Current Exhibitions
This pair of exhibitions explores the relationship between art and nature, creates awareness of our local natural resources, and promotes wetland and ecological conservation. The artists will create ephemeral sculptural artworks using natural materials in sites in the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve in La Cienega. Works will be on view at the preserve throughout the months of September and October. A companion exhibition of related works by the same artists will open in the Axle Contemporary mobile gallery on September 1 and continue through September 23. This is the third iteration of the Wilderness Acts Biennial, which began in 2014. Works in this exhibition include a small shelter constructed from "invasive" saplings, a day-long performance ritual of seed distribution, and beavers sculpted from mud.
The Santa Fe Botanical Garden's Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve is a 35-acre nature preserve and home to a rare natural cienega (marsh) and hosts a bountiful diversity of plants and wildlife.
presented by Axle Contemporary and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden
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DIRECTIONS: The preserve is located on the I-25 West Frontage Road south of Santa Fe. From I-25 take Exit 271 for “La Cienega” and turn right onto West Frontage Road heading north. The parking lot entrance is 1½ miles north after turning onto West Frontage Road. From New Mexico State Road 599 (NM-599), turn south onto West Frontage Road heading toward the Downs at Santa Fe Race Track. The parking lot entrance is two miles south of the Downs at Santa Fe Race Track.
Wilderness Acts 2018
Art-in-Nature
Cannupa Hanska Luger & Ian Kuali’i
Frederick Spaulding
Dana Chodzko
Munson Hunt
Rick Yoshimoto & Chrissie Orr
Susan Bruneni
Susannah Abbey
Paula Castillo
Brian Fleetwood
Gina Telcocci
Kathleen McCloud
with The Santa Fe Botanical Garden's
Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve
September 1 – 23 in Axle
All of September and October at the wetlands preserve
Opening for both shows: at the wetlands preserve, Saturday, Sept.1 , 1- 4 pm
E Pluribus Unum:New Mexico Southeast
an Axle Contemporary project
Western Heritage Museum, Hobbs
August 22 – November 3, 2019
opening reception and artist talk: 5:30 pm, August 22
Artesia, 510 Gallery
(Artesia portraits only)
opens August, 24, 2019
510 Main Street, Artesia, New Mexico
part of the Red Dirt Black Gold Festival
Roswell Museum & Art Center
November 16 – April 22, 2020
Reception and artist talk, December 7
The portraits from our 2018 E Pluribus Unum project will exhibited in museum exhibitions this year.
E Pluribus Unum is Axle’s free mobile photo portrait studio. People sit for a portrait while holding a small personally significant object. Prints are distributed to the participants and wheat-pasted to the exterior of the studio-gallery. For each project, an image is created by overlaying all the portraits to create one face that includes equal portions of all the participants. Each project is published in its entirety as a book.
In October 2018, we spent the month on the road to create E Pluribus Unum: New Mexico Southeast in Roswell, Lovinton, Hobbs, Alamogordo, Tularosa, Carrizozo, Ruidoso, Mescalero, Artesia, Carlsbad, Portales, and Clovis.
The E Pluribus Unum: New Mexico Southeast book with all 950 portraits and one image on the cover blending all off the hundreds of portraits into one face, represents the entirety of the community of participants. The book is $20 and is now available at the exhibition venues and through Amazon here.
More information on this project here.
Potato
an Axle Contemporary project
We provide potatoes, carving tools, some printing inks made from delicious colorful spices, and paper. Participants carve potatoes and make block prints. We hang the prints in our mobile gallery and then cut up the potato blocks and add them to our pot of soup. Make a block print and share in the soup
Prints are displayed at the Santa Fe Community Gallery in the 'Longer Table' exhibition. Exhibition continues through Jan 16, 2020
This project is a part of the Seed Broadcast Seed: Climate Change Resilience exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum
What:
We roll up in our Axle Contemporary mobile artspace, and set up inside and out with tables, a hand-washing setup, potatoes, carving tools, paper and our custom blended edible inks made from colorful foods such as turmeric, beet juice, spirulina, and chile. Participants carve the potato like one would for a woodblock. Then they make several prints using our inks. One of each artist’s work is hung in the mobile artspace, and additional prints can be taken home. As each potato block is finished being used, we chop it up and add it to a boiling pot of potato soup. Soup is served to all people present. The entire activity is provided for free.
Why:
It’s an engaged experience, a physically embodied creative process that reaches out to people in unexpected ways. Our aim is to enhance playfulness, ease tensions, connect people with their neighbors at the table, and spark conversation and connection. This is important in today’s world. . The juxtaposition of the humble potato and act of art-making also breaks down barriers between high culture and human culture, and increases people’s engagement in thinking and reflection in all parts of their lives.
The fleet, flexible, and mobile nature of our Axle Contemporary artspace breaks with the traditional physical and social space of the art gallery. It enhances a creative adaptable approach. POTATO encourages improvisation in art making. The playful act of carving potato blocks and printing with food-inks (playing with your food) is not “self-conscious” and encourages improvised art making for all. Improvisation works best when a defined set of parameters are laid out, and creators can explore creative and tangential thinking. POTATO provides a structure and allows the participants to freely improvise.
