This year’s Department of Art Gale Memorial Speaker Series focuses on U.S. Latinx art. Although historically marginalized by the larger art world, over the past ten years or so, interest in the art production of Latinx artists has exploded across the country. New publications are being produced, universities are hiring specialists and offering courses, scholars are studying and writing about it, museums are looking at this body of work and curating exhibits, and collectors are buying work made by Chicanx, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Haitian, and Central American artists. The speaker series this fall is presented in tandem with the new course, ARTH 429.003: U.S. Latinx Art and will consist of 6 events, i.e. five lectures and a panel discussion, across three venues. The series will include the following: Frank Blazquez, Visual Artist, Albuquerque, NM, Tuesday, October 15, 5:30 pm, UNM Art Museum; Panel Discussion: “Artistas del Pueblo: In Conversation with Four New Mexican Chicana/o Artists of the Early Movimiento, c. 1968–1978,” Thursday, October 24, 6:00 pm, Albuquerque Museum; Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Program Officer, Ford Foundation, NYC (former Curator, El Museo del Barrio, NYC), Tuesday, October 29, 5:30 pm, UNM Art Museum; Vincent Valdez, Visual Artist, Houston, Texas, Thursday, November 7, 6:00 pm, National Hispanic Cultural Center; Carmen Ramos, Curator of Latino Art, American Art Museum, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., Thursday, November 14, 5:30 pm, UNM Art Museum; and Karen Mary Davalos, Professor of Chicano and Latino Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Tuesday, November 19, 5:30 pm, UNM Art Museum. All events are free and open to the public.

Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge
7851 2nd St. SW, Albuquerque, NM
505-248-6667

Join artists Francesca Searer, Nani Chacon, Erin De Rosa, Jessica Chao, and Helen Greenfeather English for a tour of Valle de Oro Wildlife Refuge Field Murals, followed by a poetry walk through the Bosque with Albuquerque Poet Laureate Michelle Otero and Amaris Ketchum, who has done a poetic inventory analogous to a “scientific inventory” of the Rio Grande’s biodiversity. V.B. Prices say, “Ketchum’s poems, like wild landscapes and cities, are to be experienced as one would blaze a trail, keeping track of scat and paw prints and herbs and hobos, noting each leaving of identity and imagination.” The field murals are a collaborative art project sponsored by the Bernalillo County Public Art Program. Each of the murals represents different ecosystems/habitats being developed throughout the Refuge, showcasing the future of the land through artistic interpretations of the flora and fauna that will consider these sites home. The tour departs the Refuge parking lot at 2 pm to caravan through the fields and then participants can park by the Bosque for the poetry walk to the river.

SPECIAL PRESENTATION
Kathy Griffin: In Person
October 19 • 7:00pm
UNM Rodey Theatre • UNM
No matter how polarizing you may find her, this is an unprecedented story in US history. An attempt to decimate an American citizen from the highest levels of government. From losing an entire career, receiving death threats, being the subject of a federal investigation, it only took Kathy Griffin one afternoon to learn the impact one photo could have to ignite a continuous smear campaign. When the gossip blog TMZ published a photo of Griffin holding a mask that looked like the severed head of President Trump which quickly went global, on May 30, 2017, everything she had worked for in her life vanished overnight and she became the target of the President and the Department of Justice.

In her first comedy concert film, Griffin shares the scary and hilarious behind the scenes stories of her fight to stand up for her first amendment rights. From Trump to celebrities, no person or topic is off limits. Watch this Phoenix rise and have a good laugh while you are doing it!

Please visit WOW for more information:
https://www.wayoutwestfilmfest.com/

Join us this Wednesday from 4-5pm in the CFA Conference Room (Room 1009, next to Keller Hall) for our biweekly Arts Entrepreneurship Club meeting. If you have yet to attend an AEC meeting, this is a great opportunity to come and to join the club, as well as to learn about jumping into the semester. Membership in UNM’s Arts Entrepreneurship Club will grow your connections with local arts businesses, organizations, entrepreneurs, and other UNM students and will also give you opportunities to showcase your art/talents during UNM and local events.

All UNM students interested in the arts or entrepreneurship are welcome to attend, regardless of college or major.

Limited seating; registration required. Register with Traci Quinn at tmquinn@unm.edu.

In the spirit of the season, join us at the UNM Art Museum for a spine-chilling evening in our visual study room. Guest speaker Christian Waguespak, Curator of 20th Century Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art, will curate and explore a small selection of our darker, spooky, strange, and mysterious holdings.

The Collections Conversations series is a recurring program at the UNM Art Museum that brings great storytellers together with exceptional works from our permanent collection to provide an intimate, informal space for our patrons to gather with fellow art lovers. Held in our Beaumont Newhall Visual Study Room, Collections Conversations are a chance to appreciate, learn about, and discuss themed art selections not currently on view in our public galleries. For these events, visitors are offered the unique opportunity to step past the velvet rope and take a closer look at important works behind the scenes.