THE magazine December 2009

Santa Fe’s Monthly

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of and for the Arts • Dec. 09 / Jan. 2010

O N E T

PTITU E C AC BST SU

T S E B

S K O O B

F O

0 2

9 0

New Works by

Š2009 Wendy McEahern Photography

TOM EMERSON Contemporary chairs from found metals

La Zorra and Faerie Chair, c. 2009

SHIPROCK SANTA FE 53 Old Santa Fe Trail (Upstairs on the Plaza) 505.982.8478 | shiprocktrading.com

5

Letters

14

Universe of artist Ronald Davis

18

Studio Visits: Alexander Brown, Cece Renn Kurzweg, and Lisa Chun

21

One Bottle: The 2007 Château La Roque “Pic Saint Loup,”

by Joshua Baer

23

Dining Guide: Restaurant Martín and Plaza Cafe Southside

27

Openings & Receptions

28

Out & About

32 Previews: Of Bodies and Elements at the National Dance Institute; Sharon Core at James Kelly Contemporary, and Susan Rothenberg at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum 33

National Spotlight: Elvis: 1956 at the Grammy Museum, Los Angeles

35

Feature: Best Books 2009

41

Critical Reflections: Cece Kurzweg at Circ Gallery (Alb); Grasslands at 516 Arts (Alb.); Grand Opening at the Encaustic Art Institute; Herb Lotz at dwight hackett Projects; Inside Contemporary Cuban Art at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Alb.); Mark Spencer at Skotia Gallery; Opening Night at Firegod Gallery; Scout’s Honor at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts; The Surreal Life at the New Mexico Museum of Art; Thomas Joshua Cooper at the Lannan Foundation Gallery; Vision Quest at various venues; and Wes Mills and Susan York at James Kelly Contemporary

51

Green Planet: Caroline Casey: The Compassionate Trickster.

Photograph by Jennifer Esperanza

54 Writings: “Granny,” by Martha Egan. Photograph

by Alex Harris

CONTENTS

Artists through the ages have felt a personal bond with the muse—a goddess who inspires the creation of literature and art. The Marchesa Casati—perhaps the most scandalous and eccentric woman of her day—once said, “I want to be a living work of art.” In Casati’s relentless pursuit of immortality, she was painted by artists such as Augustus John, Alberto Martini, Giovanni Boldini, and Ignacio Zuloaga, and photographed by the likes of Cecil Beaton, Baron Adolph de Meyer, and Man Ray. The Marchesa Casati: Portraits of a Muse (Abrams, $50) is a sumptuous book containing more than two hundred images of the Marchesa, with text by Casati biographers Scot S. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino, a preface by designer Diane von Furstenberg, and a foreword by award-winning writer Judith Thurman. Bonus material includes a portfolio of Casati-inspired photo-portraits and sketches by couturier Karl Lagerfeld.

READINGS & CO N V ER SATI O N S Lannan Foundation presents the 2009-2010 Public Program series READINGS & CONVERSATIONS. The series of public events brings to Santa Fe a wide range of writers from the literary world of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to read from and discuss their work as well as writers, thinkers, and activists whose work celebrates the human right to freedom of imagination, inquiry, and expression.

All events are on Wednesdays at 7pm.

Yusef Komunyakaa with Michael Silverblatt

2 December

Tickets on sale now!

Nicholson Baker with Michael Silverblatt

20 January

Tickets on sale Saturday December 5

Maude Barlow with Avi Lewis

17 February

Tickets on sale Saturday January 2

August Kleinzahler with Kate Moses

3 March

Tickets on sale Saturday February 6

Arundhati Roy with Avi Lewis

24 March

Tickets on sale Saturday February 6

Andrew Bacevich with David Barsamian

21 April

Tickets on sale Saturday March 6

Don DeLillo with Mark Danner

28 April

Tickets on sale Saturday March 6

Yiyun Li with Brigid Hughes

12 May

Tickets on sale Saturday April 3

Adrienne Rich with Carolyn Forché

16 June

Tickets on sale Saturday May 1

L annan is p o d c a s tin g Readings & Conversations!

Please visit our website, www.lannan.org, to learn more, listen, and subscribe to have the events automatically downloaded to your computer.

www.lannan.org www.lannan.org

All tickets for all events are sold at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. Tickets can be purchased in person, by telephone, or online at: Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Box Office hours: Monday – Friday 10 am – 4 pm; Saturday – Sunday Noon to show time Telephone 505.988.1234. www.lensic.com •

All tickets are for reserved seating. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

•

General Admission $6 and Senior/Student with ID $3. Ticket purchases are limited to four per person.

Proceeds will be donated to the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

Visit our website for program updates: www.lannan.org

LETTERS

magazine

VOLUME XVII, NUMBER V WINNER 1994 Best Consumer Tabloid SELECTED 1997 Top-5 Best Consumer Tabloids SELECTED 2005-06 Top-5 Best Consumer Tabloids P U B L i S h e R / C R e At i V e D i R e C t O R Guy Cross PUBLiSheR / FOOD eDitOR Judith Cross ARt DiReCtOR Chris Myers exeCUtiVe eDitOR Kathryn M davis CONtRiBUtiNG eDitOR diane arMitaGe Jennifer esperanza COPy eDitOR edGar sCully PROOFReADeRS JaMes rodewald KenJi Barrett S tA F F P h O t O G R A P h e R dana waldon CALeNDAR eDitOR liz napieralsKi CONtRiBUtORS

diane arMitaGe, Joshua Baer, susanna Carlisle, Jon Carver, Kathryn M davis, Martha eGan, alex harris, anthony hassett, alex ross, Marin sardy, and riChard toBin COVeR

Cover desiGn By

By Chris Myers

ADVeRtiSiNG SALeS

the MaGazine: 505-424-7641 sheri Mann: 505-989-1214 or 501-2948 (MoBile) eli folliCK: 505-331-0496 DiStRiBUtiON

JiMMyy Montoya: 470-0258 (MoBile) THE magazine is published ten times a year by THE magazine Inc., 1208A Mercantile Road, Santa Fe, NM 87507. Corporate address: 44 Bishop Lamy Road, Lamy, NM 87540.

Phone (505) 424-7641. Fax: (505) 424-7642, E-mail: THEmag1@aol.com. Website: www.

TheMagazineOnLine.com. All material copyright 2009 by THE magazine. All rights are reserved by THE magazine. Reproduction of contents within are prohibied without written permission from THE magazine. All submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. THE magazine is in no way responsible for the loss of any unsolicited materials. THE magazine is not responsible or liable for any misspellings, incorrect dates, or incorrect information in its captions, calendar, or other listings. The opinions expressed within the fair confines of THE magazine do not necessarily represent the views or policies of THE magazine, its owners, or any of its agents, staff, employees, members, interns, volunteers, or distribution venues. Bylined articles and editorials represent the views of their authors. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters may be edited for style and libel, and are subject to condensation. THE magazine accepts advertisements from adver advertisers believed to be of good reputation, but cannot guarantee the autheticity or quality of objects and/or services advertised. As well, THE magazine is not responsible for any claims made by its advertisers; for copyright infringement by its advertisers; and is not responsible or liable for any mistakes in any advertisement.

Six Shooters: six New Mexico photographers show work at 1228 Parkway Art Space, 1228 Parkway (corner of Rufina Street). Opening reception on Friday, December 11, 4-8 pm. Panel talk, Saturday, December 12, 2 pm.

TO THE EDITOR I normally support Jon Carver’s point of view in his reviews.

Carver is a good writer, clever, speaks his mind. Santa Fe needs honest reviews—good or bad—to be a truly viable art center. Having said that, I think Carver missed the mark with his review of Kent Williams’ artwork at Evoke gallery.

I enjoyed the show for its in-your-face quirkiness and mystery.

Also, I feel Williams’ technical ability is excellent. If there are any shortcomings in the work, they haven’t been disguised by throwing paint around. In my opinion, his artwork is conceptually sound.

—l larry oGan, santa fe

TO THE EDITOR: First, I want to commend THE magazine for continual efforts to keep a critical dialogue about art alive and well in the community.

It takes courage to be more than descriptive and promotional, and published reviews are an essential component to a vital and significant presence of art. Secondly, I feel compelled to comment on Lindsay Holt’s response to Jon Carver’s critique of Kent Williams’ work. Although there are a few glimpses of valid critical exchange, for the most part Holt’s letter represents a reaction to criticism and art that takes us into a rather childish knee-jerk reactive exchange leading us far away from intelligent conversation.

Holt’s evocation of an entirely speculative observation of possible jealously on the part of Carver hardly addressed either the quality of Williams’ work or Carver’s critique of Williams.

The later yea-yea-yea childish comparisons of artistic abilities with Holt proclaiming, “the man can draw, he can paint, and he can probably do so better than you with a blindfold on,” evokes elementary schoolyard debates—hardly condusive to an intelligent discussion about the quality of painting or lack thereof. Ascribing selling price as a measure of quality is further evidence of Holt’s unwillingness to actually address the issues Carver presents.

A walk around town will clearly reveal that the higher the price the better the art is rarely valid as an accurate measure of the quality of artwork even though many observers inaccurately rely on “market” value to determine “artistic” value. The dialogue about art and critique is very important, especially in this community where we are blessed with such a rich artistic environment. Holt’s willingness to take the discussion into ungrounded, personal projection with very little accurate or intelligent discussion is a

disservice to any serious discourse. It does little to honor the art or the review, or to suggest how accurate assessments of the quality of art are to be made.

—JiM roMBerG, aBiquiu

TO THE EDITOR: I cannot resist jumping into the Kent Williams “fray” that stirred up some mighty strong feelings from Lindsay Holt (who has taken umbrage with Jon Carver’s gritty review of Williams’ work). I have issues with Holt’s rant. First is his personal attack on Carver after a Google tour of Carver’s website. This action is irrelevant to critical issues, and is plain bad manners. The supposition that Carver is “jealous” of Williams’ work and success does not make sense and has no basis in reality. Carver has been writing criticism for a long time and his writing is in the tradition of such artist/ critics as Elaine de Kooning, Peter Schjeldahl, Gary Indiana, and Stephen Westfall.

Carver may have set a snarly tone, and the reader may or may not agree with his analysis, but he has a clear point of view that does not pander to the artist or the gallery. Holt’s serious examination of Williams’ figures finds a new direction being explored that places the contemporary figure in an environment where we are all struggling to survive. Holt does not describe why the artist is so successful with this idea and does not mention the fact that the Japanese graphic novel and animation (which the artist has been troving) has been overworked as a theme for quite a while.

Williams is a talented artist whose ideas are not particularly innovative or masterfully completed. Holt holds a blanket view that enormous amounts of money spent on an artwork equates to great art. If Holt believes the market is always the sign of great work, how can he truly evaluate art? Holt has taken up the “cause” on behalf of Kent Williams. Good for him. I just hope Holt can stop foaming at the mouth long enough to enjoy his new endeavor.

—diane rolniCK, via eMail

TO THE EDITOR: We just received THE magazine—what a beautiful feature article and cover you did on Zhang Xianyong. We are sending copies to Shanghai! Thank you for your support.

—Christine duval, liMn Gallery, san franCisCo

letters: themag1@aol.com or 1208-A Mercantile Rd., SF 87507. Letters may be edited for clarity of for space consideration.

| december/january 2009/2010

THE

MAGAZINE

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MONROE GALLERY of photography

Vince Lombardi being carried off the field, Green Bay, WI, 12/31/61 - NFL Championship Game, Packers Defeat Giants

NEIL LEIFER HOLIDAY BOOK SIGNING Reception, exhibition, and book signing December 4th, 5 - 7 PM Book signing December 5th, 1 - 3 PM

Neil Leifer will be signing Guts and Glory: The Golden Age of American Football, a glorious oversize-volume format that weighs 7 pounds, with red-and-white silk cloth overboards and is a limited edition.

Open Daily

112 DON GASPAR SANTA FE NM 87501 992.0800 F: 992.0810 e: info@monroegallery.com www.monroegallery.com

PHIL SIMS

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reston art center

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1755 Avenida de Mercado | Mesilla, NM 88046 | 575 · 523 · 8713 | www.prestoncontemporaryart.com

222 Shelby Street Gallery 222 Shelby Street Gallery

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Control Tower, 2009, Mixed media on wood, 54 x 48 x 2.5

Bird Bodice, 2009, Stitched silk & cotton, 21x15 x14

Otranto Series #2, 2009, Water based vinyl paint on paper, 14x11

Bauble (Blooming), 2009, Crocheted & fabricated, 31x8x10

Variations:

holiday group show

Phillis Ideal

Tracy Krumm

Kay Khan

Seth Anderson

November 28 - January 2, 2010

chiaroscuro

702 1/2 Canyon Rd on Gypsy Alley 505.992.0711 www.chiaroscurosantafe.com

Group Show

GROUP SHOW

December 1, 2009 through January 31, 2010 Donald Baechler, Jay Kelly, Johnnie Winona Ross, Robert Motherwell, Donald Sultan, Judy Pfaff, Anne Appelby, Richard Tuttle, Erik Spehn, Julian Opie, Bernar Venet, Andrew Millner, Mel Bochner, Caio Fonseca and Kiki Smith.

129 West San Francisco, 2nd Floor, Santa Fe 505 989.8020, info@shearburngallery.com shearburngallery.com

Donald Baechler. Black Flowers, detail 2009. Nine color screenprint with flocking, 58 x 58 inches.

Alexander Brown, "Prayer Box”, Steel, 73" x 26" x 22" Choromatsu 2, 2008, Hiroshi Watanabe

photo eye

30th

136 Tesuque Village Road (CR 73), Tesuque, New Mexico (505) 820-0008 www.glenngreen.com

Stacey Huddleston p a i n t i n g s

m o n o p r i n t s

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self - portrait By

ronald davis

UNIVERSE OF

RONALD DAViS

made his early mark in the open fields of West Coast hard-edge Minimalism, portraying illusionist perspective in unconventional conceptual guises using materials such as industrial resins. His fascination with geometric shapes has sustained his career since the 1960s. Barbara Rose wrote the following about Davis’s work: “Davis saw a way to use Duchamp’s perspective studies and transparent plane for pictorial purposes. Instead of glass, he used fiberglass to create a surface that was equally transparent and detached from any illusion of reality. Because his colored pigments are mixed into a fluid resin and harden quickly, multiple layers of color may be applied without becoming muddy. His is essentially an inversion of Old Master layering and glazing except that color is applied behind rather than on top of the surface.” Davis’s works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and he has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

His work is on view through April 5, 2010 in an exhibition—1969—at P. S.1 MoMA, Long Island City, New York. Davis lives and works in Taos and is represented by Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe. BECOMING AN ARTIST

In my case, doing the opposite did not mean doing

don’t understand that an artist is someone who has to

I really had no aspirations to be an artist. It was my

something completely different; I embraced the

fill out a credit card application, who has to put the

third choice. I wanted to be a writer or a musician,

traditions of twentieth-century abstract painting. In

word “artist” in the space after “occupation.” I think

but mostly a race car driver. I blew up an engine

fact, I have always remained in the Clement Greenberg

“artist” has become a devalued word. Somebody told

and went into a ditch in my MGA in Colorado, and

“dialogue of post-painterly abstraction,” although

me once that the Greeks didn’t even have a word for

narrowly escaped being creamed by two guys in

in the studio I haven’t always followed Greenberg’s

“artist.” Their word was “artisan.” That word fits me

Porsches going around me at 180 miles per hour.

theoretical suggestions. Also, I can’t say that I haven’t

better, I believe, because I make things—I’m more of

I realized I might get killed doing this, and that would have

been influenced by Minimalism, but the emptiness of

an object-maker than a picture-painter.

been okay at the time, but racing is a rich man’s sport,

classical Minimalism was not enough. I had to include

and I couldn’t afford it. So I switched to painting. Later

beauty. By straddling the fence—not without risk—

METHODS

I found that being an artist is much more dangerous,

I was successful in forging a style I could call my own.

In the early years I relied on traditional drafting illustration methods to create drawings of depicted

and just as expensive. The first painting I painted, a couple of years before I had thoughts of becoming a

NO NARRATIVE

3-D objects that were then cartooned up to the final

real painter, was a bleeding half of a cantaloupe on a

My paintings present no narrative. What you see is

scale of the painting—these depicted objects retained

checkerboard tablecloth with a fork looming overhead.

not what you get. They are self-didactic, teaching me

my commitment to abstraction. For me, a slab is just

As Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to the

about form, and color, and perception itself. They are

as abstract as a square. In the seventies and eighties

fork in the road, take it.” In painting, I discovered a

concave and convex, to serve either sex. But then, I

I drew my perspective grids full scale using snap

“profession” that suited my dependencies.

am not really trying to be of service to the “art world.”

lines, placing the vanishing points forty to sixty feet

The paintings are often the opposite of what they

apart. Beginning in the early eighties, I increasingly

THE WORK

seem. People think they’re “happy,” because I use

relied on 3-D computer programs to sketch out the

My work is comprised of aggressively decorative,

bright colors. Conversely, some think the paintings

shapes and shadows, then projected them up in scale

meaningless, unidentified floating objects that pretend

are aloof and cerebral; rather, they are defensive,

onto the painting. These methods served me well in

to be rational—illusion is my vehicle and opticality is

protecting my fragility. I don’t know what they mean;

solving the fundamental problem of painting: “What

paramount. It was never my intention to deconstruct

I just know how to make them. A painting’s just gotta

color and where to put it?” But the temporal gap

art as I found it. I strove to expand the boundaries of

look better than the wallpaper.

between concept and preparation and execution of a

painting, not the boundaries of what was then becoming

work led me to a studio crisis. What I needed to do

art: gray or glass boxes, conceptual art, installation

OBJECT-MAKER

was reinvent a doable concept of the “blank canvas.”

art, performance art, minimalist art, or political art.

