Events
Museum Exhibits
Visions of a Borderland
April 19, 2019 - August 7, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
Born in 1941 in Zacatecas, Mexico, painter and illustrator Antonio Castro has lived and worked for most his life in the El Paso/Juárez borderland. This exhibition shares his vision of our region, through more than two-dozen paintings and illustrations created over sixty years. The exhibition explores Castro’s figurative painting, which is characterized by religious and mythological imagery as well as autobiographical elements and personal symbols. It also features materials related to his process and some of the many illustrations he made for El Paso’s longtime department store The Popular and for books, many of which have been about the region and for children, and published locally by Cinco Puntos Press. Together the paintings, illustrations, books, and materials in this exhibition suggest Castro’s skill as a draftsman and his vision of life and culture in El Paso/Juárez.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/antonio-castro
Beyond Portraits
April 19, 2019 - August 7, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
Gloria Osuna Pérez (b. 1947, d. 1999) depicted people with deep, cinnamon-colored skin, making them appear more than portraits of friends and family. The artist, who painted but also worked with clay, called her paintings “supraportraits,” meaning beyond or above portraits. This exhibition, drawn from the El Paso Museum of Art’s collection and including key loans, features several of Osuna Pérez’s paintings, an installation, as well as original book illustrations that suggest for her the idea of a vessel was always present. Gloria Osuna Pérez may have turned to her own family and life for inspiration, but her images of people—children with elders, life-long friends—are universal. They speak to the vessels that bind people and community for us all.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/gloria-osuna-perez-beyond-portraits
2019 Annual Juried UTEP Student Art Exhibition
May 10, 2019 - August 9, 2019
Rubin Center
The Rubin Center is proud to present the 2019 Annual Juried UTEP Student Art Exhibition, showcasing works of art and design created by undergraduate students enrolled in the Department of Art during the 2018 – 2019 academic year. All media taught in the department is represented, including painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, metals and graphic design. At the end of each academic year the Rubin Center invites nationally and internationally recognized professionals in the fields of graphic design and fine arts to come to campus and jury recent work completed by UTEP students in the Department of Art. It is a highly competitive process and the juror’s selection is then exhibited in the Rubin and L Galleries throughout the summer, becoming the basis for our summer education and outreach.
More Information: https://www.utep.edu/rubin/exhibitions/current/2019-student-exhibition.html
Not-So-Lone Star Studios: A Gathering of Texas Makers
May 16, 2019 - August 9, 2019
Rubin Center
Not-So-Lone Star Studios: A Gathering of Texas Makers connects 37 artists currently residing in Texas whose creative practices engage in the conceptual dialogue of Contemporary Jewelry and Metalsmithing. As a rule, artists have been invited through a word-of-mouth selection process resulting in promising overlaps and differences of opinion.
Immediate observations reveal issues of vulnerability and protection, the body and memory, nature and industry, sustainable materials and indifferently found objects. In truth we may not share much. Our chosen materials and tools may span continents and centuries, but the belief we have in the value of things is enough to make introductions and pick up the dropped threads of a long conversation; one that acknowledges the intimacy of small things, the boldness of worn statements, and the tactile communication of objects.
More Information: https://www.utep.edu/rubin/exhibitions/current/not-so-lone-star-studios.html
Joy and Suffering: Mexican Retablos from the EPMA Collection
March 8, 2019 - August 25, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
Isolated from major city centers, inhabitants of 19th century rural Mexico looked to untrained artists to craft devotional Christian images for their homes. These artists utilized readily available materials and created modest, yet distinctive works of art by blending traditional Christian imagery with folk and pagan beliefs. EPMA, committed to collecting, interpreting, and presenting Mexican art, has amassed the second-largest museum collection in the United States of what are now called retablos, or small devotional paintings on tin and copper.
