum of American Art Artport and The Field Museum of Natural History, and has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including NYFA, Fulbright and UNESCO. JOHN DONALDS is an architectural designer whose work combines media and architectural theory and practice by designing fantastical spaces that mix futuristic materials and forms with traditional, buildable structures. A practicing

digital media artist, in 2000 he had the opportunity to lead the design of high-end networked photography and video laboratory spaces at Oberlin College. He recently collaborated with landscape architect Catherine Harris and photographer Meridel Rubenstein to produce a model of a human wastewater garden planned for Iraq’s first national park at the conflux of the Tigres and Euphrates. This project, Eden Again, was featured in the 2012 International Symposium for Electronic Art in Albuquerque.

ERIKA BLUMENFELD is a Guggenheim Fellow with a BFA from Parsons School of Design. She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad, including the Albright Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York), TATE Modern (London), Fondation EDF Espace Electra (Paris) and Kunstnernes Hus (Norway). She has been awarded residencies with Cape Farewell (Scotland), SANAP/ITASC (Antarctica) and Ballroom Marfa (Texas).

Blumenfeld’s work has been featured in Art In America, ARTnews and many books, including The Polaroid Book (Taschen) and Arte da Antarctica (Goethe-Institut). Her work is in the permanent collections of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Lannan Foundation, Houston MFA, New Mexico MFA, Scottsdale MCA and UT. ADRIAN ESPARZA received a BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1996 and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1998. He has held solo exhibitions at Cindy Rucker (New York), the Taubert Contemporary (Berlin), and Artpace (San Antonio), among others. He has also participated in many international group exhibitions, including the 12th Istanbul Biennial-Untitled, Lines of Thought, ParasolUnit (London), Volver, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art, and Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His work is part of collections at the Perez Miami Art Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts.

TOM JOYCE, a MacArthur Fellow, was originally trained as a blacksmith and is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost practitioners in the field for his contributions to the art and science of forging iron. Apprenticing as a teenager in the early 1970s in El Rito, New Mexico and now working from studios in Santa Fe and Brussels, Belgium on forged sculptures, drawings, photographs, videos and mixed media installations, Joyce examines through much of his work the economic, political, environmental and historical implications of using iron as his primary medium.

AARON NOBLE currently resides in Los Angeles and is the cofounder of the Clarion

Alley Mural Project in San Francisco, where he was director from 1996 until 2001.

He has created murals on a police guard post in Taiwan, on a private residence in Los Angeles, and, in collaboration with Andrew Schoultz, on an exterior wall on Sixteenth Street near Third Street in San Francisco. Other mural and wall-painting projects include the Theatre Rhinoceros Lobby; Superhero Warehouse on the exterior of 47 Clarion Alley, in collaboration with Rigo 00; the Labor Temple lobby, San Francisco, and has created site specific murals for the Hammer Museum.

PATRICK NAGATANI received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles

in 1979. He has given numerous public lectures, seminars and workshops, and his 35

work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally. In 1991, he earned the Outstanding Faculty Award from the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico and was honored with a Regent's Professorship (1998-2000). In 2004, he was recognized for his scholarly achievements and exemplary contributions to the College of Fine Arts by the UNM Libraries. He was a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships, and was honored by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson with the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Nagatani has also served as a panelist for a number of prestigious organizations: Illinois Art Council, Arizona Commission on Arts, Southern Arts Federation, Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

LISA NEVADA received a BA and an MFA in Dance from the University of New Mexico with concentrations in site-specific choreography and performance, embodied history and teaching. Her choreography has been commissioned by New Mexico Ballet Company, The Vortex Theater, 516 ARTS and Tricklock Company. She was also named the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge Performance Artist in 2014 for her site-specific concert Radicles: Rediscovering humankind’s primary roots. Nevada has danced with the Bill Evans Dance Company (2002-2004), Ecotone Physical Theatre (2006-present), Jewell and Company Dance Theatre (2004-present) and the J. Garcia Dance Company (2014-present). Nevada has also performed works by renowned choreographers Martha Graham, Henning Rübsam, Maggie Bergeron, Donna Jewell, Erika Puji and Vladimir Conde Reche. Nevada performs and teaches Repertory Etudes by master choreographers Donald McKayle, Jose Limón, David Parsons, and Robert Battle.

CHIP THOMAS, aka “jetsonorama,” is a photographer, public artist, activist and physician who worked between Monument Valley and The Grand Canyon on the Navajo Nation since 1987. He coordinates the Painted Desert Project – a community exchange which manifests as a constellation of murals across the Navajo Nation painted by artists from all over the reservation and the world. The murals reflect love and appreciation of the rich history shared by the Navajo people back to Navajo people. Thomas’ large scale photographs can be found pasted on the roadside, on the sides of houses in the northern Arizona desert, on the graphics of the Peoples Climate March, climateprints.org, Justseeds and 350.org carbon emissions campaign material.

For over four decades, FLOYD D. TUNSON has created powerful works that address compelling and relevant social and political themes, but which also look to aspects of pure beauty, popular culture, art history, and philosophy. Throughout the artist’s long career, he has achieved a rich and diverse body of work via media such as painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking – often combining the language of these various media in single works. Tunson has addressed concepts such as cultural identity, American social history, pop culture, art history, and even the beauty of pure abstraction.

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FUNDERS

SPECIAL THANKS

Albuquerque Community Foundation The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Bernalillo County City of Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry & City Council Cultural Services Department Urban Enhancement Trust Fund 1% for Art Program The FUNd at Albuquerque Community Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation New Mexico Arts New Mexico Humanities Council

Albuquerque Art Business Association ABQ Convention & Visitors Bureau The Artichoke Café City Councilor Isaac Benton City Councilor Diame Gibson County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley County Commissioner Maggie Hart-Stebbins Timothy Cummings Evan Dent Fine Arts Services Downtown ABQ MainStreet Initiative Gruet Winery Heritage Hotels & Resorts Historic District Improvement Company Hotel Blue Hyatt Regency Downtown IMEC Don Mickey Designs Outpost Performance Space Stubblefield Print & Signs Tamarind Institute Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge

SPONSORS Hotel Andaluz Farm & Table Friends of Valle de Oro Geltmore, LLC Nusenda Credit Union New Mexico Orthopaedics OmniSleep Medicine Centers RMKM Architecture UNM College of Fine Arts YES Housing 516 ARTS DONORS Anonymous Diane Burke Reid Cramer, in honor of Sonya Cohen Cramer Craig Eaves Patricia & Rob Kurz Rick Rennie & Sandy Hill Arturo Sandoval Paula Smith-Hawkins Strell Design David Vogel & Marietta Patricia Leis Clint Wells Dr. Dean Yannias Emily Zambello

516 ARTS MEDIA PARTNERS Albuquerque Journal, Lead Media Partner KUNM Radio 89.9 FM Parallax Vision Films Pyragraph.com THE Magazine Weekly Alibi SITE PROJECT VOLUNTEERS Tanya Aviles Raphael Begay Julie Brokken Ann Bromberg Cathryn Cunningham Zachary Fudge Beth Haley Dani Jeffries Patricia Kurz Jana Opincariu

Natalie Rauth Micayla Renfro Valerie Roybal Jessyca Ruth Megan Schultz Kelsi Sharp Emily Snell Shelle Sanchez Edgar Wharton Robert Wilson

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