People don’t understand that as an artist, I sometimes

I was compelled to discard my primary preoccupation

My choice was to do the opposite, yet remain on the

feel like the world wants to hang me on the wall by the

of the perspective grid and seek a more direct means

playing field of twentieth-century abstract painting.

scruff of my neck. I am not my paintings. People often

of visualization. D

| december/january 2009/2010

the magazine | 15

Live, Silent and On-line

AUCTION

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Northern New Mexico College Campus Old Gym El Rito, New Mexico

from 1:30 to 3:30 pm

One-of-a-kind art works, quilts, weavings, pottery, photography, jewelry, Christmas trees, ornaments gifts, items from many local artists and regional businesses to be professionally auctioned by Donald Martinez Jr. “Willpower”

by Nicholas Herrera

“Chair-ity” Chair creations by: Barbara Campbell • Robert Chavez • Dick Combs • Carol Martin Davis • Vincent Campos • Viki Edwards • Jack Edwards • Alexis Elton • Beth Ferguson • Rik Gonzales • “Tub Chair” by Gary Griffin Gary Griffin • Susan Guevara • Nicholas Herrera • Norbert Hufnagl • Juanito Jimenez • David Michael Kennedy • Randall LaGro • Marbella Martinez • Tracy McBride • Sabra Moore • Linda Oldham • Todd Oldham • Roberta Orona-Cordova • Plano B • Tsailii Rogers • Larry Sparks • Vanderbrook Studios • Julie Wagner • Steven Williams

For our on-line

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visit: www. elritolibrary.org

Support Your Public Library!

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Local Artists: Soni Cooper, Rose Keir, Carlo Gislimberti, Crista

Hope, Karen Kaufmen Milstien, Mary Stovall, Verena Schwarz, Diana Gries, Patty Ann Byrum, Lauren A. Schmitz, Cari Lin, and Diane Dumas

Featuring Twelve Local Artists Call for Monthly Artist’s Reception Dates Gallery Hours: 8 to 5 • Seven Days a Week 2961 Galisteo Road, Santa Fe • 505.438.8464

Santa Fe 531 South Guadalupe at Manhattan Avenue Across from Tomasita’s & the Train Depot | Open Every Day FREE PARKING 505-984-1256

STUDIO VISITS

BRAHMS ONCE SAID, “WITHOUT CRAFTSMANSHIP, INSPIRATION IS A MERE REED SHAKEN IN THE WIND.” WE ASKED THREE ARTISTS TO RESPOND TO HIS STATEMENT. Craftsmanship is like the soil—essential in that it must be there for the reed to grow and flourish. In excess, soil can suffocate—or create an illusion of strength by its very presence. In fact, in some instances the reed may appear strong, but is it a reed? How does one judge work that is not crafted by the artist? Craftsmanship is a relationship with the medium. As in all relationships, my responsibility is to be humble, aware, and rigorously honest. Am I failing the work by an unwillingness to confront weaknesses in execution? Or am I too attached to technique, and suffocating a voice that needs to emerge?

—CeCe renn KurzweG

By

dana waldon &

photoGraph of

KurzweG

By

Guy Cross

Kurzweg’s last exhibition was in September 2009 at Cirq Gallery, Albuquerque. (See review on page 48.)

Chun

Genius has ignored this. Genius has adored this. A mere reed shaken in the wind can be perfection. That said, all efforts are towards a resonant result. Inspiration is core and craftsmanship is a component.

and

— lexander “sandy” Brown —a Brown’s sculptures can be seen at Glenn Green Gallery in Tesuque. www.alexanderbrownsculpture.com

Brown

I would agree with this statement. I think discipline is equally important as a means to arrive at craftsmanship because you need discipline to arrive at inspiration, you need to be ready to receive it, and then craftsmanship is what you use to take it someplace. It all goes together. I believe that the creation of art is a total life package—it’s how you

photoGraphs of

approach your life and what’s in the interior that then gets laid down on paper or canvas or whatever medium.

Or it’s what should get laid down. In any case, that’s what I try to get out as a poem, a collage, or a photograph—this is how I get to the heart of what matters and to the heart of who I am. I’m here as an artist to try to figure “it” out, and I’m here to make art that expresses what my trying to figure “it” out looks like.

—lisa Chun Chun’s work is currently on view at Metallo Gallery, Madrid, New Mexico, and Max’s Restaurant, Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe. Upcoming show at Lisa Chun Gallery, 533 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe. Reception: Friday, December 4, 5-7 pm. www.lisachun.com

18 | the magazine

| december/january 2009/10

NOSTR ANI R I S T O R A N T E Celebrating Ten Years Back to Our Roots in Classic French Cuisine 10TH ANNIVERSARY CE LEBR ATION

SPECIAL FR E NC H M E NU

* << /," iÜÊ9 À Ê-ÌÞ i

WITH SELECT FR E NCH WINES

DE C E MBE R 15 – 19

3o4 Johnson Street in Downtown Santa Fe Tuesday - Saturday 5:3o - 1o pm Reservations 983.38oo or www.trattorianostrani.com

Ã> Ì>Êvi `ià } ÊVi ÌiÀ xäxÊ nnÊnnÓx

££> n\Îä« Ê`> ÞÊ ­ÊV Ãi`Ê `>ÞÃÊ®

i ` À>` Ê >} À>ÊVi ÌiÀÊ xäxÊ{ÈÈÊΣȣ Ê ££\Îä> n« Ê`> Þ ­ÊV Ãi`ÊÌÕiÃ`>ÞÃÊ®

° °

/"-- Ê* << ÊÊÊ , - Ê- -ÊÊÊ -/Ê , /-

OPEN SOON, VERY SOON May We Suggest…

Warming up with Corona Steamed Mussels in spicy broth with toasted garlic bread followed by Slow Roasted Duck Quarters with a port wine, raspberry demi-glace, creamy polenta and sautéed vegetables, accompanied by one of our wine varietals.

Finish with a delicate Lemon Mousse…

466-8668 ~ www.copadeoro.net OPEN EVERY DAY Winter hours 11:30–2:30 pm & 5:00–8:00 pm In The Courtyard at the Agora in Eldorado

Soups Salads Chile Pasta Stuffed Potatoes Carnish Bar and much more!

In the old Subway Eldorado location.

at the Santa Fe Railyard

466-4206

La Tienda Community Village Marketplace

Grand Opening - December 12

IN THE FARMER’S MARKET BUILDING 1607 PASEO DE PERALTA WWW.SECONDSTREETBREWERYRAILYARD.COM

lunch - monday thru saturday

sunday brunch dinner - nightly

always à la carte

instant gift certificates available online

231 washington avenue - reservations 505 984 1788 menus and special events online

www.santacafe.com

R I S T R A $5 LUNCH GIF T CERTIFICATE Present this Certificate Tue – Sat 11:30 – 2:30 through January One Certificate per person

3-course prix fixe dinner $24 nightly

Open Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve & Day Private Rooms for Your Holiday Parties • Gift Certificates –The Perfect Gift 548 Agua Fria • Bar Menu • www.ristrarestaurant.com • 982.8608

ONE BOTTLE

One Bottle:

The 2007 Château La Roque “Pic Saint Loup”

by Joshua Baer

Are we still friends? Are we?

start to savor what you have lost. You look at the space on the wall,

We used to talk every day, then it was once a week, then it was once a month, and then it was only when you needed directions to Mario’s taco bar in Modesto, the recipe for arrabbiata sauce, or the telephone

the vacuum in your heart, the emptiness that gives birth to form, and you say, “Yeah, well, it was fun while it lasted.”

Which brings us to the 2007 Château La Roque “Pic Saint Loup.”

number of a tycoon. Which was fine with me, except that it was not fine

In the glass, the wine is an overcast ruby. The bouquet dances

with me. Fine with me would have been the sound of your voice, or the

at first, then it assumes the lotus position and allows you to savor it.

way I could always hear you talking when I read one of your calligraphic

When you savor the bouquet, close your eyes. It makes a difference,

e-mails. Fine with me would have been the least significant part of you—

the way listening to a love song with your eyes closed makes a difference. On the palate, the Château La Roque offers layers of

any part of you, really—anything but your silence.

I should have said something. I should have addressed the silence issue years ago, when we were still talking. My problem was, when we were still talking, it never occurred to me that

aggression, mystery, sorrow, and delight. If you try to sort through those layers, you miss the experience of being overwhelmed by the wine. If you try not to sort through those layers, your

our conversation would end. It seemed like one of those

unconscious mind does it for you. This may be why memories

lifetime conversations, the ones that always picked up where

of drinking this wine are as enjoyable as drinking it. The

they left off. Like an idiot, I thought your face and your voice

finish is long and slow and delicate. It offers no apologies

were in my life for good, the way my blood and my lungs

or explanations for being lovely. It carries out its mission

were in my life. I thought you were the reason I knew how

and vanishes—maybe not into thin air, but into what thin

to laugh. The last thing I expected—from my friend, my

air might be if thin air had a face, a voice, and a soul.

other side, my partner in the absurd—was your silence.

You can buy the 2007 Château La Roque “Pic Saint

your

Loup” at Whole Foods for $18 a bottle. Wine.com

medications? Remember the night when I made friends

(physically located in San Francisco) has cases for $191,

with your heart? Remember when you made the remark

shipping included, which works out to $16 a bottle. You

Remember

when

you

asked

me

about

about controlled falling? Or was it about uncontrolled

can drink the Château La Roque with anything, though

falling? Remember the Ballad of the Enchilada? Remember

it does seem to have an affinity for grilled lamb chops,

that disturbing thing you used to do with your eyes? You

and vice versa. The first time you drink it, drink it from

had a way of sitting in a room full of people and telling a

a water glass.

story that turned the room and the people into the story you were telling.

Having a conversation with yourself is a lot like dying.

You are here, and the world is here with you, and then the

Emerson said friendship was a masterpiece of nature.

world says good-bye and you have no idea who or where

What happens when the masterpiece gets stolen and fenced

you are. What happens next is anybody ’s guess but I think

and there is nothing left on the wall but a blank space and a

we can be sure that silence is involved. So, thank you very

nail? What happens when the masterpiece steals itself?

much for preparing me for the inevitable. I treasure your

This is not your fault. I freely admit that I am a glutton

absence the same way I used to celebrate your presence:

for excess, an oversized personality who refuses to lose

with my whole heart. This is the time of year when cares are

weight, an insensitive loudmouth who cannot wait for the

forgotten and debts are forgiven. These are the holidays,

next opportunity to speak before he thinks. Help yourself.

the holy days when Jesus has his birthday, the lit candle

Accuse me of being who I am. It will hurt and I will nurse

appears in the window, and Father Time passes the torch

one of those quiet grudges that people like me nurse when

to the infant version of himself. I wish you well. Honest,

we are forced to face the truth, but at least we will be

I do. I think you made a mistake, but your silence has

talking. At least you will have replaced your silence with

taught me a lesson and it is one I will never forget: Love

your contempt.

is life’s big secret. D

You have nothing to worry about. I am too proud to beg, not that it would do me any good. I had my chances.

You gave them to me, chance by chance, and I squandered them. The only good thing about silence is that you get used to it. You wait, you listen, and you never get the call you want to get, but after a month or two of relentless grief, you

| december/january 2009/2010

One Bottle is dedicated to the appreciation of good wines and good times, one bottle at a time. The name “One Bottle” and the contents of this column are ©2009 by onebottle.com. Joshua Baer can be reached at jb@onebottle.com

THE magazine | 21

Offering a choice of lunch Three course prixe fix, 14.95 Dinner three courses, 29.50 and four courses, 37.50

Featuring local farm fresh produce

Open Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day

Dinner 7 Nights at 5 pm Lunch Monday – Friday 11:30 – 2 pm 95 West Marcy Street Santa Fe, New Mexico 505-984-1091 ilpiattosantafe.com

Photo: Matthew Yohalem

One block north of the historic Santa Fe Plaza

DINING GUIDE

New Kid on the Block

Restaurant Martín 526 Galisteo Street Lunch/Dinner Reservations: 820-0919

$ KEY

INEXPENSIVE

$

up to $14

MODERATE

$$

$15—$23

EXPENSIVE

$$$

VERY EXPENSIVE

$24—$33

$$$$

Prices are for one dinner entrée. If a restaurant serves only lunch, then a lunch entrée price is reflected.

Alcoholic beverages, appetizers, and desserts are not included in these price keys. Call restaurants for hours.

$34 plus

EAT OUT MORE OFTEN!

Photos: Guy Cross

...a guide to the very best restaurants in santa fe and surrounding areas...

315 Bistro Restaurant & Wine Bar 315 Old Santa Fe Trail. 986-9190.

Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free inside. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: French. Atmosphere: Three intimate rooms—reminiscent of a small inn in the French countryside. Patio dining. House specialties: Earthy French onion soup made with duck stock; squash blossom beignets; smooth and rich foie gras terrine with poached cranberries; crispy duck; and one of the most flavorful steaks in town. Comments: Teriffic wine selection. ¡A La Mesa!

428 Agua Fria St. 988-2836 Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Eclectic. Atmosphere: Bustling and friendly. House specialties: Start with the Calamari Jardiniere in a fennel sauce or the Tataki of beef. For your main course, we suggest the flavorful Steak Frites, the perfectly cooked Salmon Osso Bucco, or the Honey and Almond Duck. Finish your meal with Profiteroles with raspberry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and minted chantilly cream. Comments: Good wine list and attentive service.

Amavi Restaurant 221 Shelby St. 988-2355.

Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$$ Cuisine: Mediterranean.

Atmosphere: Intimate and attractive. House specialties: Menu changes depending on what is fresh at the market. The tapas are sensational. For your main course, we recommend the Pollo Mattone. the tiger shrimp with garlic, shallots, smoked pimentos, and sherry; and the pan-roasted ribeye chop. Recommendations: The bouillabaisse is not to be missed. Comments: The bar is much fun for dinner and drinks.

Anasazi Restaurant Inn of the Anasazi 113 Washington Ave. 988-3236 .

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Smoke-free. Valet parking.

Major credit cards. $$$$ Cuisine: Contemporary American cuisine.

Atmosphere: A casual and elegant room evoking the feeling of an Anasazi cliff dwelling. House specialties: To start, try the enticing Buffalo carpaccio with thinly-sliced black truffle and frisee or the sublime lavenderglazed squab with mission figs and an aged Porto reduction. For your entrée, we suggest the perfectly-prepared rare chipolte-crusted lamb rack or the herb-crusted tenderloin of beef served with whipped poblano potatoes and cipollini onions. Comments: Attentive service, superbly-presented plates, and an excellent wine list.

Andiamo!

322 Garfield St. 995-9595.

Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Italian. Atmosphere: Cozy interior with Tuscan yellows and reds. House specialties: Chicken parmesan; baked risotto with mushroom ragout; and any fish special.

Comments: Consistently good food and a

sharp waitstaff makes Andiamo! one of the places in Santa Fe to eat Italian.

Bobcat Bite Restaurant Old Las Vegas Hwy. 983-5319.

Lunch/Dinner No alcohol. Smoking.

Cash. $$ Cuisine: American. Atmosphere: This is the real deal—a neon bobcat sign sits above a small, low-slung building. Inside are five tables and nine seats at a counter made out of real logs. House specialties: The enormous inch-and-a-half thick green chile cheeseburger is sensational. The 13-ounce rib-eye steak is juicy and flavorful.

Cafe Cafe Italian Grill 500 Sandoval St. 466-1391 Lunch/Dinner Beer/wine. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Italian. Atmosphere: Casual. House specialties: For lunch, the classic Caesar salad; the tasty speciality pizzas or the grilled eggplant sandwich. At dinner, we loved the perfectly grilled swordfish salmorglio and the herb-breaded veal cutlet. Comments: Very friendly waitstaff.

Café Loka Las Placitas and Ledoux Courtyard, Taos.

575-758-4204 Breakfast/Lunch Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: American—fresh, organic, and local produce. Atmosphere: Casual.

House specialties: In the morning, try the organic eggs, or the housemade organic granola with yougurt. We love the salad specials. Comments: Nice selection of teas and coffee drinks.

Café Pasqual’s 121 Don Gaspar Ave. 983-9340.

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner/Sunday Brunch Beer/Wine. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Multi-ethnic. Atmosphere: The café is adorned with lots of Mexican streamers, Indian maiden posters, and rustic wooden furniture.

House specialties: Hotcakes get a nod from Gourmet magazine. Huevos motuleños, a Yucatán breakfast, is one you’ll never forget. For lunch, try the grilled chicken breast sandwich with Manchego cheese.

The Compound 653 Canyon Road. 982-4353.

Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Contemporary American . Atmosphere: 150-year-old adobe with pale, polished plaster walls and white linens on the tables.