In March 2019, EPMA’s retablos collection will undergo an entirely reimagined installation, offering highlights representative of the breadth and depth of EPMA’s holdings, including the display of ex-votos, or works commissioned to commemorate miracles, as well as bultos, or carved wooden sculptures. The installation will examine images of the Virgin Mary in her many folk and formal manifestations, from the well-known Virgin de Guadalupe to the lesser-known Our Lady of Solitude. When considered together, EPMA’s retablos offer a framework for understanding the daily joys and sufferings of life in 19th century Mexico and demonstrate the continued desire, despite a lack of means, for personal devotional imagery.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/joy-and-suffering-mexican-folk-retablos-from-the-permanent-collection
Luces y Sombras: Images of Mexico
May 24, 2019 - September 8, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
Capturing modern Mexico’s culture, architecture, and people through photographs, Luces y Sombras presents over one-hundred works dating from the 1930s to the present day. Portraits of artists such as Frida Kahlo—by acclaimed photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo—and photographs of indigenous cultures by Manuel Carrillo and Graciela Iturbide are presented alongside contemporary photographs exploring the body, identity, and place.
This exhibition is provided by the Bank of America Art in Our Communities program. Educational programming for this exhibition is supported in part by Texas Women for the Arts.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/mexican-and-american-photography-from-the-bank-of-america-collection
In the Language of Stone: Rock Art of the Jornada Mogollon
April 27, 2019 - September 14, 2019
El Paso Museum of Archaeology
The Southern part of New Mexico, West Texas and North-Central Mexico is known by archaeologists as the Jornada Mogollon Region. This region is rich in prehistoric rock art left behind by the ancient inhabitants of the region.
This exhibition will showcase petroglyphs and pictographs from iconic sites such as Hueco Tanks, Three Rivers and Otero Mesa, as well as lesser known treasure troves from both sides of the international border through the camera lenses of rock art experts, students and amateur enthusiasts alike.
More Information: https://archaeology.elpasotexas.gov/exhibits/changing-exhibits
Ancient Borderland: The Jornada Mogollon
April 27, 2019 - September 14, 2019
El Paso Museum of Archaeology
The people known by archaeologists as the Jornada Mogollon inhabited the Borderlands since Archaic times.
Although there are few remains of this culture that are generally accessible to the general public, these people lived in several pueblos throughout the Hueco Basin, the area where the City of El Paso and Fort Bliss currently stand.
This mini exhibition will complement the Rock Art of the Jornada Mogollon exhibit by presenting general information about these enigmatic people as well as showcasing a number of artifacts attributed to them.
More Information: https://archaeology.elpasotexas.gov/exhibits/changing-exhibits
From Fire & Earth
February 22, 2019 - September 22, 2019
El Paso Museum of Hisotry
The El Paso Museum of History and El Paso Museum of Archaeology present this exhibition of Casas Grandes ceramics that flourished during their Medio Period (AD 1200 – 1450) in the northwest corner of modern-day Chihuahua, Mexico. Pottery, as perhaps no other medium, reflects the culture of its maker. This exhibition shows the art expressions of the Casas Grandes people who would become prolific potters producing some of the finest pottery of the Pre-Columbian world. The Mata Ortiz pottery that we know today is one of the richest and most diverse pottery producing regions in the world. The exhibit features many examples of Casas Grandes and Mata Ortiz ceramics from the permanent collections of the El Paso Museum of Archaeology and the El Paso Museum of Art. These art pieces show not only the ancient art of pottery, but also the appreciation of Mesoamerican cultures.
More Information: http://history.elpasotexas.gov/
Refresh
September 27, 2019 - September 27, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
For the first time in twenty years, and a year after renovating the museum’s renowned Kress Collection of European Art Galleries, the El Paso Museum of Art refreshes its second floor galleries devoted to permanent collections and special exhibitions. In the museum’s newly renovated galleries, discover spaces devoted to Mexican Art from the Spanish Colonial Period, Mexican Retablos, Early Texas Art, American Paintings and Sculptures, and Contemporary Art, Prints, and Photography. Recent acquisitions appear for the first time alongside long-time favorites from EPMA’s collection of over 7,000 objects.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/refresh
EPCC: Honoring the Past, Building the Future Exhibition
April 18, 2019 - September 29, 2019
El Paso Museum of History
This commemorative exhibition celebrates EPCC’s 50th Anniversary and history of providing high quality, affordable education that has transformed our region. Come visit us to learn more about the El Paso Community College and its impact on our community.
