Date:
2/9/2012
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 575.562.2253
PORTALES – The Eastern New Mexico University Department of Art will host the University of New Mexico-sponsored exhibit of The Plazas of New Mexico in the Runnels Gallery in the Golden Library on the Portales campus from Feb. 17 through March 9.
Sponsored by the ENMU Department of Anthropology and Applied Archaeology and the Department of Art, admission is free and open to the public.
A reception will be held on Friday, Feb. 17, from 5-6:30 p.m. at the Runnels Gallery and will include a book signing. A presentation and question-and-answer session with the authors Miguel Gandert and Chris Wilson is scheduled at 6:30 p.m. in Room 112 in the Jack Williamson Liberal Arts Building. Books will be available for purchase at both events.
Exhibit hours will follow regular Golden Library hours.
The exhibition features panoramic photographs of contemporary plaza celebrations from across the state by Gandert, an internationally renowned documentary photographer.
The second part of exhibit, prepared by Wilson, profiles the history of nine iconic plazas and squares from Taos Pueblo and the Santa Fe Plaza to the plazas at Albuquerque, Las Vegas and Mesilla. The Roosevelt County courthouse square in Portales is featured in the book and the exhibit.
The Plazas of New Mexico documents the rich heritage of New Mexico’s public plazas, and the everyday life and community celebrations that help sustain them. It traces three distinct design traditions—the Native American center place with kiva and terraced residential blocks, the Hispanic plaza with church and courtyard houses, and the Anglo square with courthouse and business blocks.
Wilson is a leading cultural, architectural and landscape historian whose award-winning books include "The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition" and "Facing Southwest: The Life and Houses of John Gaw Meem."
Wilson is coeditor, with Paul Groth, of "Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies after J. B. Jackson." Wilson is the J. B. Jackson Professor of Cultural Landscape Studies at the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning in Albuquerque, and founding director of its Historic Preservation and Regionalism Program.
One of America’s leading documentary photographers, Gandert has exhibited widely, including in the Whitney Biennial. His largest body of work is found in Nuevo Mexico Profundo: Rituals of an Indo-Hispano Homeland. He is a professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico.
For more information from UNM, call 505.710.7169 or visit http://plazasofnewmexico.com/
For more information from ENMU, call 575.562.2206.