House specialties: Jumbo crab and lobster salad. The chicken schnitzel is flawless.

Recommendations: Deserts are absolutely perfect. Comments: Seasonal menu. Chef/ owner Mark Kiffin didn’t win the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef of the Southwest” award for goofing off in the kitchen. Recent write-up in The New York Times.

Copa de Oro Agora Center at Eldorado. 466-8668.

Lunch/Dinner. 7 days. Take-out.

Beer/Wine. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: International. Atmosphere: Casual.

House specialties: Start with the mussels in a Mexican beer and salsa reduction.

Entrees include the succulent roasted duck leg quarters, Moroccan lamb stew with polenta, savory palliard of chicken, and the slow-cooked twelve-hour pot roast. Great spicy French Fries. For dessert, go for the lemon mousse or the kahlua macadamia nut brownie. Comments: Well worth the ten-minute drive from downtown Santa Fe. Corazón 401 S. Guadalupe St. 424-7390 Dinner till late. Full bar.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Pub grub. Atmosphere: Casual.

House specialties: You cannot go wrong with the not-to-be-believed thin-cut grilled ribeye steak topped with blue cheese, and served on a bed of spinach, or the flash fried calamari with sweet chili dipping sauce, or the amazing Corazón hamburger trio.

Comments: Love music and an easygoing atmostphere? Corazón is definitely your place.

Good pour at the bar. Great prices.

Counter Culture 930 Baca St. 995-1105.

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Wine/Beer. Smoke-free. Patio. Cash. $$ Cuisine: All-American. Atmosphere: Informal.

House specialties: Breakfast: burritos and frittata. Lunch: sandwiches and salads. Dinner: flash-fried calamari; grilled salmon with leek and pernod cream sauce; and a delicious hanger steak. Comments: Boutique wine list .

Cowgirl Hall of Fame 319 S. Guadalupe St. 982-2565 Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoking/non-smoking. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: All American. Atmosphere: Popular patio shaded with big cottonwoods. Cozy bar.

House specialties: The smoked brisket and ribs are fantastic. Dynamite buffalo burgers and a knockout strawberry shortcake. Comments: Lots of beers—from Bud to the fancy stuff.

Coyote Café 132 W. Water St. 983-1615.

Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$$ Cuisine: Nouvelle Southwestern. Atmosphere: Fun. House specialties: For your main course, go for the grilled Maine lobster tails or the Southwestern Rotisserie—rock hen, basted butternut squash, or Shelby’s sharp chedder greeen chile “mac and cheese.” roasted chicken glace. Dessert favorite is the Bernadine’s coconut pumpkin pie.

Downtown Subscription 376 Garcia St. 983-3085.

Breakfast/Lunch No alcohol. Smoke-free. Patio.

Cash. $ Cuisine: American coffeehouse and newsstand. Atmosphere: Café society. Over 1,600 magazine titles to buy or peruse. Big room with small tables and a nice patio outside where inside where you can sit and schmooze.

House specialties: Espresso, cappuccino, and lattes.

El Farol 808 Canyon Rd. 983-9912.

Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoking/non-smoking. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Spanish. Atmosphere: Wood plank floors, thick adobe walls, and a postagestamp-size dance floor for cheek-to-cheek dancing. Wall murals by Alfred Morang.

El Mesón 213 Washington Ave. 983-6756.

Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Spanish. Atmosphere: Spain could be just around the corner. Music nightly. House specialties: Tapas reign supreme, with classics like Manchego cheese marinated in extra virgin olive oil; sautéed spinach with garlic and golden raisins.

Galisteo Bistro 227 Galisteo Street. 982-3700 Dinner/Sunday Brunch Beer/Wine. Smoke-free.

Visa/Mastercard/Discover. $$$ Cuisine: International. Atmosphere: Warm and friendly. House specialties: Start with the delicious pan-seared yellowfin tuna w/ cranberry salsa or the crabcakes casalinga.

For you main, we suggest the baby-back bbq ribs or the 10oz rib-eye with Bernaise sauce.

Desserts are wonderful. Comments: At Sunday brunch, order the eggs benedict or the crab omelette. You will not be disappointed.

Geronimo 724 Canyon Rd. 982-1500 Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free dining room. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$$ Cuisine: French/Asian fusion. Atmosphere: Kiva fireplaces, a portal, and a lovely garden room. House specialties: Start with the superb French foie gras, with apricot and duck spring rolls and an agave orange sauce, or the spicy organic caramel quail; or the tasteful saki steamed lobster dumplings. Entrées we love include the exquisite green miso sea bass, served with black truffle scallions, ramen noodles, and citron rouille; the perfectly-cooked Kurabota pork tenderloin, and the classice peppery Elk tenderloin. Comments: Tasting menus for 3, 5, or 7 course meals.

Il Piatto 95 W. Marcy St. 984-1091.

Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Italian. Atmosphere: Bustling.

House specialties: Arugula and tomato salad; grilled hanger steak with three cheeses, pancetta and onions; lemon and rosemary grilled chicken; and the delicious pork chop stuffed with mozzarella, pine nuts, proscuitto, potato gratin, and rosemary wine jus. Comments: Prix fixe seven nights a week. Reasonably priced food and wine.

Jambo Cafe 2010 Cerrillios Rd. 473-1269 Lunch/Dinner Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$

Cuisine: African and Caribbean inspired.

Atmosphere: Basic cafe-style. House specialties: We loved the tasty Jerk chicken sandwich. Try the curried chicken salad wrap; or the marvelous phillo stuffed with spinach, black olives, feta cheese, roasted red peppers and chickpeas served over organic greens; or the marinated and grilled red snapper.

You cannot go wrong with the East African coconut lentil stew. Comments: Owner and chef Ahmed Obo has worked in kitchens in New York and New Mexico. For the past ten years he was executive chef at the Zia Diner.

Jinja 510 N. Guadalupe St. 982-4321.

Lunch/Dinner Full Bar. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Pan-Asian. Atmosphere: Dark wood booths and subdued lighting. House specialties: Yin Yang tiger shrimp dusted in salt and pepper with a plum ginger sauce, and classic Pad Thai.

Joseph’s Table 108-A South Taos Plaza (Hotel La Fonda) Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Eclectic. Atmosphere: Tucked inside the La Fonda Hotel on the Taos Plaza, it has a nifty bar and cozy, semiprivate seats against the wall. House Specialties: Get the grilled, marinated New York Strip with Chimichurri sauce, warm bacon, roasted tomato salad and Chimayo chile fries. The sexy polenta fries with grilled radicchio and gorgonzola cream is a knockout. Fish and chips with chipotle tartar sauce and duck fat fries could be the best you’ve ever had. Recommendations: Sauteed local kale, charred leeks, and shallots in warm roasted tomato vinaigrette— this dish explodes with flavor. Comments: The chef and owner, Joseph Wrede, is exceptionally gifted in the kitchen.

Josh’s Barbecue 3486 Zafarano Drive, Suite A 474-6466 Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Barbecue. Atmosphere: Casual, House specialties: Wood-smoked meats cooked low and very slow are king here.

Recommendations: We love the redchile, honey-glazed ribs, the tender brisket, the barbecue chicken wings, the smoked chicken tacquitos, and the spicy queso.

Comments: Seasonal barbecue sauces will wow your taste buds. Josh’s has been written up in America’s Best BBQs. Kohnami Restaurant 313 S. Guadalupe St. 984-2002.

Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine/Sake. Smoke-free. Patio.

Visa & Mastercard. $$ Cuisine: Japanese. Atmosphere: Casual.

House specialties: Miso soup; soft shell crab; dragon roll; chicken katsu; noodle dishes; and Bento box specials. Comments: Sushi is always perfect. Try the Ruiaku Sake. It is clear, smooth, and very dry— like drinking from a magic spring admist a bamboo forest.

continued on page 25

| december/january 2009/2010

THE

MAGAZINE

| 23

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313 S. GUADALUPE ST.| 984.2002

DINING GUIDE

House specialties: Excellent salad bar and sandwiches.

Second Street Brewery 1814 Second Street. 982-3030.

Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free inside. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Simple pub grub and brewery.

Atmosphere: Casual and very friendly.

House specialties: All of the beers are outstanding, especially when paired with beer-steamed mussels, the beer-battered calamari, hamburgers the crunchy fish and chips, spicey green chile stew, or the truly great grilled bratwurst.

Comments: A kid-friendly place.

They know comfort food at the Plaza Café Southside 3466 Zafarano Drive • 424-0755 • Open 7 days Lamy Station Café Lamy Train Station, Lamy. 466-1904 Lunch/Dinner/Sunday Brunch Beer/Wine.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: American. Atmosphere: 1950’s dining car. House specialties: Fantastic green chile stew, crab cakes, omlettes, salads, bacon and eggs, and do not forget the fabulous Reuben sandwich. Sunday brunch is marvelous. Comments: For your dessert, order the apple crisp.

Mangiamo Pronto!

312 Read St. 989-1904 Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free.

Visa/Mastercard. $$ Cuisine: Italian. Atmosphere: Intimate, light, and hip counter service. House specialties: Paninis, pizzas, and soups are great. Recommendations: Muffuletta panini and a perfect espresso to finish.

Comments: Great thin crust pizzas.

Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen 555 W. Cordova Rd. 983-7929.

Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoking/non-smoking. Patio.

Major credit cards. $ Cuisine: New Mexican. Atmosphere: Rough wooden floors, hand-carved chairs and tables set the historical tone. House specialties: Freshly-made tortillas and green chile stew. Pork spareribs in a red chile sauce are a fifty-year-old tradition.

Comments: Great bar scene and perfect Margaritas.

Max’s 21st Century Food 401 1/2 Guadalupe St. 984-9104.

Dinner Wine/Beer. non-smoking. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Contemporary Atmosphere: Intimate. House specialties: Wonderful variety of salads, succulent baby-back pork ribs, flavorful grilled baby lamb chops, and the perfectly-prepared seared black pepper-crusted yellow fin tuna.

Comments: Organic ingredients when available—you can taste the difference.

Mu Du Noodles 1494 Cerrillos Rd. 983-1411.

Dinner/Sunday Brunch Beer/wine. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Noodle house Atmosphere: Casual and friendly. House specialties: We love the salmon dumplings drizzled with oyster sauce and the Malaysian Laksa (wild rice noodles in a red coconut curry sauce with baby bok choy).

O’Keeffe Café 217 Johnson St. 946-1065.

Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Contemporary Southwest with a French flair. Atmosphere: The walls are dressed with photos of Ms. O’Keeffe.

| december/january 2009/2010

House specialties: The Northern New Mexico organic poquitero rack of lamb with black olive tapenade. Comments: Nice wine selection.

Plaza Café Southside 3466 Zafarano Drive. 424-0755 Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner - 7 days Full bar. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: American and New Mexican Atmosphere: Bright and light, colorful, and friendly. House specialties: For your breakfast go for the Huevos Rancheros, the Chile Rellenos Omelet, or the Blue Corn Piñon Pancakes. The Brisket Taquito appetizer rules, as does the Posole (pork and hominy stew with red chile). We love the Blue Plate Specials: the fish and chips, the New Mexico meatloaf, and especially the crunchy chicken-fried chicken, served with real mashed potatoes and gravy.

Comments: This is a wonderful familyoriented restaurant with very reasonable prices. The owner, Leonard, is often at the door to meet, greet, and seat you. Go. You will not be disappointed.

Railyard Restaurant & Saloon 530 S. Guadalupe St. 989-3300.

Lunch: Monday-Saturday Dinner daily Bar menu daily Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: American classics revisited.

Atmosphere: Very open, spacious, and bustling. House specialties: Appetizers include southern fried buttermilk chicken strips with Creole remoulade dipping sauce. Steaks and chops with choices of compound butters.

Recommendations: The Railyard has one of the most flavorful burgers in town, bar none Comments: A very generous pour at the bar and great bartenders and waitstaff.

Restaurant Martín 526 Galisteo St. 820-0919.

Lunch/Dinner/Brunch Beer/Wine Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Contemporary American fare.

Atmosphere: Casual House specialties: Start with the soup of the day or the wild mushroom and Nantucket Bay scallop risotto. For your main course, try the grilled Berkshire pork chop, with shoestring tobacco onions, and peach barbecue jus or the mustard-crusted Ahi tuna, served with Togorashi prawn dumplings, stir fried bok choy, and a warm tomburi vinaigrette.

For dessert, go for the milk chocolate souffle tart with Tahitian vanilla ice cream.

Comments: A chef-owned restaurant with a friendly and efficient waitstaff.

Rio Chama Steakhouse 414 Old Santa Fe Trail. 955-0765.

Sunday Brunch/Lunch/Dinner/Bar menu.

Full bar. Smoke-free dining rooms.

Major credit cards. $$$

Cuisine: American Steakhouse/New Mexican. Atmosphere: Pueblo-style adobe with vigas and plank floors. House specialities: USDA Prime steaks and prime rib. Haystack fries and cornbread with honey butter. Recommendations: For dessert, we always choose the chocolate pot.

Ristra 548 Agua Fria St. 982-8608.

Dinner/Bar Menu Full bar. Smoke-free. Patio Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Southwestern with French flair.

Atmosphere: Elegant bar with an extensive bar menu, sophisticated and comfortable dining rooms, and a charming outdoor patio. House specialties: Mediterranean mussels in chipotle and mint broth; ahi tuna tartare; squash blossom tempura; pistachiocrusted Alaskan halibut; and achiote grilled Elk tenderloin. Comments: Ristra offers an extensive wine list, and won the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence in 2006.

San Francisco Street Bar & Grill 50 E. San Francisco St. 982-2044.

Lunch/Dinner Full bar.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: As American as apple pie.

Atmosphere: Casual with art on the walls. House specialties: At lunch, do try the San Francisco Street hamburger on a sourdough bun or the grilled yellowfin tuna nicoise salad with baby red potatoes. At dinner, we like the tender and flavorful twelve-ounce New York Strip steak, or the Idaho Ruby Red Trout served with grilled pineapple salsa. Comments: Visit their sister restaurant at DeVargas Center.

Santacafé 231 Washington Ave. 984-1788.

Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoking/non-smoking. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Contemporary Southwestern.

Atmosphere: Minimal, subdued, and elegant. House specialties: For starters, the crispy calamari with lime dipping sauce will never disappoint. Favorite dinner entrées include the perfectly cooked grilled rack of lamb; pan-seared salmon with olive oil crushed new potatoes and creamed sorrel; miso marinated halibut with lemongrass. Comments: Wonderful soups and the best dumplings ever. If available, you must order the tempura shrimp. Appetizers at cocktail hour is always a lot of fun.

Saveur 204 Montezuma St. 989-4200.

Breakfast/Lunch No alcohol. Smoke-free. Patio.

Visa/Mastercard. $$ Cuisine: A mix of French and American.

Atmosphere: Cafeteria-style service for salad bar and soups. Deli case with meats and desserts. Seating is at small tables.

The Shed 113 1/2 E. Palace Ave. 982-9030.

Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: New Mexican. Atmosphere: This local institution—some say a local habit—is housed in an adobe hacienda.

House specialties: We suggest that you try the stacked red or green chile cheese enchiladas with blue corn tortillas.

Comments: They make great chile here.

Check out their sister restaurant, La Choza, for the same classic New Mexican food.

Shohko Café 321 Johnson St. 982-9708.

Lunch/Dinner Sake/Beer. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Authentic Japanese Cuisine.

Atmosphere: Sushi bar, as well as table dining. House specialties: Softshell crab tempura; hamachi kama; sesame seafood salad, Kobe beef with Japanese salsa, and Bento boxes. Comments: A noodle menu has been recently added to the menu.

Chat with the knowledgeable and friendly sushi chefs.

Steaksmith at El Gancho Old Las Vegas Highway. 988-3333.

Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free dining room.

Major credit cards $$$ Cuisine: American. Atmosphere: Family restaurant with full bar and lounge. House specialties: Aged steaks and lobster. Try the great pepper steak with Dijon cream sauce. Comments: They know steak here.

The Teahouse 821 Canyon Rd. 992-0972.

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Wine/Beer Fireplace. 7 days.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Farm to table. Atmosphere: House specialties: Salmon Benedict with poached eggs, gourmet cheese sandwich, polenta plate, soups with vegan base, fresh salads, and many organic teas and other tempting drinks.

Tia Sophia’s 210 W. San Francisco St. 983-9880.

Breakfast/Lunch No alcohol. Smoking/non-smoking.

Major credit cards. $ Cuisine: New Mexican. Atmosphere: The “real deal.” Old wooden booths or tables.

House specialties: Green chile stew (known to cure the common cold). Enormous breakfast burritos stuffed with bacon, potatoes, chile, and cheese. Comments: Friendly waitstaff. This restaurant is a “Santa Fe tradition.”

Trattoria Nostrani 304 Johnson Street. 983-3800.

Dinner Wine/Beer. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$$ Cuisine: Regional dishes from Northern Italy.

Atmosphere: A 1887 renovated adobe with a great bar. House specialties: Begin your meal with the delicious foie gras custard with fresh peaches. For your main course, try the Stuffed Gnocchetti with Proscuitto and Chicken; the Diver Scallops with Quail Porchetta; or the superbly-prepared Mediterranean Branzino. All of the desserts are simply amazing. Comments: Perfect tomatoes from the backyard garden.