More Information: http://history.elpasotexas.gov/exhibits/current-exhibits
Bases Loaded: El Paso and Beyond
July 11, 2019 - September 30, 2019
El Paso Museum of History
The exhibit celebrates the local and national history of baseball starting with its pre-Civil War origins to the Chihuahuas arriving in El Paso. In addition to tracing the evolution of baseball’s legacy as a national pastime, the exhibit also highlights baseball’s intersections with race, like the sport’s role in Mexico and key events in breaking the color barrier. As visitors move through the installation, they are invited to explore how different groups across the United States have shaped baseball’s beginnings, rise, and continued popularity. Interactive displays, like a walkable baseball diamond and Chihuahuas fan photo booth, transform the space into an immersive historical experience.
Materials for the exhibit have been sourced from across El Paso’s enthusiastic baseball community. Many of the artifacts for Bases Loaded have been provided by Fernando Grado, an El Paso native and baseball enthusiast. His personal collection, which he began in his youth, includes local memorabilia from the Browns and Diablos as well as collectibles from eminent players like Jackie Robinson and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. Also on display are items borrowed from the El Paso Chihuahuas’ own archive.
More Information: http://history.elpasotexas.gov/exhibits/current-exhibits
Pride Cinema: Queer Film and Culture in the Twenty and Twenty-First Centuries
June 1, 2019 - November 1, 2019
El Paso Museum of History
The exhibition features films focused on LGBTQ+ issues in the 20th and 21st Century. The films in the exhibit, Milk, Paris is Burning, Longtime Companion and others, share the adversities, benchmarks and successes of LBGTQ+ people with a broader audience. Local El Paso and Juarez LGBTQ+ histories are paired with these films highlighting the reality of these issues as they are ever-present within the borderland community. In addition to the exhibit, the museum will display two panels from the 1987 NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt throughout June.
EPMH has partnered with the Borderland Rainbow Center (BRC), a local non-profit organization dedicated to providing resources for the El Paso LGBTQ+ community and its allies, to exhibit two sections from the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Individuals seeking to memorialize their loved ones who died from AIDS can create a quilt panel and submit to the NAMES Project Foundation. The Quilt was displayed in the fall of 1987 across the National Mall in Washington D.C. and was composed of 1,920 individual panels spanning the length of a football field. The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is recognized as a monumental legacy to bringing awareness to the AIDS/HIV pandemic.
More Information: http://history.elpasotexas.gov/exhibits/current-exhibits
Two Sides of the Border
November 9, 2019 - December 6, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition presents architectural design work—models, drawings, digital renderings—by over one hundred architects, educators, and students from international architecture studios and thirteen universities in the United States and Mexico. The works address territorial economies, migration, housing, creative industry, and local production as they relate to the border. Photographs of the U.S./Mexico border region by Dutch photographer Iwan Baan and commissioned maps by Estonian architect and cartographer Thomas Paturet are interspersed with contributions by faculty from Columbia University, Cornell University, Texas Tech University College of Architecture at El Paso, Universidad Iberoamericana, and Yale University, among others. Two Sides of the Border illuminates cross-cultural dynamics, bringing together the efforts of artists, designers, educators, and students from the border region and across the world.
Two Sides of the Border is the result of an alliance of architecture studios organized by Mexican educator and architect Tatian Bilbao. In El Paso, the exhibition is organized by Ersela Kripa, Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University College of Architecture at El Paso, and is supported by TTU College of Architecture.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/two-sides-of-the-border
Total Collapse: Clay in the Contemporary Past
September 26, 2019 - December 13, 2019
Rubin Center
Total Collapse: Clay in the Contemporary Past presents a group of artists/collaboratives who present diverse and experimental developments in the field of contemporary ceramics.
Organized around ideas exploring the function of the ceramic object as an anthropological devise and early human technology, the exhibit features work in sculpture, performance, and site-specific installation. The exhibition further examines the value of the ceramic object, as an artifact with sociopolitical potential, but also puts into question the role of contemporary mass-produced ceramic objects and their impact on future histories.
In a post-consumer and post-global digital world, the value and impact of the everyday object is actively challenged and in flux. In a historic and anthropological context, everyday ceramic objects have been valued for their potential to withstand time and deterioration and in turn provide information about antiquity. However, in our contemporary reality we are constantly surrounded by ceramic objects, from dinnerware, toilets, tiles, electrical components, and mechanical automotive parts; these mass-produced objects fueled by capitalism can enrich our lives but also challenge our future livelihood.
