A Letter from MNMF’s President/CEO

It was eight years ago, in 2014, when the Museum of New Mexico Foundation partnered with the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture to set in motion a major renovation of the museum’s core exhibition, Here, Now and Always.

The exhibition first opened in 1997 after 10 years of planning, design and construction. It was groundbreaking at the time and became a national model for Indigenous communities telling their own stories about Native art, culture and lifeways in a museum setting. But by 2014, it needed an update.

Seventy tribal members from throughout the Southwest, some of whom had advised the original exhibition, came together again to reimagine Here, Now and Always in partnership with the museum’s curatorial staff.

The celebration continues later that month with the July 30-31 opening of Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery. This extraordinary traveling exhibition, organized by the School for Advanced Research and the Vilcek Foundation of New York, makes its debut at the museum. As with Here, Now and Always, Grounded in Clay utilized the expertise of some 60 Native curators from throughout the Southwest in selecting this showcase of more than 100 Pueblo pots from a community-informed perspective.

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture is also part of IC22—Indigenous Celebration 2022. Forty organizations in New Mexico have come together to support and promote the vast array of Indigenous events taking place in our state this year.

A highlight of IC22 is the 100-year anniversary of Indian Market in August. The New Mexico History Museum will mark this major milestone for the Southwest Association of Indian Arts with an exhibition of Indian Market art and photographs from the past 100 years, and a celebration of the artists who represent this world-famous event.

I urge you to visit all four of our state museums in Santa Fe and eight historic sites throughout New Mexico this summer. The exhibitions and programs you will enjoy are all made possible by your generosity in supporting the Foundation and Museum of New Mexico system.

Sincerely,
Jamie Clements President/CEO

This article and image are from the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s Member News Summer 2022.