A comprehensive European wine list with over four-hundred selections. In 2009, winner of Gourmet magazine’s “Top 50 U.S. Restaurants.”

Frommer’s Guide included Trattoria Nostrani as one of the “Top 500 Restaurants in the World.”

Torinos’ @ Home 227 Don Gaspar Ave. 982-4545.

Breakfast/Lunch Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$

Cuisine: Northern Italian. Atmosphere: Casual and very friendly.

House specialties: Breakfast quesadilla with pesto, prosciutto, and provolone cheese; fall-offthe-fork braised brisket and gnocchi, and a variety of wonderful salads and pastas.

Comments: If you were traveling in Italy with Anthony Bourdain, this is just the kind of beautifully-prepared food you and he would discover. Everyone feels like a guest—not just a client—thanks to owners Daniela and Maxime.

Tree House Café & Pastry Shop 1600 Lena St. 474-5543.

Breakfast/Lunch Closed Monday Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: Only organic ingredients used.

Atmosphere: Light, bright, and cozy.

House specialties: You cannot go wrong ordering the fresh Farmer’s Market salad, the soup and sandwich, the quiche, or the vegetable quesadilla.

Tulips 222 N. Guadalupe St. 989-7340 Dinner Wine/Beer. Smoke-free. Patio.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: We call it whimsical gourmet.

Atmosphere: Intimate. Two small rooms with beautiful art on the walls. House specialties: Lobster spring rolls, organic chicken liver pate, and marinated venison tenderloin. Comments: For dessert order the Grand Marnier infused chocolate mousse “tulip.”

Vanessie of Santa Fe 434 W. San Francisco St. 982-9966.

Dinner Full bar. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$$ Cuisine: American. Atmosphere: Piano bar and oversized everything, thanks to architect Ron Robles. House specialties: New York steak and Australian rock lobster tail.

Comments: Wonderful appetizers.

Vinaigrette 709 Don Cubero Alley. 820-9205 Lunch/Dinner Beer/Wine. Smoke-free.

Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: Farm-to-table. Atmosphere: Light, sunny, cheerful, and welcoming.

House specialties: We suggest the Nutty Pear-fessor salad with grilled Bosc pears, bacon, toasted pecans, and Gorgonzola, and the Chop Chop salad. Comments: Organic greens deliver the freshness that slow food promises.

Zia Diner 326 S. Guadalupe St. 988-7008.

Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Full bar. Smoking/non-smoking. PatIo. Major credit cards. $$ Cuisine: As All-American as Mom’s apple pie. Atmosphere: Down home and casual. House specialties: Absolutely the best meat loaf and mashed potaoes in town, burgers, and what we call “the real deal” chicken-fried chicken. Comments: If you like ice cream, you’ll love the hot fudge sundae. And there are many wonderful pastries available for take-out.

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THE magazine GREAT COMMISSION EXPERIENCED ONLY e-mail resume to adv.themag@gmail.com 505.424.7641 for appt.

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THE

MAGAZINE

| 25

ART OPENINGS

DEC. / JAN. Thursday, december 3 MariPOsa sa Gallery, Nob Hill, 3500 Central Ave. SE, Alb. 505-268-6828. Hejira: assemblages by Cynthia Cook. 5-10 pm.

Friday, december 4 1228 ParkW arkWay Way art sPace P , 1228 Parkway Dr., # F, Santa Fe. 603-1259. On Being and Time: cast-glass sculpture and paintings by Carol Nicola. 5-8 pm.

BriGht rain Gallery, 206 1/2 San Felipe NW, Alb. 505-843-9176. Being Sprouts: recent work by Lea Anderson. 6-9 pm. center fOr cOnteMPOrary arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe. 982-1338. Garden: Chris Jonas with the Del Sol String Quarte Quartet: installation with live music and projected video. I’m Keeping An Eye On You: video projection. 5-8 pm.

You eli levin studiOs, 830 Canyon Rd., Santa Fe. 986-8071. Servants in the Valley: monoprints and paintings by Ari Kalminson. 4-7 pm. evO v ke cOnteMPOrary, 130 Lincoln Ave., Santa Fe. 995-9902. Fran Hardy: solo show. 5-8 pm.

GOlden daW a n Gallery, 201 Galisteo St., Santa Fe. 988-2024. Christmas Show: group show of photography, paintings, pottery, and jewelry. All under $1,000. 5-8 pm. harWOO ar d art center, 1114 7th St. NW, Alb. 505-242-6367. 12 x 12: twelve-inch works of art remain anonymous until purchased. 6-8 pm.

Jane sauer Gallery, 652 Canyon Rd., Santa Fe. 995-8513. New Works: freestyle machine stitching on fabric by Carol Shinn. 5-7 pm. Artist talk on Dec. 5, 2 pm.

ner & dene, 517 Central Ave. NW, Alb. 505suMner 842-1400. December Holiday Showcase: various media. 5-9 pm.

ssaT a urday, december 5 aT huMan line studiO, 127-D Bent St., Taos.

575-751-3033. Heart of a Woman: paintings, monoprints, and sculpture by Stacey Huddleston.

4-8 pm.

Wednesday, december 9 neW W MexicO histOry ry MuseuM, 113 Lincoln Ave., Santa Fe. 984-8353. Slideluck Potshow: photography show. 6:30-9 pm.

Thursday, december 10 MuseuM Of cOnteMPOrary native arts, 108 Cathedral Pl., Santa Fe. 983-1777. New Media Arts Fall Semester Film Screening Screening: work by media arts students. 6-8 pm.

Ph hOtO-eye

BOOkstOre, 370 Garcia St., Santa Fe. 988-5152. Walking Thunder—In the Footsteps of the African Elephant Elephant: book signing with Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. 5-7 pm.

PriMitive edGe Gallery, 83 Avan Nu Po Rd., Santa Fe. 424-2361. Footwork: footwear as functional wear and as art. 5 pm.

Friday, december 11 eiGht ht MOdern, 231 Delgado St., Santa Fe. 9950231. Jan Adlmann: Latter-Day Fabergé: new work and a selection of past favorites. 5:30-7:30 pm.

Gallery 1228 ParkW arkWay Way art sPace P , 1228 Parkway Dr., Santa Fe. 699-6788. Six Shooters—A Photography Exhibit: six New Mexico photographers. 4-8 pm.

Exhibit

ART OPENINGS

Panel discussion: Sat., Dec. 12, 2 pm.

Gf cOnteMPOrary, 707 Canyon Rd., Santa Fe. G 983-3707. 1st Annual Group Exhibition & Benefit: benefit for The Food Depot and The Empty Stocking Fund. 5-9 pm.

nOrthern neW W MexicO art Gallery, 150 Washington St., Santa Fe. 989-1536. Embracing Our Differences Differences: oil portraits by Carol Hartsock.

5-8 pm.

ssaT a urday, december 19 aT

heidi lOeWen POrcelain Gallery, 315 Johnson St., Santa Fe. 988-2225. Out of the Smoke, Into the Gold: smoked and fired gold vessels. 5-8 pm.

Gold

Ja aMes kelly cOnteMPOrary, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe. 989-1601. Early American: photographs by Sharon Core. 5-7 pm.

karan ruhlen Gallery, 225 Canyon Rd., Santa Fe. 820-0807. Masters of the Landscape: group show. 5-7 pm.

Thursday, december 31

klaudia Marr Gallery, 229 Johnson St., Suite C, Santa Fe. 988-2100. 100 Drawings: work by John Nava. Grand opening reception: 5-7 pm.

Matrix fine art, 3812 Central Ave. SE, Suite 100B, Alb. 505-268-8952. Under 500: holiday show by gallery artists. 5-8 pm. neW W GrO r unds Print WOrkshOP & Gallery, 3812 Central Ave. SE, Suite 100-B, Alb. 505-268-8952.

Annual Holiday Sale Sale: work by local artists. 5-8 pm. ventana fine art, 400 Canyon Rd., Santa Fe. 983-8815. 2009 Q & A Series: watercolors on paper

by Tom Noble. 4:30-5:30 pm.

ssaT a urday, december 12 aT JeeMez fine art Gallery, 17346 Hwy. 4, Jemez Springs. 575-829-3340. Small Works: gallery holiday show. 3-6 pm.

POP Gallery santa fe, 133 W. Water St., Santa Fe. 820-0788. POP Gallery on LoVe (2009): show to support Santa Fe’s homeless children. Closing reception: 6-9 pm.

Friday, January 1 ManitOu Galleries, 123 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe. 986-0440. Calendar Art Show: gallery artists exhibition. 5-7:30 pm.

M atrix f ine a rt , 3812 Central Ave., SE, Suite 100-B, Alb. 505-268-8952. 1 x 15—One Model, Fifteen Photographers Photographers: photographers create two images of the same model.

5-8 pm. neW W GrOunds Print WOrkshOP & Gallery, 3812 Central Ave. SE, Suite 100-B, Alb. 505268-8952. NEW: work by new gallery artists and New Year’s celebration. 5-8 pm.

Friday, december 18

suMner ner & dene, 517 Central Ave. NW, Alb. 505-842-1400. New Year New Work: gallery group show. 5-8pm.

Gallery chartreuse, 216 Washington Ave., Santa Fe. 992-3391. One Year Anniversary Exhibition: new works by gallery artists. 5-7 pm.

WilliaM shearBurn Gallery, 129 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe. 989-8020. Winter Group Show: work by gallery artists. 5-7 pm.

Show

ManitOu Galleries, 123 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe. 986-0440. Holiday Miniature Group Show: small works by gallery artists. 5-7:30 pm.

Masley Gallery, UNM, One University of New Mexico, Alb. 505-277-4112. Graduating MA Exhibition Fall 2009 2009: work by graduating students.

5 pm.

MOnrO nr e Gallery, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa nrO Fe. 992-0800. Neil Leifer: book signing of Guts and Glory: The Golden Age of American Football Football. 5-7 pm.

Patina Gallery, 131 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe. 986-1879. deSign: sculpture and furniture by Boris Bally. 5-7:30 pm.

PeytOn WriGht ht Gallery, 237 E. Palace Ave., Santa Fe. 989-9888. 17th Annual Art of Devotion: art from Europe and the Americas. 5-8 pm.

Ph hOtO-eye Gallery, 370 Garcia St., Santa Fe. 9885159. Hiroshi Watanabe: photography and Eric Fredine: photography. Short Track: book signing Fredine with Jake Mendel in the bookstore. 5-7 pm.

riO Grande theatre, 211 N. Main St., Las Cruces.

575-523-6403. Works On Paper: Canyon Suite and Collages: works by Marjorie Moeser. 5-7 pm.

Collages skO k tia Gallery 150 W. Marcy St., Suite 103, Santa Fe. 820-7787. Pointing at the Moon: paintings by Rimi Yang. 5:30-7:30 pm.

Servants in the Valley: Valley monoprints and paintings by Ari Kalminson at Eli Levin Studios, 830 Canyon Rd. Reception: Friday, Dec. 4, 4-7 pm.

continued on page 30

| december/january 2009/2010

the magazine | 27

OPENINGS

Friday, January 8 GOlden daW a n Gallery, 201 Galisteo St., Santa Fe. 988-2024. Through the Lens: group photography show. 5-8 pm. richard levy Gallery, 514 Central Ave. SW, Alb. 505-766-9888. Melt into the Atmosphere: installation of video and kinetic sculpture by Chika Matsuda.

Friday, January 15 PrestOn cOnteMPOrary art center, 1755 Avenida de Mercado, Mesilla. 575-523-8713.

2010 Winter Exhibition Exhibition: painting, drawing, mixed media, and glass sculpture. 6:30-8:30 pm. zane Bennett cOnteMPOrary art, 435 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe. 982-8111. Anamnesis: sculpture by Dunham Aurelius. Nothing is Forever or even Close: work by Robert Hoerlein. 5-7 pm.

ssPeciaL inTeresT 516 arts, 516 Central Ave. SW, Alb. 505-2421445. Borderlands: poetry reading by Demetria Martinez, Margaret Randall, and Amalio Madueño.

Sat., Dec. 12, 7:30 pm. andreW sMith Gallery, 122 Grant Ave., Santa Fe. 984-1234. Book signing for Elliott McDowell’s book, Mystical Landscapes. Sat., Dec. 12, 2-5 pm. aristas de santa fe, 228-B Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe. 982-1320. Small Works: works by gallery artists. Through Wed., Dec. 30.

Annual Holiday Fair Fair: arts, crafts, and more. Sat., Dec. 5, 10 am-5 pm. hiGh MayheM, 2811 Siler Ln., Santa Fe. 501-3333.

Word-Centric written and spoken-word works.

Word-Centric: Sun., Dec. 6, Noon-2 pm. highmayhem.org hulse/WarMan Gallery, 222 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos. 575-751-7702. Charles Strong: works on canvas and paper from 1960-63. Through Mon., Dec. 14. iaia caMPus, 83 Avan Nu Po Rd., Santa Fe. 4242308. Cultural Tourism Workshop: New Strategies for Tribal Tourism in an Economic Downturn Downturn: workshop on tribal tourism. Wed., Dec. 2 to Fri., Dec. 4. 3rd Annual IAIA Holiday Market: work by students, staff, alumni and faculty of IAIA. Sat., Dec. 12, 9 am-5 pm. iaia.edu Masley Gallery @ Masley hall, UNM, One University of New Mexico, Alb. Graduating MA Exhibition. Friday, Dec. 4, 5 pm.

Exhibition neW W MexicO histOry ry MuseuM, 113 Lincoln Ave., Santa Fe. 476-1141. “Luxury Goods Transported over the Camino Real”: talk by archaeologist Cordelia Snow, Thurs., Jan. 14, 6 pm. Preserving Your Family’s Heirloom Textiles Textiles: caring for clothing, linens and more. Sat., Jan. 16, 2-4 pm. neW W MexicO MuseuM Of art, St. Francis Auditorium, Santa Fe Plaza, 107 W. Palace Ave. Victoria Sambunaris and Bill Gilbert in dialogue about “The Road Trip” on Thursday, December 3, 6 pm. Free.

art Of russia Gallery, 200 Canyon Rd., Unit C. Santa Fe. 466-1718. Russian Winter: landscape paintings. Through Jan. 30.

nOrthern neW W MexicO cOlleGe, 182 Placitas Rd., El Rito. 575-581-4608. El Rito Library Live and Silent Auction Auction. Sat., Dec. 5, 1:30-3:30 pm. elritolibrary.org

chiarOscurO, 702 ½ Canyon Rd., Santa Fe, 9920711. Holiday Show: group show. Through Sun., Jan. 2.

richard levy Gallery, 514 Central Ave. SW, Alb. 505-766-9888. Glow: group show. Through Thurs., Dec. 17.

Anamnesis new work by sculptor Dunham Aurelius at Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, 435 South Guadalupe Street.

Anamnesis, Reception: Friday, Jan. 15, 5-7 pm.

GalisteO cOMMunity center, Rt. 285 to Rt. 41, 25 minutes south of Santa Fe. 466-3219. 2nd

santa fe cOMPlex, 632 Agua Fria St., Santa Fe. 216-7562. Manipulated Image #9: short art videos. Fri., Dec. 18, 7-9 pm.

music m

santa fe filM festival, The Heretics: a film on the women’s art magazine Heresies in the 70s. Thurs., Dec. 3, 5 pm at the New Mexico History Museum, 105 W. Washington Ave., Santa Fe. Sat., Dec. 5, 12:30 pm at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Pl., Santa Fe. santafefilmfestival.com sOuthside liBrary, 6599 Jaguar Dr., Santa Fe. 955-2810. Jim Modiano: Puzzling Creation: abstract paintings. Through Tues., Dec. 29.

WheelW heel riGht ht MuseuM Of the aMerican indian, 704 Camino Lejo, Santa Fe. 982-4636. Partners in Design: Native Chic Chic: trunk show. Sun., Dec. 20, 3-5 pm and Sun., Jan. 31, 3-5 pm. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux Sioux: review by Carol Elwood. Wed., Jan. 20. wheelwright.org

Mobiustrip a one-woman monologue written and Mobiustrip: performed by Linda Durham and directed by Tanya Taylor Rubinstein at the Railyard Performance Center, 1611 Paseo de Peralta. Fri. and Sat., Dec. 4, 5, 11, and 12, 7:30 pm. Info: 982-8309.

Photograph: Jennifer Esperanza

WilliaM sieGal al Gallery, 540 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe. 820-3300. Santa Fe Paintings: work

by Andrew Lenaghan. Landscapes and Nudes: photography by Peter Ogilvie. Through Thurs., Dec. 31. zane Bennett cOnteMPOrary art, 435 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe. 982-8111. Diverse Propositions: The Best of Zane Bennett Bennett: best work by gallery artists. Through Fri., Jan 8.

center fOr cOnteMPOrary arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe. 982-1338. Garden: Chris Jonas with the Del Sol String Quartet Quartet: music-driven inter-media performance. Fri., Dec. 4, 6 pm and 7:30 pm. Sat., Dec. 5, 6 pm and 7:30 pm. Sun., Dec. 6, 2 pm.

