TREND, Spring 2016, The Pro-Activists

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A cadre of contemporary art champions envision Downtown Albuquerque as a vital cultural corridor for the state and the region

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Pro-Activists of Art

BY KATHRYN M DAVIS | PHOTOS BY KATE RUSSELL

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pend any time in Albuquerque and one fact stands out above the others: it is the urban center of the state of New Mexico. Boasting all kinds of arts institutions, museums, and galleries, not only is Albuquerque strongly rooted in its own art history, it is a bastion of diversity. Rather than existing off to the side as some sort of elitist “other,” art has over the decades woven itself into the very fabric of the city, intertwined with its vitality as a whole. And not just traditional art; Albuquerque is also quickly emerging as a nexus for galleries that focus on contemporary works. As with all strong points, however, there’s a flip side: the Duke City can seem to be spread out in an unwieldy fashion as visitors drive up and down and back and forth on Lomas and Montaño and San Mateo and, well, you get the picture. The bigger it gets, the greater its need for a centralized arts district.

Where, of course, is the question. Fortunately, it seems Historic Route 66 could provide the answer. Central Avenue, the byway for the University of New Mexico, Nob Hill, and the downtown drag, keeps the kitschy yet vital spirit of America’s Mother Road alive and kicking. Despite a few near-fatal bouts with economic influenza, Central Avenue has been and still is Albuquerque’s lifeline.

Which is why a growing and incorrigibly proactive group of professionals—who happen to be women—have a magnificent and perfectly feasible vision for Burque’s contemporary art future that focuses on this corridor.

Grounding themselves in and expanding upon what’s

Opposite: Suzanne Sbarge at the entrance to 516 ARTS, with Thomas Christopher Haag’s 2010 mural Trinity: (the way things ought to be).

Sbarge, who arrived in Albuquerque over 25 years ago to earn her Master of Arts from UNM, has been instrumental in raising the profile of Albuquerque artists and the downtown arts scene, first as executive director of Magnifico Arts and then as owner of 516 ARTS, which she founded in 2006. This year Sbarge brings the Fulcrum Fund to 516 ARTS, which will function as the Albuquerque arm of the Andy Warhol Foundation’s regional regranting program to support artists and curators.

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already transpired so far in the downtown scene, they have farsighted plans for their city, from furthering aspects of the city’s master plan for downtown revitalization, to a statewide program of main-street initiatives, to impressively ambitious schemes that could impact the entire Southwest.

These women’s names will be familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention. The public face and core of the group is composed of Viviette Hunt, director of the anchor-stone Richard Levy Gallery at 514 Central Avenue Southwest; Suzanne Sbarge, founder and executive director of 516 ARTS next door to Levy gallery; and Nancy Zastudil, founder and director of the newly relocated Central Features, now upstairs from Levy’s gallery, a contemporary art gallery that “promotes environmental stewardship, social progress, and the intrinsic value of creative arts.”

Other players integral to Albuquerque’s developing sense of itself as a contemporary art hub include Sheri Crider, founder of SCA Contemporary Art; Kymberly Pinder, Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico; Tey Marianna Nunn, director and chief curator of the art museum at the National Hispanic Cultural Center; and Sherri Brueggemann, manager of the Public Art Urban Enhancement Program in the Cultural Services Department of the City of Albuquerque. Many more are sure to join in as momentum continues to grow.

Speaking with these women, both together in an informal round table discussion, as well as separately over the phone and through e-mails, it becomes apparent that Albuquerque’s urban abandon makes it perfect for the kinds of projects these women envision.

“Unlike Santa Fe, Albuquerque is not so restricted by an imposed aesthetic,” Pinder says. Her remarks are particularly telling given that she is relatively new to the

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Nancy Zastudil at her Central Features Gallery in Downtown Albuquerque. Zastudil arrived in the city in 2010 after working as an associate director at the University of Houston’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Her formative New Mexico years took place on a mesa just outside of Tres Piedras, 30 miles from water, ice, fuel, and groceries, where she and sisters Nina and Erin Elder founded PLAND, an artistresidency program in a house that was constructed by hand.

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Viviette Hunt, director of Richard Levy Gallery. Hunt originally came to Albuquerque to study alternative healing, establishing her own successful clinic. Her college education in art and its history eventually led to a shift in her professional focus, and she has been with the Richard Levy Gallery for 15 years, where she has proved instrumental at creating contemporary programming in Albuquerque. Hunt networks at several international art fairs every year, as well as curates exhibitions at the gallery.

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city, having relocated to UNM two years ago from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also helped open the CFA Downtown Studio gallery on 4th Street at Copper.

Sbarge, in an earlier Q&A session with Zastudil that covered this very situation, agreed that there is tremendous freedom in this apparent lack of cohesion in Albuquerque, despite the image that tourists may have of Santa Fe. “Albuquerque is a wide-open space. The fact that it doesn’t have a distinct identity has been a really good thing for artists—they have the space to experiment.

You can do a lot with a little here.”

Crider, who recently relocated her gallery to the former Sanitary Tortilla Factory building in Downtown Albuquerque, says, “We are gathering steam; artists are staying here for a variety of reasons. There are more opportunities, more events, and more colleagues and peers to share our visions with.”

Even though funding is a key consideration with New Mexico stuck in the economic underbelly of the US, Zastudil says that can be a plus as well. “When you have little, you have little to lose.” And everything to gain. Economic studies have shown that since the early 2000s, the arts in all their permutations bring millions of badly needed dollars into our state.

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COURTESY OF CENTRAL FEATURES (2)

When asked why a contemporary arts district is critical to Downtown Albuquerque’s health and vitality, Brueggemann says that despite the freedom unlimited expectations may offer artists, “All urban centers should have an arts district to provide a public gathering place for dialog and the exchange of cultural ideas. Having such a concentration builds the character of any community and enhances social engagement.