More Information: https://www.utep.edu/rubin/exhibitions/future/total-collapse.html
Brian Maguire
September 26, 2019 - December 13, 2019
Rubin Center
“Brian Maguire is an artist of singular yet expansive vision: an activist, correspondent and a voice for dispossessed and marginalized individuals often considered dispensable by the rest of society. Since the onset of his professional career four decades ago, Maguire has been an instigator of numerous interactive projects with prisoners, refugees, and survivors; the artist’s practice is inseparable from his commitment to the community with whom he feels in service, navigating an often precarious exchange subject to the scrutiny of the public opinion under which it must operate.”
From the Foreword to Brian Maguire, Published by Fergus McCaffery, New York and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, October 2018.
More Information: https://www.utep.edu/rubin/exhibitions/future/brian-maguire.html
Ideas Unwrapped
February 17, 2019 - December 31, 2019
El Paso Museum of Art
Artists’ ideas come from many places, including culture, history, personal experiences, and beliefs. Ideas Unwrapped presents fourteen artworks from the El Paso Museum of Art’s permanent collection that focus on how ideas transform into art. Filling EPMA’s Mac Rogers Gallery and Ginger Francis Seminar Room, the exhibition features works by internationally known artists Peter Coffin, Vik Muniz, Juan Quezada, Yinka Shonibare, and Kara Walker, as well as El Paso artists Guillermo “Memo” Gutierrez and Zeke Peña.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/ideas-unwrapped
Tom Lea and World War II
August 23, 2019 - January 5, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
From 1941 to 1946, Tom Lea served as a World War II eyewitness artist correspondent for Life magazine, documenting the war from its front lines. The exhibition features works from the renowned World War II art collection at the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as well as key pieces from EPMA’s significant collection of works by Lea. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue published by the Tom Lea Institute.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/tom-lea-and-world-war-ii
Illuminate: Artworks by EPMA Teaching Artists
July 17, 2019 - January 5, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
EPMA’s talented and professional Teaching Artists are the driving force of the Art School. Teaching Artists share their talents and inspire students of all ages and abilities in Art School classes, camps, and workshops. In this exhibition, see the work of Ivan Calderon, Cindy Gutierrez–Krapp, Dina Edens-Perlasca, Phillip John Romero, and Ronnie and Elvira Carrizal-Dukes.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/illuminate-artworks-by-epma-teaching-artists
An Ageless Craft: Historic and Modern Pueblo Pottery
July 8, 2019 - January 11, 2020
El Paso Museum of Archaeology
For hundreds of years the peoples of the Rio Grande Valley and beyond made breathtaking pottery that was used for domestic as well as ceremonial purposes. Through the passage of time, generations of masters have continued to practice their arts, continuing to create stunning pieces that have merged centuries of traditions with modern artistic sensibilities. Although they are geographically close together and share many cultural similarities, each pueblo has developed its own style that is unique to them.
An Ageless Craft will display the work of potters from most of the Rio Grande and Western Pueblos including Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso, the Nampeyo family of First Mesa (Hopi), and Albert Alvidrez of Ysleta del Sur. This is a not to miss opportunity to experience the continuation of age-old pueblo traditions through over two hundred beautiful works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection, El Paso Archaeological Society’s collection, and items on loan from the private collection of Albert Alvidrez. This is the largest exhibition ever undertaken by the Museum to date.