OutPOst PerfOrMance sPace P , 210 Yale SE, Alb. 505-268-0044. 20th Anniversary Season: musical performances through May 2010. outpostspace.org riO Grande theatre, 211 N. Main St., Las Cruces. 575-523-6403. Frederick Moyer: concert pianist. Tues., Jan. 19, 7:30 pm. riograndetheatre. com santa fe cOMPlex, 632 Agua Fria St., Santa Fe. 216-7562. SFMax Group featuring CK Barlow: performable laptop pieces constructed from field recordings. Fri., Dec. 4, 8 pm. santa fe neW W Music presents New Mexico’s Unsilent Weekend in December in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Details: 474-6601 or info@ sfnm.org sfnm.or

PerForming arT Per r s rT lensic PerfOrMinG arts center, 211 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe. 988-1234. The Nutcracker:

by the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. Sat., Dec. 12, 2 and 7:30 pm. Sun., Dec. 13, 1 and 5 pm. aspensantafeballet.com natiOnal dance institute Of neW W MexicO, 1140 Alto St., Santa Fe. 983-7646. Of Bodies of Elements: premiere by Dancing Earth. Sun., Jan. Elements 31, 7 pm.

POPeJOy JO hall, UNM Center for the Arts, One JOy University of New Mexico, Alb. 505-277-3824.

Mariachi Christmas Christmas: traditional dances from various states in Mexico. Wed., Dec. 13, 3 pm. popejoypresents.com railyard PerfOrMance center, 1611 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe. 982-8309. Mobiustrip: onewoman monologue by Linda Durham. Fri. and Sat., Dec 4, 5, 11, and 12, 7:30 pm. taO aOs cOMMunity auditOriuM, 145 Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Taos. 575-758-4677. The Land: play on the ongoing Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Fri, Dec. 11 and Sat., Dec. 12, 8 pm.

caLL For arT c r isTs rT neW W MexicO Press WOMen is accepting submissions for the 2010 Zia Award, given to a female author of an outstanding book published in 2007, 2008 or 2009. Open to novels, novellas and short story collections, and to all genres. newmexicopresswomen.org/contests

All lISTINgS fOr fEBrUAry/MA A r Ch ISSUE dUE By JANUAry 15.

18| the magazine

| december/january 2009/10

Ari Kalminson “Servants in the Valley”

mono-prints and paintings Reception: Friday, December 4, 4-7 pm Eli Levin Studio 830 Canyon Road (across from The Teahouse)

RI M I YAN G POINTING AT THE MOON opening reception december 4th 5:30-7:30pm

150 west marcy street suite 103 santa fe, nm 87501 505.820.7787 866.820.0113 s k o t i a g a l l e r y. c o m

PREVIEWS

Susan Rothenberg: Moving in Place January 22 to May 16, 2010 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, 217 Johnson Street, Santa Fe, 946-1000 Opening reception, Friday, January 22, 5 to 7 pm.

Michael Auping, chief curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and a friend of New Mexico–based, internationally known painter Susan Rothenberg, selected for an exhibition in Texas twenty small works that span her career from the mid-1970s to her most recent works. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, having gotten wind of that high-caliber exhibition, invited Auping to curate a show of Rothenberg’s paintings for the Museum’s Living Artists of Distinction Series. Each of Rothenberg’s paintings “highlights key compositional strategies in a formal narrative in which perceived movement, fragmentation, and painterly gesture establish a dynamic interaction with the edges and frames of the canvases.” Rothenberg was one of the pioneers of the “Bad” or “New Image” movement beginning in the 1970s, and, like her cohorts, was interested in the formal elements of painting as much as the Abstract Expressionists before her, but without the constrictions of absolute non-objectivity. Having absorbed the lessons of such eminent teachers as Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, New Image painters allowed less-than-classical (or “bad”) draftsmanship and content into their thoughtfully constructed canvases, which offered an awkward vulnerability into art in a way that their Minimalist and Photo-Realist contemporaries abhorred.

Susan Rothenberg, Cabin Fever, acrylic and tempera on canvas, 67” x 841/ 8”, 1976 Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, museum purchase, Sid W. Richardson Foundation Endowment Fund and an anonymous donor

Of Bodies of Elements: Premiere by Dancing Earth at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico, 1140 Alto Street, Santa Fe Tickets at KICKS, 801 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, 982-9277 Sunday, January 31, 7 pm.

Santa Fe’s Dancing Earth has been chosen to become the first Indigenous contemporary dance ensemble to receive the prestigious National Dance Project Grant, allowing them to create an entirely new, full-length performance piece. Envisioned for eight performers, the new work, Of Bodies of Elements, will explore relationships between humankind and the natural world, from ancient mythology to today’s fragmenting bonds. An Indigenous world view will be reflected in every aspect of the production, from lighting design to body paint to New Zealand’s Korou Productions Maori-inspired costumes. After workshopping the piece at Washington University in St. Louis , and Stanford University, where director Rulan Tangen has received honors, the theme of the work will be discussed and performed at other cultural institutions before it is finally revealed in its entirety in New Mexico. Offshoot events include lectures and dance demonstrations for pueblo school children, with assistance from the Santa Fe Opera, Española Public Schools, the Institute of American Indian Art, and the Southwestern Association for Indian Art (SWAIA). www.dancingearth.org Dancing Earth: Indigenous Contemporary Dance Ensemble. Photo: CMS Photography

Sharon Core: Early American December 19 to February 13, 2010 James Kelly Contemporary, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, 989-1601 Opening reception Saturday, December 19, 5 to 7 pm.

Appropriation erupted as a theoretical construct for the making of art with feminist and poststructuralist thought; it has become an accepted and expected part of contemporary visual culture.

In a neat little wrench to the old appropriator’s trick of devaluing the “original” of a well-known painting or body of paintings by a well-known artist by making a snapshot of its reproduction— think Sherrie Levine—Sharon Core has painstakingly recreated scenes from a Wayne Thiebaud pastry display, for example, and photographed them so convincingly that they read like paintings.

In her work, Core re-introduces Jean Baudrillard’s suggestions about hyper-reality to the realm of art. It used to be that a photograph was held to the unwavering truth of “journalism,” but these days we’re all savvy enough about digital manipulation that disbelief is more likely than easy acceptance of what we see. Popular magazines and the Internet, for example, are two ubiquitous settings where our expectations about imagery as reportage have almost completely evaporated: seeing is no longer believing. Core manipulates our willingness to suspend disbelief in art and twists it into stunning visual trickery through her technical expertise and uncanny sense of art history. Early American is based on hundreds of early, nineteenth-century painter Raphaelle Peale’s still lifes with flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Although the photographer did not recreate Peale’s work exactly, its spirit is there in the copy, as it were: more real than what we might experience in dozens of interchangeable small-town museums of Americana.

Sharon Core, Flowering Tobacco, chromogenic print, 13” x 18¾”, 2009

32| THE magazine

| december/january 2009/10

N AT I O N A L S P O T L I G H T

Elvis

at

21,

photograph by

A lfred Wertheimer

To celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birthday, Elvis at 21—a nationally traveling exhibition—will open at The Grammy Museum, in Los Angeles, on January 8, and will be on view through March 28, 2010. The exhibition is accompanied by the book, Elvis: 1956 (Welcome Books, $29.95) with photographs by Alfred Wertheimer. The exhibition and the book are loaded with many never-before-published photographs of Elvis—all were taken during the year Elvis turned twenty-one, and are a visual record of a defining time for the king of rock ’n’ roll—one of the most exciting performers of our time. Wertheimer’s photographs show Elvis in every aspect of his life—in performance, with his fans, in the recording studio, and at home with his family. The book is lavishly illustrated with seventy-two tri-tone photographs, and features an introduction by curator Chris Murray, along with essays by E. Warren Perry, Jr., and National Portrait Gallery historian Amy Henderson. D

| december/january 2009/2010

THE magazine | 33

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F E AT U R E

BEST BOOKS 2009

Reviews: Jan Adlmann, Diane Armitage, Veronica Arnason, Susanna Carlisle, Jon Carver, Kathryn M Davis, Alex Ross, Marin Sardy, and Richard Tobin.

Taking Mother Earth as her starting point, scholar Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba weaves a far-reaching but blandly written web of folkloric connections among goddess figures in The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (UNM Press, $27.95). Luckily, the subject matter—“syncretic” female icons that carry profound national importance in countries as diverse as Lithuania and Haiti—is compelling enough to compensate for the author’s drab verbiage. Focusing on Catholic representations of Mary that have merged with pre-existing mother dieties, the author argues that figures such as Poland’s Madonna of Czestochowa and Mexico’s Virgin of Guadalupe have reclaimed much of the power stripped from Christian womanhood and also embody the adaptability and hybridity of colonized peoples. Taken all together, this array becomes a lens through which to examine cultural development in a post-colonial world—something especially relevant in Santa Fe. La Virgen is loved (and continually reinterpreted) here by everyone from immigrants to feminist artists, emerging in new ways from our collective need to mix, mimic, and mask the many influences that meet in our minds. – M.S.

Look! Up in the air! It’s a whip! It’s a lash! No, it’s the bizarre fetish art of Joe Shuster! Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-creator Joe Shuster (Abrams ComicArts, $20), by comic-book historian Craig Yoe, unveils Shuster’s dark side with a series of recently discovered drawings made in the early 1950s for an S&M bondage magazine called Nights of Horror. In an obscenity case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Nights of Horror was found to be a degenerate source of encouragement for juvenile delinquency and the publication was banned. It was ordered that all existing copies be destroyed, but a couple of years ago, Yoe discovered a set in a dusty box in the back room of a used-book store. Although the work was unsigned by Shuster, experts like comic-book genius Stan Lee (who contributes an introduction) agree this is Shuster’s work. Did Shuster do it for love? Did he do it for money? Yoe explores these questions in a lively factfilled text that gives new meaning to the phrase “man of steel.” Secret Identity is a must for comic-book aficionados and anybody else who wants a glimpse of what Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen were up to when the shades were drawn. – J.C.

Who doesn’t love Gerhard Richter’s work? And among die-hard nerds (that is, art critics), who doesn’t admire Robert Storr’s writing? Then there’s John Cage, the avant-garde (back when the term meant something) composer who died in 1992—if you don’t at least pay lip service to Cage’s brilliance, you ain’t nobody in the world of contemporary cultural history. So, put ’em all together in Storr’s Cage: Six Paintings by Gerhard Richter (Tate Publishing, $38), and you’ve got a sure winner. The cycle of six paintings was first displayed in 2007 at the Venice Biennale; you don’t even have to crack the spine to know this volume is going to rock. Sit back, get a whiff of that new-book smell, and be prepared to have your faith in painting—and writing—restored.

Storr’s essay is, of course, highly readable and informative, and the close-up shots of details of Richter’s canvases are killer.

Cage is known for having declared, “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it.” Through Richter and Storr’s collaboration (and the Tate’s smart marketing team), Cage just keeps on saying it. This is a coffee-table book that proves how clever you are for having bought it. – K.D.

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continued on page 36

the magazine | 35

This major monograph, Sphinx: The Life and Art of Leonor Fini (The Vendome Press, $95), is long overdue. Fini (1907-1996), with her outsize persona and her exotic, feline nature, was drawn to the work of the Surrealists but never considered herself to be a core member of the group. She was too iconoclastic even for them!

Because of her striking looks and her flair for dressing up, she was photographed by many and pursued by even more. But Fini was an artist to her fingertips, and this book is an amazing testimony to her prolific work and abilities as a painter of highly imaginative scenes tinged with her own full-blown eroticism. What is a revelation in this book, however, is the breadth and depth of her portraits of those she knew and loved. This is where her true genius lay. Hopefully, historians will accept Fini as not just a colorful but minor European artist coming of age between the wars, but as a probing soul-searcher who rendered in paint the subtleties of personality in a style that was honest, uncannily insightful, and, at times, heart-stoppingly beautiful. For anyone interested in the history of women artists, this book—with text by Peter Webb—is a must. – D.A.

To say that Leonardo Drew has a feeling for textures and materials doesn’t begin to do justice to the richness of his oeuvre.

Existed: Leonardo Drew (Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston Art Museum, $60), covers twenty years of his work, and it is a comprehensive overview of Drew’s unique approach to sculpture and installation. The artist embraces time as a force that erodes everything and yet it is the artist who is able to recapture lost time, whether it is in the form of old tools, paper, mud, metal, rope, wood, fabric, eggshells, or rust. The book serves as a map into his universe of pathos and poetry. Drew is a formalist at heart, however, and has an extraordinary ability to take the chaos of the disparate and organize it into a visual language that is both rigorously spare and elegant, yet overflowing with poetic resonance. The book also reveals Drew’s skill as an inventive graphic artist in his series of works on paper that—besides graphite and paint—incorporate a startling variety of three-dimensional objects and textural surfaces. – D.A.

Question: Besides being artists, what did Albrecht Dürer, Henry Moore, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt, Marc Chagall, and Paul Gauguin have in common? Answer: they all had mothers. Mother: Portraits by 40 Great Artists (Frances Lincoln, $19.95) is comprised of forty portraits with a commentary on each artist by Juliet Heslewood.

The book is a combination of biographical stories and art history. The paintings and drawings are arranged in chronological order and are, for the most part, from the school of realistic painting, although Juan Gris’s portrait is anything but realistic.

Gauguin’s portrait of his mother was painted from a photograph of her as a young woman, yet Gauguin made her mouth thicker and her nose wider, perhaps to emphasize her Spanish-Peruvian ancestry. Camille Pissarro drew his mother as she lay dying in her Paris apartment. Paul Cézanne depicted his mother and his sister Marie doing what ladies of the day did—playing the piano and working on their needlework. All in all, this book is a terrific tribute to moms everywhere. – V.A.

F E AT U R E

Five years after its first appearance, the “Updated Edition” of Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents (Abrams, $35) tackles the representation of this emerging visual culture with the same kind of large-scale ambition inherent in the art form itself. Although the title is somewhat misleading—nearly two-hundred pages cover solely the United States and Europe, with less than fifty dedicated to “The Rest of the World”—it’s nonetheless a riotous romp through a dynamic, colorful, creative space that has spread across the globe with the help of the Internet. From looping, enfolding 3-D lettering to Spanish Dr. Hofmann’s black-stencil images or the robotics-meetsbubbles aesthetics of Hiroshima-based Volt, all pronounce the artists’ efforts to transform alienating urban landscapes. The book’s bright photographs and thorough coverage are strengths, with author Nicholas Ganz also giving some ink to observations about why street art is increasingly accepted as part of a life-affirming worldview rather than mere youthful rebellion. But most impressive is how the collection showcases the twin processes of subversion and cooption as drivers of street art’s rapid evolution. – M.S.

The Body in Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson, $19.95) might sound at first like an Inspector Wexford mystery, so unlikely are we to think of the human figure as a locus of contemporary art. But in this paperback from the World of Art series, author Sally O’Reilly makes the human body an effective lens through which to view the myriad strands of postmodern art since it settled into pluralism in the 1990s. The six chapters comprise a thematic survey of the international art scene, with the expression of the body as the vantage from which to examine abiding issues of contemporary art: nature and myth, technology, the grotesque, identity and difference, place and belonging. Implicit in all these inquiries is the role of the individual in society and the world—a body in time and space. With over one hundred and eighty color illustrations, The Body in Contemporary Art is a valuable, readable reference, and a solid text for any upper-level art-history course looking for a handle on the oftenelusive topic of postmodern art. – R.T.

La Jetée is one of the greatest experimental films ever made. This twenty-six minute fable, made of black-and-white photographs and one brief moving image, is a poetic study in time travel, revealing a vivid childhood memory that changes the past and predicts the future. There is no dialogue. Narration and whispers combine with concrete sounds, birdsong, and music. Film historian Gene Youngblood writes, “The poetic economy of La Jetée, the poignant dance between word and image, is why it touches us so much.” In Chris Marker: La Jetée (The MIT Press, $16) Janet Harbord delves into Marker’s treatment of this dance, exploring the importance of memory and how it nests in a fabricated past, projected present, and imagined future. She studies time and its duration, examining how Marker’s cuts, dissolves, black leader, and the single moving image uncover the nature of consciousness and emotion. Harbord reveals La Jetée as a beautiful stone that has been tossed into a pond whose circular ripples have continued to stretch out through time, influencing filmmakers as varied as Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Terry Gilliam, and Mira Nair. If you have never seen the film, rent it. If you have, read this insightful book. – S.C.

| december/january 2009/2010

Nick Brandt started photographing wild animals in East Africa in 2000, beginning a body of work that has become his signature. A Shadow Falls (Abrams, $50) captures a grand vision of an untamed Africa. Brandt’s portraits of animals are wonderful and majestic. But Brandt also paints a depressing view of these magnificent animals’ chances for survival. Brandt’s stated goal is to “wrench the subject matter of wildlife into the arena of fine-art photography.” Critic and historian Vicki Goldberg contributes an intelligent essay, offering insights into Brandt’s intentions. She calls the book “a love story without a happily ever after.”