An arts corridor brings together the diverse local practices with others in the world.”

Besides, notes Pinder, “The arts are a main economic and cultural driver. Albuquerque has as many, if not more, engaging artistic histories as a well-known cultural mecca like New Orleans, and needs to see itself that way.”

Since this handful of talented, entrepreneurial professionals surely represents the tip of the iceberg, a lively downtown should seem like a no-brainer for Albuquerque’s near future. And on some levels it is already in motion, with the redevelopment of the Albuquerque Rail Yards and such initiatives as UNM’s Innovate ABQ and a proposed new entertainment district. But for all the progress that has been made toward a revitalized downtown since the arrival of

Nancy Zastudil with the photographer’s dog Bo. Zastudil recently launched an art rental program from her gallery, which allows Albuquerqueans to place art in their offices and homes on a temporary basis. Opposite bottom: Jennifer Nehrbass Redhead 3 (2015), mixed media on wood. Opposite top: Marcelyn McNeil, Missing You (2015), oil pigment on archival paper.

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TOP: COURTESY OF RICHARD LEVY GALLERY; BOTTOM: COURTESTY OF 516 ARTS

Magda Biernat, Adrift #3, Antarctica (2013), archival digital pigment print. Opposite top: Xuan Chen Empty and Full #2 (2016), mixed media on panel. Opposite bottom: Sin Huellas Collective (Delilah Montoya, Albuquerque, with Orlando Lara, Deyadira Trevino, Brenda Cruz-Wolf, Hope Sanford, Selene Cortez, and Carlos Carrasco), Selene’s Dream from Detention Nation (2015), cyanotype print on fabric.

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Raychael Stine, Chicklet Jammers (2015), oil and acrylic on canvas. Top: Fitzallan Projects (a collaboration between Nina Dubois and Sheri Crider), detail of Drift #1 (2015), discarded hollow core doors. Drift #1 was included in The Human Drift, an exhibition at SCA Contemporary Art that combined five generations of artists and architects, including Bart Prince and Steve Barry. Opposite: Jenna Kuiper, Daggers Stones (2015), silver gelatin photogram.

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COURTESY OF RICHARD LEVY GALLERY

the 21st century, “Albuquerque has been underfunded in the arts,” Hunt notes. Despite this, she revels in the city’s ability to “optimize what we do have—an arts community that is dedicated to supporting all of us in our endeavors.”

The greatest challenge is, perhaps, one of definition: Just what is contemporary art, anyway? Sbarge says, “The challenge I have found is the need to educate other sectors about what contemporary art is—its scope as well as its accessibility—since people tend to think of art in a traditional, static way.”

No one understands this better than Nunn. As a native Burqueña who received her PhD in Latin American Studies from UNM, she has also worked as a curator at the state’s Museum of International Folk Art and is an award-winning contributor to the scholarship on our region’s historic folk art. “Many gatekeepers and decision makers here still look at arts through a very traditional and limited lens,” she says.

Which is to say that, from an average person’s perspective, art might be seen as something that simply has nothing to do with one’s everyday life—especially contemporary art, that weird stuff that doesn’t make any sense at all. Who wants their tax dollars going to that?

TOP: COURTESY OF SCA CONTEMPORARY ART; BOTTOM: COURTESY OF CENTRAL FEATURES

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To move past such outdated notions, we should remember that aside from its aesthetic value, art challenges our ideas about what it means to be human and raises important questions about how we live and interact. As the American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein said, “The point is, art never stopped a war.

That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people . . . Because people are changed by art—enriched, ennobled, encouraged—they then act in a way that may affect the course of events.”

This is the message that is increasingly being broadcast by Duke City art activists: creativity has its own intrinsic value. To further the case in favor of contemporary art as a compelling driver of community, it is helpful to substitute the word “culture” for “art.” Here, culture doesn’t mean snobbiness; rather, as defined by Merriam Webster, culture is “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.”

Throw a good dose of spirit into that mix of intellect, and you’ve got a sense of how contemporary culture can invigorate Downtown Albuquerque. It’s not a matter of art galleries selling expensive work to the few so much as supporting a community of inspired thinkers and creators (of art, jobs, and other good things). The creatives are already here to stay, so why not engage them in making an urban center that rocks? From bankers to construction workers; families and sweethearts and singles; musicians, dancers, and traditional artists of all mediums and styles; everyone benefits from a downtown that’s lively at all

hours of the day and on into the night.

This leads to one of the biggest visions that Hunt, Sbarge, and Zastudil share with so many leading arts advocates: a collecting museum for contemporary art (MoCA). Think of Los Angeles, Denver, New York, Chicago, and many more—all of these cities reap economic gains from their museums of contemporary art. Whether it’s a tourist destination devoted to the visual arts, designed by a world-class architect with an environmentally sustainable landscaping plan, or a major city gallery with an auditorium for all kinds of performative arts and education programming—or both—these women have big ideas for their community.

“A long-term dream of mine is to someday be part of the creation of a major contemporary arts center in Albuquerque, Sbarge says. “One that has both a local and a global scope of programming.”

Zastudil expresses their vision quite succinctly when she states, “I want Albuquerque to be a go-to city for contemporary art. I am a big fan of telling our own story. We need to pressure the local media into covering the growth of businesses and art in the city. So let’s go straight to the city council, to the mayor, to zoning meetings with our visions. I want to see more artists taking over empty spaces downtown, negotiating with property owners, doing pop-up shows, and defying expectations.”

As Hunt asserts, “Art changes the way we see the world.

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