More Information: https://archaeology.elpasotexas.gov/exhibits/changing-exhibits
The El Paso Museum of Art: 60 Years of Collecting
September 27, 2019 - March 8, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
It has been sixty years since the founding of the El Paso Museum of Art, and two decades since the museum moved into its downtown building. Now, for the first time, EPMA presents an exhibition about its history. Through artworks representing significant moments for the El Paso Museum of Art, 60 Years of Collecting shares stories of a museum that has grown through the generosity of families and individuals in the region. Highlights of the exhibition include paintings, sculptures, and prints from across EPMA’s significant holdings, and accounts by people key to the museum’s success. 60 Years of Collecting reflects the history of the El Paso Museum of Art, and of El Paso.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/the-el-paso-museum-of-art-60-years-of-collecting
Leo Villareal: Early Light
September 27, 2019 - April 12, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
Raised on both sides of the El Paso/Juárez border in the 1970s, artist Leo Villareal (b. 1967) is now known internationally for activating spaces with LED light. Recently, he gained acclaim for large-scale, site-specific, public endeavors: In 2013 Villareal inaugurated The Bay Lights, a now-permanent artwork of 25,000 LEDs illuminating a light pattern along a nearly two-mile expanse of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and in 2008 he “lit” an underground walkway at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Villareal’s first museum exhibition in his hometown examines his early work. Complementing his light “mural” Sky, 2010, installed in El Paso’s federal courthouse, the exhibition features two large-scale sculptures on loan from the Chaney Collection of Houston, TX. Lightscape, 2002, is a ten-foot “screen” programmed to bathe surrounding space and people in a sequence of changing hues. Here Comes the Sun, 2004, is from Villareal’s most-recognized series of wall-bound sculptures, taking the form of a spiral made of LEDs. Leo Villareal: Early Light elucidates the early practice of one of today’s best-known contemporary artists.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/leo-villareal-early-light
The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art
April 10, 2020 - July 5, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition features over fifty works of contemporary art that intersect with the world’s most popular sport: fútbol, or soccer. The exhibition introduces fans of the Mesoamerican-rooted sport to contemporary art while bringing art-lovers to “the beautiful game,” as it is known by many. Originally presented at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, this exhibition features a range of contemporary art—from video to photography, from painting to sculpture—by more than thirty of the best-known artists of recent decades, including Taryn Simon, Melanie Smith, Hank Willis Thomas, Andy Warhol, and Kehinde Wiley, who was commissioned by Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery for Former President Barack Obama’s portrait. Together the contemporary artworks in The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art suggest that soccer is timeless and universal, and able to build bridges across borders.
The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art is organized by Pérez Art Museum Miami and is curated by Director Franklin Sirmans with Assistant Curator Jennifer Inacio.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/the-world-s-game-futbol-and-contemporary-art
Clandestino: A Project by Animales de Poder
April 24, 2020 - August 2, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
This exhibition features a new project by Juárez-based collective Animales de Poder. Comprised of related artworks made in 2018 and 2019, the exhibition includes altered photographs and paintings of vehicles modified for urban narco warfare, sculptures fabricated with neon lights and bulletproof glass, a sonic installation produced from covert broadcast signals, and objects that speak to the history of contraband along the Juárez/El Paso border. Informed as much by research as surveillance, the artworks on view gesture toward Animales de Poder’s idea of “narcofuturism,” suggesting a current of the clandestine in Juárez extending from subterranean smuggling and fraternal organizations to, more recently, illicit nightlife and underground violence. With Clandestino, Animales de Poder evokes a past, present, and future of Juárez, and, more broadly, the effects on people of the physical, legal, and psychological barriers that emerge around national boundaries.
Part of the El Paso Museum of Art’s ongoing series examining the border through art, Clandestino: A Project by Animales de Poder is a follow-up to the 5th Transborder Biennial exhibition, from which Juárez-based Animales de Poder was selected for a solo presentation at the El Paso Museum of Art. The Transborder Biennial is a decade-long bi-national collaboration between the El Paso Museum of Art and the Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez. In 2018, the fifth edition featured artworks by thirty-two border-based artists and collectives living along the two-thousand mile border between the United States and Mexico. As a companion project, in 2018 EPMA organized a bi-national convening that brought together over one-hundred artists, academics, journalists, and art-lovers from across the country and the community to consider the next Transborder Biennial in 2020, and the future of arts programming on the border.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/clandestino-a-project-by-animales-de-poder
Luces y Sombras: Images of Mexico
July 31, 2020 - November 1, 2020
El Paso Museum of Art
Capturing modern Mexico’s culture, architecture, and people through photographs, Luces y Sombras presents over one-hundred works dating from the 1930s to the present day. Portraits of artists such as Frida Kahlo—by acclaimed photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo—and photographs of indigenous cultures by Manuel Carrillo and Graciela Iturbide are presented alongside contemporary photographs exploring the body, identity, and place.
More Information: https://epma.art/art/exhibitions/mexican-and-american-photography-from-the-bank-of-america-collection