According to Time magazine, “African wildlife has never looked so regal and mysterious as in Brandt’s photographs.” American Photo writes, “Brandt’s images show not only the reckless beauty of Africa’s vanishing wilds but also the humanity of its creatures…. The photos have an uncanny intimacy.” And Black and White Magazine calls Brandt’s photographs “heartbreakingly beautiful.” – V.A. continued on page 38

the magazine | 37

A two-hundred-fifty-six page volume dedicated to an artist’s detritus hardly suggests itself as a compelling read. However, thanks to the titanic scholarly exertions of archivists at Dublin City Gallery, Francis Bacon: Incunabula (Thames & Hudson, $75) resists such facile indifference. Co-edited by Martin Harrison and Rebecca Daniels, the volume goes far in deconstructing what has often seemed the inexplicable voice of this artist’s inspiration. Indeed, Incunabula reveals the profound indebtedness of Bacon’s pictorial vocabulary to his prodigious collection of highly disparate, heavily manipulated ephemera, which—in manifold recombinations—leaves traces in the vast majority of his completed artworks. Evidencing the assiduous research dedicated to this text’s creation, the archival of source materials discovered at Bacon’s notoriously cluttered twenty-by-thirty-foot 7 Reece Mews studio necessitated detailed survey and elevation drawings of the space prior to their removal item by item. Although it sustains a formidable scholasticism throughout, its address of such oddities as the artist’s use of a favorite cookbook in modeling a chicken purported to reference the death of his illustrious ancestor, Sir Francis Bacon (said to have caught pneumonia during experiments to preserve a dead fowl), more than justifies the volume’s reasonable cost. – A.R.

On September 11, 2001, photographer Abbas watched the Twin Towers fall. Born in Iran and relocated to Paris, he observed the tragedy from Siberia via live TV. The event spurred the artist, known for his photojournalism in Biafra and Vietnam in the seventies, to travel the Islamic world in search of the plates that comprise In Whose Name?

(Magnum, $60). Abbas covered sixteen countries during seven years, and the results reveal a wide spectrum of poverty, religious extremism, and militarism—just as might be found in a panorama of the United States. Abbas humanizes his images, particularly in the many depictions of women, from the burkhed shopper at a modern mall to bathing beauties on a beach in Dubai. Especially striking are certain juxtapositions of life: a young Orthodox Jew buys groceries—kids in tow—at a supermarket in Gaza.

He wears a casual plaid shirt and carries a large automatic rifle. A Muslim couple poses in Indonesia for their wedding portrait wearing full Hindi regalia. As foreign as The Islamic World may appear at first glance, we bore witness as one on that unforgettable day eight years ago. – K.D.

An accurately reproduced facsimile of a 14 x 11–inch sketchbook maintained by the artist from 1964-1968, John McCracken Sketchbook (Radius Books, $75) alerts viewers to the formal experiments that catalyzed John McCracken’s progression from hard-edge paintings to his signature leaning slabs whose lissome proportions, gleaming resins enveloping fiberglass and wood substructures, and vibrant color palette adopted the construction techniques and aesthetics that had become commonplace in West Coast surf shops. Over the course of the evolution mapped within this volume, McCracken’s art came to epitomize California finish-fetishism’s sun-drenched optimism and embrace of contemporary culture. Nonetheless, it would be negligent to differentiate the artist’s production from that of his East Coast contemporaries on the sole basis of an attitude that shrugged off the New York scene’s antagonistic self-seriousness. Demonstrating that an altered attitude can actualize altered possibilities, the ultimate significance of the literally and figuratively laid-back hybridization of wall relief and sculpture that occurs in his work lies in its radicalization of minimalist praxis. By introducing forms that no longer coincided with the horizontal and vertical lines that had previously defined orthodox relations between visual art and its exhibition environment, McCracken significantly altered the visual grammar of Modern art. John McCracken Sketchbook is accompanied by a supplemental catalogue illustrating realized works derived from his sketches, as well as an interview by independent curator Neville Wakefield that reveals such surprising influences as Trojan sculpture, UFOs, and a personality that continues to embrace classicism in a figure who defines the avant-garde. If locally unavailable, add to cart. – A.R.

F E AT U R E

Entre chien et loup—somewhere “between a dog and a wolf”—is one of those hard-to-translate foreign phrases that strikingly captures a mood, a sensation, or an indeterminate moment. What the Parisian is saying, is that as twilight draws in, and daylight dwindles, it becomes difficult to distinguish “a dog from a wolf.” Twilight Visions: Surrealism and Paris (University of California Press, $45) makes palpable the inimitable frisson of Paris after hours, when the city’s magical lights spring on, mists curl up from the Seine, and Paris plunges into its multifarious nightlife. The book examines Surrealist The portraits created by painter Chuck Close make no attempt to hide their individual “cells” of information that, in the end, cohere into a familiar face. This is also the case with the individual pixels that constitute a tree, a building, or ruins in the aftermath of a tsunami—some of the images that are featured in this new book of digital photographs, Thomas Ruff: jpegs (Aperture, $85). Seen up close, the pixels reign in their geometry of tones, but at a distance one is hardly aware of the jpeg-ness of each image. For example, what is sinister—aerial target sites and exploded terrain—appears soft and oddly appealing, while what is essentially neutral—an iceberg or a verdant forest—is stripped of its particulars and rendered ironic.

There is something wholly impersonal in Ruff’s procedure of appropriating images from the web and blowing them up so that their picture elements—this is the underlying meaning of the word pixel—dominate our fractured attention spans.

Our reluctance to sail off the edges of Ruff’s seemingly flat conceptual world is ultimately rewarded by a many-dimensional space where the artist teases out some new questions about the nature of contemporary photography. – D.A.

Frederick Hammersley (Art Santa Fe Presents, $65) was published shortly after the painter’s death in 2009 at age ninety. An art historical and critical study that examines Hammersley’s place within twentieth-century abstract art is long overdue. This book lays the requisite groundwork for such a study and does it well, with over two hundred color plates chronicling the artist’s career, and five essays (including one by Dave Hickey), as well as a helpful essay by Joseph Traugott, New Mexico Museum of Art’s Curator of Twentieth Century Art, that sketches a brief bio of the artist, tracing his early contact with Modernism in post-World War II Europe, his rise to prominence as one of four emerging hard-edge painters in 1950s Los Angeles (Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, and John McLaughlin), his experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, and his move from hard-edge to organic abstraction in the mid 1980s. This handsome publication is a solid first step towards wider recognition of Hammersley’s work. – R.T.

| december/january 2009/2010

photographs, objects, exhibitions, and writings through essays by scholars whose aim is to illuminate “the social, aesthetic, and political stances of the Surrealists as they probed hidden aspects of the commonplace, and blurred the boundaries between dreams and reality.” Brassai’s Paris from Notre Dame is a perfect choice for the cover, as it was a key image in his first Parisian publication, Paris at Night. In this haunting image, Brassai captured the brooding gargoyles of the Cathedral of Notre Dame eerily backlit by streetlights and enveloped in a swirling mist. – J.A.

Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town (Welcome Books, $50) is an oversized book with photographs and text by Douglas Gayeton depicting people, places, and food in Pistoia, Tuscany. Gayeton’s photographs are layered with handwritten notes, anecdotes, recipes, and historical facts. Upon opening the book, you enter into the world of food as seen through the lives of the people of Pistoia, whose culture revolves around the pleasure of growing, preparing, and eating food. What makes Gayeton’s photographs remarkable is that they are comprised of multiple photographs taken over the course of times ranging from ten minutes to several hours. “With this process,” says Gayeton, “I have managed to introduce the concept of time, both compressed and exploded, into my work.” Slow Food guru Alice Waters contributes the introduction. After reading and looking through this book, you may want to give serious thought to heading for Tuscany. – V.A. D

the magazine | 39

Robin & Connie Doughman Visit us on the web to find New Mexico gallery, restuarant, lodging information and more!

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

SelectionS from true: PhotograPhS by thomaS JoShua cooPer

S

“To move inside the surface of something is a capacity that takes time to develop. I have staked everything on the belief that if I want to increase the experience of the sense of touch, then maybe somebody else might also want to share it.”

–Thomas Joshua Cooper

“The one thing artists must possess above all other qualities is immense courage.”

–Jean Rouch

Selections from True presents a visual narrative of the artist’s two-year

journey to the polar regions of the Atlantic Basin. These works are part of The World’s Edge, a project that Cooper began in 1990. Since that time, he has traveled to some of the most isolated and treacherous places on Earth to make images with a nineteenth-century Agfa camera on specially designed photographic plates. The places he chooses to go are characterized by their historical significance and geographical extremity. His visual practice has been guided and informed by philosophical issues developed out of the physical mapping of territory. Yet his polar photographs ask us to cast off our cerebral selves, to move inside the surface, and enter a logic of the senses. We are pulled slowly inside our physicality to respond viscerally to these stunning works of art. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze suggests that Cézanne was the painter who put a vital rhythm into visual sensation. Cooper has achieved this as well. Comparing the work of a photographer to that of a painter may be meandering, but each of these artists has unleashed and pinpointed profound sensations, forces, and perceptions. They have taken objects to the edge of dissolution and reduced them to essence by expanding their medium to unveil the tactile inner architecture of irreducible truth.

The photographs of the Arctic and Antarctic in the Lannan Foundation Gallery are some of the most abstract I have ever seen. Although black and white, they are not black and white at all. Instead, they bring forth tones encompassing many nuances from light and dark. These changes reveal an amplitude of luminance that creates motion and texture, reminding me of the tonal subtlety found in the paintings of Velázquez.

In uncharted dangers—clear, photographed at Prime Head Ice Wall on the North-most point of Continental Antarctica, a fragile diagonal stretches from the upper right to the lower left of the picture. It is grounded by a crenellated ripple of darkness along the bottom of the image. These forms appear to be made of gestural “washes.” Shades of grey take us on a poetic journey into the realms of light and dark where the artist shapes the ephemeral into something tangible.

Dreaming the North Polar Winter Solstice, The Arctic Ocean and Dreaming the South Polar Winter Solstice, The Polar Plateau were made at midnight at 90ºN and 90ºS respectively.

These nocturnes, although seemingly black, are not. The Rothko Chapel paintings come to mind. Cooper told me that he adds burgundy and pale blue-violet to his photographs in order to change the tonal mood of the grey scale. He feels this addition of color impassions the images. Is the sculptural depth and tactile quality I feel in each of these dances of darkness a result of this process?

An acute awareness of time comes from lingering with this work. Duration resonates through the subconscious as we experience the artist’s portrayals of frozen land, rocks, and ice-filled oceans sculpted by natural forces. Knowing the history, geography, and myth of place doesn’t seem crucial because Cooper’s process of making images creates an indelible physicality of continuance. He says, “Gazing is my primary physical activity.”

Each photograph is influenced by what French philosophers and historians have called la longue durée—structures evolving slowly over time. Cooper’s longue durée is suggested by his patient observation and long exposures—exposures that provide the opportunity for the unexpected to occur. “It is chance,” Francis Bacon held, “that gives the image its necessary injection of the unforeseen.” Cooper embraces the unexpected, going far beyond the letting go of control. He gets out of the way. By waiting and following his intuition, he permits images to emerge and surface. This process brings forth an improvisational, cumulative urgency and narrative poetry that turns each photograph into a visual book. refuge, The Branford Strait, Neptune’s Window at the crater wall edge, Deception Island, Antarctica portrays a choreography of spanning and layering time. A dark rock wall wraps

december/january | 2009/2010

lannan foundation gallery 309 read Street, Santa fe around a beach where waves sweep in and recede. The water’s edge is defined by layers of “ruffles” laid upon the beach during the time exposure. The frigid, turbulent sea, with the delicate fragile edge of water eroding and shaping the shore, becomes a metaphor for forces both natural and manmade that have changed, are changing, and will change the complexion of our planet.

Spanning and layering time is also made visible in the photographs—including those of Greenland, Iceland, and Denmark—on view in the Lannan Meeting House. A two-part work, Kangertittivaq/Scoresbysund, The Denmark Strait is made from two different vantage points at different times of day. One photograph was made at 6 am, one at 6 pm. In each, three rocks (icebergs?) are sculpted by light. One image has dark rocks, the other has light ones. In one photograph, they are closer to the bottom of the picture, in the other, closer to the top. Although time and space are treated independently in each, together they create an experience of intimacy, closing the spatial and temporal distances between them.

In fact, this body of work in its entirety creates a mood and a vital force that is greater than those portrayed in each powerful photograph alone.

—susanna carlisle

Thomas Joshua Cooper, Kangertittivaq / Scoresbysund The Denmark Strait Kangikajik / Kap Brewster Liverpool Land, Tunu / Ost / East, Greenland, Denmark, 2007-2008. From the longest Word in the world, 70° 09.097’ N (a two-part work, 6 p.m. [top] and 6 a.m. [bottom]) Selenium and gold chloride toned silver gelatin prints, 40” x 54”. Collection: Lannan Foundation

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MAGAZINE

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e

i

WeS millS / SuSan york: graPhite on PaPer

grand oPening 18 county road 55a (general

encauStic art inStitute goodWin road), cerrilloS

encaustic, (painting with colored wax), flows from the past into the present. From the Fayum portraits of first-century Egypt, through the Byzantine icon tradition, to Jasper Johns’ flags and targets, there is an unbroken line of brilliantly colored work in the medium. Vying with fresco as the most archival of painterly techniques, the inert nature of the wax binder means that, if preserved properly, the colors rarely fade. As long as you don’t leave your seventh-century icon on the dashboard of your car, all’s well.

But while you’re driving around, check out the non-profit Encaustic Art Institute near Cerrillos off Highway 14. Generously founded by artists Douglas and Adrienne Mehrens, the main gallery is the wild pyramidal construct you’ve seen from the road and wondered about. The inaugural exhibition, last month, featured the encaustic works of twenty-plus artists in this fascinating space, designed and built by the Mehrens, about twenty minutes south of Santa Fe. While the space itself is a little busy, and connections between pieces seemed somewhat unconsidered, there were plenty of strong wax works by artists from all over. Highlights included the cut wax-paper reliefs of Carol Ware. These bizarre hybrid forms reference passing politics and polymorphism all at once, and sprawl luxuriously across the wall with no regard for traditional rectilinear formatting. Algae pod forms supplant propaganda and natural systems trump the news. The work is in and of this world, yet outlandishly original.

Sandra Lerner explores a similar complex-systems cosmology in small panel paintings delicately detailing beautiful patterns on a scale that could be macro- or microscopic, or both, depending upon your perspective. And Russell Thurston’s small single painting here had to be the most highly accomplished in terms of traditional technique. His layered and lustrous application is exquisite, and his cosmic-human iconography elegantly asks all the right questions. The photo-encaustic experiments of Joyce Roetter also deserve mention as a new and promising direction for this Madrid photographer.

A sense of encaustic encouragement seems to be the order of the day at the new EAI. The current policy is that no artist will be turned away and the application process is streamlined, in extremis. Word is that a merger between “the great wax pyramid” and the long-standing encaustic arts organization New Mexico Wax is in the works, giving the group a permanent home. Additionally, R&F Handmade Paints has signed on to sponsor workshops in the not-too-distant future. Why even try to deny the wonders of the waxy build-up?

JameS kelly contemPorary 1601 PaSeo de Peralta, Santa fe

it’s tempting to tag the “graffiti” in this strong exhibition of

drawings by Wes Mills and Susan York as Minimalist, mooting the question of why we make m ake art like this in the first place. Does it matter if the work is Minimalist or not? If we define d efine “Minimalist” only by how the work looks—box-like forms, geometric shapes, a minimum of marks on a flat surface—then no. But if our definition is based on what “Minimal” meant for Donald Judd, say—or Robert Morris, or John McCracken—then “Minimal” viewing these drawings against Judd’s attributes for Minimal art can help reveal what’s at work here, and why it works—whether it’s Minimalist or not.

In a seminal essay, “Specific Objects” (1965), Judd defined two attributes of the new three-dimensional work at odds with the “set forms” and complexities of painting and sculpture. The new work’s complexity is “asserted by one form . . . the shape, image, color, and surface are single and not partial and scattered.”

Thus “the thing as a whole, its quality as a whole, is what is interesting.” That’s what made the inexpressive new work “specific”—i.e., “aggressive and powerful.” Susan York’s works on paper have one motif that asserts their complexity. In the large Tilted Column drawing, the ambivalent grounded-floating effects of her placement of a dense vertical graphite bar evoke its three-dimensional counterpart from her 3 Columns installation: Smooth, solid-graphite beams weighing several hundred pounds each and attached flush along the wall, ending just inches above the gallery floor. York belied her designation of the ponderous beams as “columns” by using, in effect, pilasters—rectangular beams or piers, usually engaged to a wall, treated architecturally as columns—at the same time as she perversely affirmed their identity as pilasters: The virtual suspension of the weighty wall beams off the gallery floor and actual suspension of the central half-ton beam from the ceiling disclosed the purely visual function of a pilaster that only mimics the structural support role of the column.

The small drawings of Wes Mills are spare and compact. Thin straight line segments or discrete polygonal shapes float or meander alone on the surface or lie adjacent in twos or threes at slight angles to each other—elegant, gnomic theorems for a non-Euclidean geometry. Several drawings comprise variations on a visual theme: In one series with deep-green framing, dripped paths of golden-yellow wash descend from a horizontal line, reciprocally hanging from the bar and sustaining it. Another series features four variations on a powdery cumulus of swirling lines rolling across each surface, inflected by a dark, ragged vertical stroke or mark, conjuring the ethereal sweep of Constable’s cloud studies. Mills’s drawings rely for their effect upon subtle, expressive relations of discrete parts involving color and shape, line, tonality, and placement. Yet for all the abstract or picturesque allusion, their effects are specific. They convey the immediacy of parchment, the presence of some cryptic syllabary.

For Judd, “a work needs only to be interesting.” Minimalist or not, these works

by Wes Mills and by Susan York are true, compelling, and powerful.

—richard tOBin

—JOn carver

Carol Ware, Tree of Knowledge 5, graphite, transfer, and encaustic on paper, 36”h x 72”w x 5”d, 2009

Wes Mills, Untitled, graphite on paper, 11” x 11”, 1996

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

confluenciaS: inSide arte cubano contemPoráneo

B

national hiSPanic SP SPanic cultural center 1701 4th Street SW, albuquerque

Cuba is a country surrounded by the sea, and it is

also an island surrounded by censorship.

—Spoken by dissident Cuban blogger Yoan Sánchez during an open mic performance, El susurro de Tatlin # 6 (Whispers of Tatlin), organized by Tania Bruguera in the 10th Havana Biennial, in 2009.

By way of an introduction

to Confluencias: Inside Arte Cubano Contemporáneo, I would like to flash back to a review written by Claire Bishop in Artforum’s 2009 summer issue about the 10th Havana Biennial. Bishop writes of Bruguera’s performance piece, “As with all participation works, the content was somewhat hit-or-miss: Alongside pained calls for ‘Libertad!’ and reminders that ‘one day, freedom of expression in Cuba will not be a performance,’ there was the occasional prorevolutionary voice (‘Millions of children die every day, and none of the them are Cuban!’) plus the inevitable foreigners jumping on the bandwagon.”

Of all the contemporary artists from a new generation of Cubans, Bruguera is one of the most successful and internationally visible, and it’s too bad she was not part of this exhibition. Bruguera’s absence is a loss to Confluencias because her work might have added a dimension of artistic revolutionary fervor that has nothing to do with the politics of Fidel. I wanted to like this show so much more than I actually did, and I can only ask, who or what is to blame for its overall dreariness and clutter? In this over-crowded show, there really is no work that challenges authority except perhaps in extremely covert ways, but there are a lot of pictures with a dated modernist feel to them or an innocuous surrealism with its attendant escapist fantasies jockeying for position with objects or videos that were a testament to entropy and ennui.

The bottom line is, regardless of how big a deal it is to have Sandra Ramos, In My Head, photograph, video, mirrors, 3’ x 7½’, 2008 this show in Albuquerque—and it is a big deal—there is no way to sidestep the shadow of Fidel and the long reach of his repressive policies. So what you have here is a show full of artists who have no choice, really, but to err on the side of caution and practice versions of contemporary art that get lost in zones of the dated, the uninteresting, and the overly restrained.

Perhaps one of the main curatorial problems with Confluencias is that it tried to be all things to all people from all generations and cram as much work as possible into spaces that simply could not do justice to the visions of these artists, particularly those who gamely try to fly in the face of mediocrity. Consequently, two artists who had sculptural work outside of the main galleries—Yoán Capote at the entrance to the show and Roberto Fabelo outside in the Robert Fabelo, La Isla (The Island), mixed media, dimensions variable, 2009 courtyard—fared the best in terms of placement, and their pieces were some of the strongest in the show in terms of media and content. In Capote’s Portrait of the Mass, a single large ear was carved in high relief on one side of a block of limestone more or less at eye level. Displayed in a series of blocks, the limestone sculptures serve as an introduction to the idea of life under political containment—the fact of being spied on and, conversely, the need to be vigilant and always keep one’s ears open for the presence of those who do the spying.

Fabelo is the only artist represented by multiple pieces in the show—two sculptures in the courtyard and three paintings inside. The sculpture Jama is a large aluminum cooking pot painted black and etched down to the silvery metal with a series of portraits. In El Isla (The The Island Island), Fabelo created a map of Cuba made from old metal cooking pans, cups, and coffee pots that, amid all the fallen leaves, is both poignant and visually nuanced. Another strong work is the photo-video installation In My Head by Sandra Ramos. A large color photograph depicts only the eyes and eyebrows of someone’s face—presumably representing the artist—and instead of pupils, Ramos has small kaleidoscopic video images projected from behind the photograph.

The eyes stare outward with a neutral gaze as the viewer attempts to see what images are simultaneously held in the artist’s head and mirrored back to a world that may or may not care about the nature of the information that has been gathered, reprocessed, projected back, and reprocessed yet again by the viewer.

Paintings by Aimeé Garcia, Flora Fong, José Á Torrac, and Raul Cordero, are works that stand out. Cordero’s painting in particular is quite interesting in that it is an odd conceptual play between an art-historical quotation—he uses Meyndert Hobbema’s seventeenth-century landscape Avenue at Middelharnis, with its tall spindly trees—visually blended with a mustachioed man’s face sardonically laughing or jeering. There are also works that share similar concerns with other contemporary artists, such as the impact of globalization, border politics, identity issues, urban poverty, and isolation. Some of the artists dealing with these trans-national themes are Abel Barroso, Alain Pino, and René Peña. And Rocio Garcia’s three-part painting at the entrance to the exhibition, The Tamer and Other Stories, is an indictment of military brutality that speaks volumes. Say what you will about Cuba under Fidel, but the flowering of a truly vibrant Cuban culture is only hinted at in Confluencias. Freedom of expression is still just a gleam in the eye of brave dissidents like the Cuban punk rocker Gorki Águila—willing to be censored, reprimanded, physically repressed, and then tried for being a public nuisance. Cuba sí y Cuba no. ita e itaG —diane arMitaG

december/january | 2009/2010

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A

mark SPencer: draWn and temPered

Skotia gallery 150 WeSt marcy Street, Suite 103

As a politicized aesthetics that shepherded the messianic utopias of a taboo-obsessed bourgeoisie with the aid of Modernism’s formal novelties, Surrealism currently represents an illusion of marginality that is nowadays regressive. Once presented as a precursor of an inevitable historical evolution, the movement’s hope of creating a wholly transformed future world has fallen to the wayside, revealing its outbursts as little more than tantrums thrown within the teenage years of a gawky Modernity. Still, most everything has its uses. To its credit, the genre provides a useful template for conveying a singularly eldritch emotional landscape, representing the overflow of decentralizing agencies, and imbuing many of today’s finest paintings with an anarchic, neo-baroque vitality that upends “correct interpretation” and invites endless renegotiations of meaning.

Problematically, the works of Mark Spencer confront the history of art from within the self-sufficiency of the artist’s own persuasions, heralding judgments that are conclusive and categorical. Advantageously, his neo-Surrealist compositions generally bypass the pitfalls of orthodox Surrealist revolutionizing via a return to Redon’s faux-naïve figuration as well as the generative and true naiveté of Moreau––forebears more romantic than radical, antecedents too self-doubting to proffer their utopias as universals. As for his own explanations, Spencer offers a largely formalist intention: “my love of drawing_the immediacy, the spontaneity, and suggestive quality of it—enables me to evoke the whirlwind of our times.”

Although this evocation is highly contingent, we can take Spencer at his word when he announces his love of drawing. Spin’s monochrome strokes of vinous oil paint brushed onto gessoed paper effortlessly communicate complex rhythms, contours, and volumes. As in many works on exhibit, a subtly anthropomorphized whirlwind—suggestive of ancient statuary violently eroded by dust storms of titanic proportions—is circumscribed by an arid palette that layers richly modulated mauves over a granulated greige ground, dissolving smoothly at the work’s edges. Tides, replete with similar undulatory linkages, is executed with real bravura, exemplifying Hickey’s concept of the “aesthetic maneuver,” whereby an artwork’s narrative content comments on its attributes as an object, effectively subordinating substance to style.

Here, a whirlwind’s concentric whorls swirl at the nexus of rough tides and dry brush at the edge of a quadrangular monolith partially subsumed by sea and sand. The imagery iconizes a violently gestural event with economical means; both content and execution emphasize drift, erasure, and the transformative collision of a sea (of oil) and a sandy ground, overturning the static solidity of a rectangular format. Symbolically, a work that compounds God in the whirlwind with the unanswerable movements of an artist’s hand betrays a hubris that recalls nothing so much as Dürer’s über-humanist Self Portrait at Twenty-Eight, but we won’t dwell there. Neither will we dwell on the artist’s larger paintings, which eschew the ambiguity of his drawings for the lures of overt kitsch. Suffice it to say that their saccharine totemics (levitating hibiscus or streamside monkeys, anyone?) and self-censoring Dionysian rites (as in Picnic) betray an essentializing, Jung-steeped Primitivism that nearly sanctifies a virtually Kracauerian notion of pre-individual community. In sum, Spencer’s art is worst at its most defined and extraordinary at its most discursive, where it achieves the turbulence of symbols on the brink of the archetypal.

— lex rOss —a

Mark Spencer, Bend, 9 ¾” x 14. ¾”, oil on gessoed paper

A

ViSion Shift! art

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

in the

age

of

climate change

Art and activism make strange bedfellows.

Each distinct, yet bound by a deep affinity, the two aren’t entirely incompatible but often seem to end up stalemated by irreconcilable differences. Art, strongest when revealing considerable subtlety and ambiguity, is not automatically the best conveyance for a clear-cut political agenda. Instead—as in portions of Vision Shift! Art in the Age of Climate Change, Change a series of events and exhibitions grounded in the idea that we have the power to envision an alternative future for the planet—combining the two can easily undercut organizers’ goals. I’m not saying doing so is a bad idea.

But if you’re going to, in effect, use art as a means of advertising, then it’s important to remember that all the rules of advertising apply, especially this one: If the art is bad, or irrelevant, or inaccessible to viewers, people are likely to walk away with an unconscious negative feeling about the idea it’s promoting. Unfortunately for the planet, each of the primary exhibitions in Vision Shift fell into one of these pitfalls.

Luckily the world of art fared better, with the series highlighting an impressive array of contemporary land-based art.

center for contemPorary artS rt , 1050 o ld P ecoS t rail , S anta f e muSeum of contemPorary natiVe artS rt , 108 c athedral P lace , S anta f e Santa fe art inStitute, 1600 St. michael’S driVe, Santa fe Vision Shift’s activist aims were better served by its deftly curated centerpiece exhibition, Mapping a Green Future. In the Center for Contemporary Arts’ cavernous Muñoz Waxman Gallery, curator Lea Rekow struck a delicate balance between cuttingedge work, more accessible or playful pieces, and interactive elements. Giant, white, recycled-plastic flowers greeted visitors at the entrance in a labyrinthine garden by Claudia Borgna: At once hopeful and sterile, it maintained an uneasy tension between the optimistic and the dystopian, making it an appropriate first taste. Behind it lay an evocative juxtaposition of land-based art by Bill Gilbert and Basia Irland. Irland’s gorgeous handmade backpacks and books, composed of materials as diverse as used bicycle tires and barnacles, eloquently revealed why we marvel at our rivers and why we need them. Then Gilbert’s on-the-ground audio footage of time spent walking grid lines in the West, as dull and familiar as the desert dirt, shocked me into realizing how accustomed I am to pre-shaped and pre-edited experiences.

Meanwhile, the striking black-and-white panoramic photographs by Joan Myers featured renewable energy sources in ways that undercut simplistic assumptions about

Joan Myers, Salton Sea Geothermal Plant, platinum palladium print, 12’ x 34”, 1998/2008

Pieced together by local arts, youth, and environmental nonprofits, as well as the City of Santa Fe, Vision Shift included music and spoken-word performances, a mural, visual-art shows, and a proclamation of support by Mayor Coss.

Not surprisingly, quality ran the gamut. I’ll start with the sublime: Scout’s Honor, a one-room exhibition of sculpture by Canadian First Nations artists Michael Belmore and Frank Shebageget (at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts through January 31, 2010) is ingenious in its use of utilitarian materials to create familiar topographies.

A mosquito net hanging from fishing lures creates a low mountain range in Belmore’s Ridge, for instance, and a jumbled pile of wooden airplane models mimics a beaver home in Shebageget’s Lodge. Somehow both sumptuous and simple, this work— inspired by the artists’ northern Ontario homeland—suggests the human echo in a vast, elemental landscape.

“A trained scout will see little signs and tracks,” reads the quotation painted high on the wall at the entrance. “He puts them together in his mind and quickly reads a meaning from them….” In the context of Vision Shift, these words took on ominous overtones, conjuring the increasingly obvious signs of warming trends and extreme weather patterns that have been denied for decades. But beyond this, it was difficult to discern a connection to the stated goal of the Vision Shift project.

Of course it’s not hard to find ties between global climate change and life in northern Canada, but neither is it hard to connect the topic (key word: global) with, well, anything on the planet. Vision Shift’s incorporation of both Honor and MoCNA’s strong concurrent show, Bad Land, came off instead as an afterthought.

december/january | 2009/2010

clean fuel. The trash-strewn foreground in Salton Sea Geothermal Plant, for example, indicated that a renewable-energy power plant can be a pollution source even when the energy it sells is not. But the most thrilling discovery in the show was Water Flow: Meters. Running diagonally through the space, Catherine Harris’s water-driven installation mimicked the making of rain. When I worked the hand pump, it forced water up a copper pipe and down several dozen clear plastic tubes, where droplets turned the miniature felt-and-wire waterwheels before landing on the concrete floor.

Despite its skillful curation, however, Future’s size—given the unfamiliarity, complexity, and interactive nature of much of the work—could seriously deter many visitors from lingering long enough to make any real discoveries. But for those who had the time, it continually offered more. That’s much more than can be said for the unjuried show at Santa Fe Art Institute, Global Warming = Global Warning.

This hodgepodge wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it was nearly so. The show’s most interesting piece, a razor-blade-and-safety-pin wall hanging by Deborah John, Safety Pin Altar, had nothing to do with the purported theme beyond its use of (hopefully) recycled materials. Whether this art spurred anyone to political action can’t be known. But it might have inspired an artist to work with recycled materials.

Ultimately it hinted that perhaps only the teaching of art—getting people to actually participate in the act of creating—can have the kind of social impact Vision Shift’s organizers were looking for.

—Marin sardy

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Santa Fe Art Institute MEMORY: Shadow & Light – Art as individual/ collective memory

Documentary Photographer

Susan Meiselas 12/6 Portfolio Review (reservation rquired) 12/7 Lecture, 6pm Tipton Hall Photographer & Cultural Historian

Estevan Rael-Gálvez 12/14 Lecture, 6pm Tipton Hall 12/12 KSFR - SFAI Jazz in the Lounge John Trentacosta + Straight Up with Joshua Breakstone, 7pm SFAI 12/21 Painter Jerry West's ‘A Prairie Night’ Film Screening, 6pm Tipton Hall WWW.SFAI.ORG, 505- 424 5050, INFO@SFAI.ORG, SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE, 1600 ST.MICHAELS DRIVE, SANTA FE NM 87505 | THE SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE EXPLORES THE INTERCONNECTIONS OF COMTEMPORARY ART AND SOCIETY THROUGH ARTIST AND WRITER RESIDENCIES, PUBLIC LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS, EXHIBITIONS, & EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH THIS PROGRAM PARTIALLY FUNDED BY THE CITY OF SANTA FE ARTS COMMISION AND THE 1% LODGER’S TAX AND BY NEW MEXICO ARTS, A DIVISION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

W

the Surreal life: gerry Snyder and marco roSichelli

neW mexico muSeum of art 107 Palace aVenue, Santa fe

It was all a nothing and a man was a nothing too. It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.

—Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, 1926

When Dave hickey ickey opened up his gallery in Austin, in 1967, he named it after Hemingway’s

aforementioned short story. I had always presumed Hickey was riffing on the idea that all it takes to successfully show art is a spare, well-lit gallery with a workable ceiling-to-wall ratio. In 1993, long after Hickey’s gallery closed, White Cube opened in London, apparently working on a similar premise: that the gallery space itself must not upstage its art. The theory seemed to work—White Cube became one of contemporary art’s most successful galleries. That is, until it was no longer trendy to show art against a setting of white walls and the Y.B.A.s weren’t being bought up by Charles Saatchi by the truckload. In the early 2000s, even the stodgiest of museums hired experts to choose wall colors other than shades of ecru. Sterile, white walls fell out of fashion.

These days, it seems, wall color is hardly important. We expect more out of our curators and artists than a decorative palette. We also understand that it’s a rare arts organization with the cash to freshly repaint its rooms before every new exhibition. Still, the space can make or break a show, no matter how we wish it were not so. The New Mexico Museum of Art’s upstairs gallery, usually set aside for contemporary art, is hardly ideal for the task: too small, not enough cube and too much afterthought-ism. Hardly surreal, it conveys the feeling that it was meant to function as a workspace, perhaps the kitchen for its larger antechamber, the Women’s Board Room with its imposing table and chairs. None of this is anyone’s fault. Unless of course you look at the broader issue that this world values war and the corporate mindset over education and the arts. But we won’t go there.

Am I being picky and unkind? Well, sure, it may come across that way, but all of the above is in order to share my experience of The Surreal Life. The title seemed unfortunate—wasn’t that an MTV show or something? I get the surreality of Gerry Snyder’s subject matter (wildly hued blobby creatures in a fantastical setting) versus his Renaissance style of painting—paired with a couple of Marco Rosichelli’s playground toys in Barney purple that look more like Snyder’s blobby guys than any horsey or Dumbo I’ve ever seen— but the bottom line is that the show didn’t work as a two-person exhibition. Instead it emphasized just how difficult the space is.

Although the press release respectfully, and quite manfully, requested that we “consider the anthropomorphic forms represented in both artists’ work, either through our subconscious dream-fueled mind or as literal symbols,” there wasn’t enough of a show for us to do so. Once again, it was confirmed for me that Snyder is an incredibly talented painter, while Rosichelli’s work—with only two of his sculptures— was reduced, unfairly, to animated illustrations of Snyder’s blobs. The only symbolism at work lay in the visual disclosure that sculpture takes up more space than painting.

Happily, the exhibition served to allow another opportunity to drool over Snyder’s work. As curator Larry Rinder (who chose the artist for his 2002 Whitney Biennial) describes the paintings, their Foreground: Marco Rosichelli, Spring Fetus 2, mixed media, 4’ x 3’, 2009 unsettling surrealism belies their sophisticated beauty. As layered with Background: Gerry Snyder, Not All At Oneness (left), and Infallible (right), both oil on wood panel, 4’ x 4’, 2007-2008 fore-, middle-, and background as a Raphael Madonna, and as far from chromophobic as a child-care center, Snyder heaps vulnerability upon the ludicrous. He draws us in with “cute,” then causes the hairs on the backs of our necks to rise with dread: His creatures float with an easy freedom that we will never know, as it slowly dawns on most of us that we are helplessly trapped in a grayed-out world. Surreal? Hardly; we’re dealing with an acutely uncomfortable realism.

While White Cube was simply after money—not that Hemingway wasn’t, but his short story is a work of art—Papa’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place turns out to be a terribly empathetic portrait of a lonely old man’s alcoholism. I’m sure Hickey was well aware of that fact, given his propensities toward, um, addictive behavior, just as I’m sure White Cube’s founders were looking for a brand name for their product. The Surreal Life is aptly named only in that it would be well beyond the bounds of reality to expect the Museum of Art to “go contemporary” on us. There’s nothing unreal about how good an artist Snyder is, nor, for that matter, the strength of chief curator Tim Rodgers’ abilities. To have to do your best work in a less-than-exemplary space is sad, like an aging alcoholic just barely hanging on to his dignity.

—k kathryn M davis

december/january | 2009/2010

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e

i

oPening night

cece renn kurzWeg: inViSible girl exPoSed

at

the firegod gallery firegod gallery 217 eaStt Palace aVenue, Santa fe

“Native art’s conventional methodology was the driving force behind much that is considered modernist invention today.”

712 central aVenue

cirq gallery Se, albuquerque

edvard Munch’s The Scream, painted with garish colors and highly simplified

forms, shows an agonized figure in the throes of an emotional crisis—a painting that has been broadly interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Cece Renn Kurzweg’s show of photographs, words written on walls, and paintings—Invisible Girl Exposed—is a study of the psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse she suffered as a child, as well as the sexual objectification of her by men (one out of three girls, and one out of seven boys, are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of eighteen.)

In the front room of the gallery are nude—no, naked is the right word—full-frontal self-portrait photographs of the artist. On the walls surrounding the photographs are roughly scrawled phrases painted in blood-red that resemble the markings of a serial murderer: I was seeing for the first time a guardian sex goddess who stepped forward to keep a damaged child safe and invisible. The goddess is fearless. “Fuck me,” she says, then laughs softly. She is a siren, gatekeeper, muse, tigress, wild child, ice princess. She is Athena, Lilith. She is my angel. These roughly scrawled words are the tormented expression of Kurzweg’s isolation, rage, and fear. It is as if she is shouting, “Look! Look! See? Is this it?

Is this what you really want?”

Although some of the photographs are potent, it is the paintings in the hallway of the gallery that really shine. Reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s tortured paintings, they are heartbreaking to look at. Take Crosses, a small painting in shades of blood red portraying a woman lying on her back, her hand thrust against a wall as if to ward off an attack, or an attacker, with the area around her genitals and breast “smashed” with a darker red that cover her wounds, so to speak. In this and in other paintings, the artist uses the canvas as a transparent window or a flat mirror—Kurzweg’s images are essentially reflections, epiphanies. This viewer senses that residing within her psyche is depression, anxiety, guilt, fear, and pain—a lot of pain. These are powerful paintings that should bring to the surface strong emotions in everyone who sees this body of work, and may force many viewers to probe their own terrified selves. In The Scream, Munch met his stated goal of “the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self.”

The same may be said about the work of Cece Renn Kurzweg.

— erOnica arnasOn —v

—Alfred Young Man. PhD- from North American Indian Art: It’s a Question of Integrity

in other words, the Zuni were modernists centuries before the savage hordes arrived from Europe. While it may be impossible to ever before tthoroughly horoughly trace influence, i.e., what exactly inspired Marsden Hartley when he was in tthe he Southwest or just how much Jackson Pollock was guided by Navajo sand painting, onn the purely visual level Young Man’s statement is undeniable. Applying the European o Modernist avant-garde notions of one-upmanship and originality, we see that the aesthetic tenets of a movement like Suprematism arise in North American indigenous cultures far earlier than they do in Russia or Paris. This is not only a visual reality but also a philosophical one, as in all cases these aesthetics are tightly connected to concepts of a universal spirituality.

As Western culture collapses, arguably due to the lack of any valid spiritual center (or metaphysic beyond the belief in the transcendent nature of monetary currency), we are seeing the rise, or global bounce-back, of indigenous “knowledge” as a significant ingredient in the medicine required to cure our myriad ills.

A small dose of what you might need is now available at the new FireGod Gallery.

The opening was a great success as evidenced by the large number of tamales consumed.

And the work, essentially Native American contemporary art, spans the centuries in its dialogue with tradition and is also absolutely of the present in a way that might actually make you proud to be a post-colonial, postmodernist.

Many of the names are familiar from Indian Market but ideally the FireGod will provide them with an ever more experimental venue as exemplified by Doug Coffin’s newest sculptural direction. Director Silvester Hustito had perhaps too much of his own work on display, but nevertheless his wooden polychrome reliefs are certainly strong and accomplished. Inspired by kachinas and traditional Zuni iconography, his addition of monochromatic passages of glitter is surprisingly successful, recalling the spiritual role of sparkle and shimmer in Byzantine mosaics, as well as the rich mineral surfaces of the jewelry traditions of the native Southwest. And yet more work by painter Melissa Melero would have been desirable. The skin-like surface of the piece here recalled a more impassioned or expressive version of Eva Hesse’s early work in a similar mode.

And finally, in a departure from the predominantly abstract or abstracted forms, was the work of Chicago-based artist Chris Pappan. Both his hilarious artist’s statement—“I don’t listen to the wind, I listen to people’s cell phone conversations”—and his skillful, smart, update on traditional ledger art make him a truly postmodern phenomenon and a welcome addition to the Santa Fe scene.

—JOn carver

Cece Renn Kurzweg, Crosses, oil, pencil, and paper on wood, 14” x 14”, 2009

Chris Pappan, Atsinne, pen and pencil on ledger paper

i

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS

ProJ ro ectS ect road, Santa fe

dWight hackett

2879 all tradeS

“i used the reflection of me that I saw in them as a way

of reinforcing my survival and existence,” says Herbert Lotz of his photographs of yyoung oung soldiers in Vietnam. “In photographing others I discovered myself.” He adds, ““Seeing Seeing the life in their eyes confirmed the life in me.”

This generously scaled exhibition of Lotz’s portrait photography unfurls a span of some forty years amid the denizens of Santa Fe’s art world. It offers an opportunity not only to see the breadth of his stylistic development and its powerful consistency, but also to take a stroll down that sometimes dotty memory lane flanked by distinct characters that have been the City Different’s greatest distinction.

The theme that frames this retrospective is “seated” head-on portraits, done in interiors or in the open air. Lotz captured his subjects not just firmly situated, but rendered motionless, fixed, suspended in place and time. Lotz instructed his sitters to address the camera in a relaxed, disarmed posture, which is why many of these minimalist, un-artful images resonate so powerfully. The sitters seem to exchange a glance of trust with Lotz, and to trust the moment. This is certainly the atmosphere that pervades the 70s tableau of Tim Moore in an Airstream. Tim, earnest, rather vulnerable, and wistful, is poised and centered, opening himself to the photographer’s gaze and ours.

Lotz’s choice of pose and setting might occasionally seem rather off-hand, but close inspection proves that he calculates these compositions with cool clarity and telling economy. It is clear that Lotz has an eagle eye on all the elements in the frame, and gives the elements equal weight. The portrait Ford Ruthling might seem a casual, even nonchalant moment, until we take into account the eerie elements the photographer has chosen to include in the frame—the taxidermist’s raven caught in full flight, exiting the frame overhead, lends a vaguely sinister air while exactly echoing the shape in Ruthling’s luxuriant mustache—or the shadowy door, left half-ajar, as though the subject might abruptly beat a hasty retreat.

Lotz’s portrait of painter John Fincher is a perfect illustration of the photographer’s eye for detail in a spare, almost Spartan setting. Fincher may be casually perched on the edge of his bed, but his gaze is one of willed disengagement.

The ostensibly pensive moment gains tension and ambiguity when we recognize how he is caught in a skein of plunging diagonals—picture frame, bedstead, comforter, and door—and even more so when we notice that the artist’s head is haloed in a torrent of falling knives, a still-life subject revisited often by Fincher in those days.

—Jan adlMann

t

graSSlandS

herbert lotz: Seated

and

SeParating P Parating SPecieS

516 artS rt 516 central SW, albuquerque

The continued existence of places that are wilderness not in the sense of the pristine, but of the profound and remote, remote not just from towns and paved roads, but far from the surveillance and management that has come to epitomize our times is grounds for joy…

—Rebecca Solnit, from her essay “Elemental” in the Grassland, Separating Species catalogue

these two beautifully installed exhibitions, Grasslands and Separating Species, are full of meaning and splendor and they help to close the six-month LandArt New Mexico project. My own attempt to keep pace with this ambitious and contextually varied series meant that I could only scratch the surface of what transpired, and speculate about its impact on our region. Time will tell the length and duration of its tailwind, but if the critical state of our planet is any indication, LandArt New Mexico will have a long one.

Studying Michael Berman’s installation of majestic carbon prints in Grasslands, one is inclined to believe that the remote and evocative locations depicted are a source of hope.

Berman’s monumental vistas reek of deep time and a philosophical commitment to nature that resonates with Thoreau’s idea that “in wildness is the preservation of the world,” even as all thoughts of preservation are compromised by climate change, bad attitudes, denial, and rampant misuse. Still, Berman gives us exquisite visual samples of life—human and animal—that are juxtaposed with sweeping views of an arid, geologic emptiness that, nonetheless, provides a matrix for vegetation that softens the edges of a ruggedly brutal beauty.

Besides Berman’s large prints, there are several grids of small, intimate images of flora, fauna, and cultural remnants that are like closely held secrets—like signal fires lit on the desert floor. His accumulation of poignant details radiates messages about a continuum that plays out in the shadow and the glare of the extraordinary. This can also be said of the work in Separating Species, organized by Mary Anne Redding, curator of photography at the Palace of the Governors, which includes work by Krista Elrick, Dana Fritz, David Taylor, and Jo Whaley.

Each of these photographers brings us to a different zone of inquiry. For example, there is Elrick’s dizzying vantage point of rocky cliffs that serve as the breeding ground of Kittiwakes at Prince William Sound in Alaska; or Fritz’s often ironic divisions between nature and culture in prints like Rain Forest Back Room, Biosphere 2; or Taylor’s Border Monument series created in the volatile zone between Mexico and North America; or Whaley’s surreal appropriations of nineteenth-century photographs of people that she pairs with incredibly alluring insects. In her manipulated image Eryphonis polyxina, below the faded face of a young girl there is a wondrous moth in shades of brown and rust. The girl reminds me of Alice Liddell, who served as the muse for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It’s as if Alice comes back to haunt us as we pause on the edge of our own vanishing wonderland, filled with cries, whispers, and unaccountable moments of a ravishing enchantment experienced in the midst of wilderness. I’ll conclude with the rest of the words from Solnit’s sentence quoted above: “… a somber joy that knows what we have to gain from knowing solitude, mortality, difficulty, distance, and slowness.”

ita e itaG —diane arMitaG

Herbert Lotz, Juliet Myers, 12” x 12”, 1987

december/january | 2009/2010

Michael Berman, Garcia Peaks, Ladder Ranch, NM, carbon pigment print, 29” x 35”, 2009

THE

MAGAZINE

| 49

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Caroline Casey: Visionary aCtiVist a s t r o lo g e r a n d C o m pa s s i o n at e triCkster “All (who aspire to be) sane and reverent people—at this time of dire beauty, where everything we do matters, and it’s no time to be alone—need to gather in innumerable ways, backstage and onstage, where through the power of our dedication we can broadcast the expanding frequency of the Compassionate Trickster, whose work is to make ever more available a vast repertoire of imaginative responses whereby to compost tyranny—now, there’s a renewable resource—into rich nutrients for the culture of reverent ingenuity we are cultivating. We are in dedicated cahoots with all those doing the work of reverent ingenuity, shape-shifting from a culture of dominance to one of collaborative cahoots with everything.”

Caroline Casey is the author of Making the Gods Work for You: The Astrological Language of Psyche and the audio book Visionary Activist Astrology. She broadcasts “The Visionary Activist Radio Show” from Washington D.C., which airs in Northern California on the Pacifica radio station KPFA and its sister station KPFK in Los Angeles.

Casey has offered mythologicalastrological news analysis on ABC’s Nightline, CNN, Crossfire, and in People magazine. coyotenetworknews.com Listen to “Visionary Activist Radio Show” on Casey’s site coyotenetworknews.com/productcart/pc/radioshow.htm

P h O t O GraPhed in Marin, ca, By J e n n i f e r e s P e r a n z a

| december/january 2009/10

the magazine |51

Sorry, but the kitchen sink is not my idea of a bath... take me to the groomer, now...please...

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A Great Grooming Shoppe at the Agora Shopping Center in Eldorado

WRITINGS

By

M artha e Gan

The August afternoon was scorching hot, triple-digit temperatures baking the asphalt, sending shimmering waves of heat into the air, blurring the watery lines between Earth and sky. Standing in the searing sun in his Madras plaid Bermudas, pink polo shirt, and flip-flops beside his busted car, Jimbo felt like his brains were roasting. His eyes, too. Muttering a few more expletives, he put on a bill cap, locked the car as much as you can lock a ragtop with major holes in its fabric and a cracked rear window, and walked back to the nearest settlement, the six trailer, fifty junked car town he’d passed a few minutes ago.

It had all gone bad so fast. There he was, merrily tooling down the two-lane road in his beloved, if battered, sports car, humming along with the Beach Boys tune on his Walkman, heading toward a bright, post-graduation future in California, where he’d open a bar on the beach or a recording studio or a surf shop or something. He could always pour drinks, wait tables, or pound nails while waiting for something better to come along. Then, in the middle of “Little Deuce Coupe,” the engine blew.

Jimbo trudged past a faded sign that said “Los López, New Mexico, Population 58.” The deserted downtown appeared to consist of a few old boarded-up brick buildings. A sign on the first one said “Garza’s De Soto-Nash Rambler Dealership” in faint letters. Across the street was a movie theater, whose broken marquee read Singing in the Rain, with half the letters missing.

The side of the last building that Jimbo went by advertised brands that had mostly disappeared long ago: Fleer’s Double Bubble bubblegum, O-So-Grape soda, Kelvinator appliances.

As bleak as things looked, Jimbo firmly trusted he’d somehow be able to get his car fixed and soon be on his way west again. A minor setback like this wasn’t enough to make him rue his decision to leave town after graduation: Ohio State, history major, Spanish minor. He had no money, of course, and his father had cut up his credit cards. His California dreams were vague at best—he’d never been there. But he knew for certain he wanted out of Columbus and the Midwest’s bone numbing winters and sultry summers, and away from his overbearing father who’d never said a kind word to him in his life. He also was putting a little distance between himself and Chelsea, his sweet but ditsy girlfriend, who desperately wanted him to marry her in a big, splashy wedding. “We’ll have eight bridesmaids,” she told him. “And a pink and black color scheme.”

The future she dangled in front of him like her unhooked Wonderbra involved helping run her mother’s hair salon, maybe turn it into a day spa. Like many an itchy-footed young man during the last two hundred years of American history, when things got complicated on the home front, Jimbo headed west.

Black Mesa, New Mexico, looking east from Fred Cata’s 1957 Chevrolet BelAir, July 1987. Photograph by Alex Harris.

Courtesy: Christopher Webster Collection

“Granny,” by Martha Egan, is excerpted from La Ranfla and Other New Mexico Stories (Papalote Press, $16.50), a collection of short fiction. Egan’s first novel, Clearing Customs, was named Fiction Book of the Year in 2005 by OnLine Review of Books and Public Affairs. Her next novel, Coyota, won a Bronze IPPY Award for Mountain-West Best Regional Fiction in 2008 from the Independent Publishers Association. Nonfiction books include Milagros: Votive Offerings from the Americas and Relicarios: Devotional Miniatures from the Americas. Egan owns Pachamama, a folk art gallery in Santa Fe.

54 | the magazine

| december/january 2009/10

The Brookover Gallery

“Solo”, Platinum Palladium, 24 x 30 inches

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