Archive for March, 2009

Who: Aaron Payne Fine Art
What: An exhibition featuring Santa Fe’s  Joe Merlino
When: May 15 – June 10th, 2009
Where: Aaron Payne Fine Art 213 East Marcy St., Santa Fe, NM
Contact: (505) 995-9779, www.artnet.com

Aaron Payne Fine Art is pleased to announce its first photography exhibition featuring works by local Santa Fe resident, Joe Merlino.

This exhibition coincides with the 20th anniversary of the violent government crackdown against student protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing on June 4th 1989. This event is often described as the June 4th Incident in contemporary China.

Joe Merlino was traveling in China during May and June of 1989. He was in Tiananmen Square when the largest crowds of protesters gathered to voice support for democratic reforms and denounce corruption. As Merlino continued his tour of China, the mood and direction of the country changed abruptly in the wake of the government’s violent suppression and subsequent persecution of the student protesters. The photographs on exhibit reflect this transformation in what they depict and what is absent.

Joe Merlino lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife and their daughter. Born and raised in New Jersey, Merlino studied history and cultural anthropology at Harvard before starting a career providing strategic advice in philanthropy and cause-related enterprise. Merlino has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Central and South America, Western Europe, India, Africa and East Asia. In addition to the June 4th Incident in China, Merlino also inadvertently experienced political turmoil firsthand in Cote D’Ivoire, West Africa in the days leading up to that country’s first coup d’état in 1999. This is his first exhibition.

For more New Mexico information visit www.new-mexico-visitor.com

Who: National Hispanic Cultural Center Presents
What: A Conversation With Rudy M. Beserra
When: Saturday, April 11, 2009 4 pm
Where: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Wells Fargo Auditorium, 4th Street & César Chavez
Contact: (505) 246-2261, www.nhccnm.org

Enjoy a straightforward, down to earth, non-academic and extremely personal conversation about a life trajectory of a native New Mexican, a UNM graduate, White House special assistant, and a corporate executive of the famous global company.

This presentation will cover politics, business, corporate strategies, Coca Cola insider stories, feature Hispanics in Business and focus on paths to Hispanic empowerment.

It will be followed by an old-fashioned “Drink Coca-Cola!” reception.

During the past 25 years, political and economic empowerment of Hispanics in the U.S. has grown at a tremendous rate.  Hispanics in the U.S. now number over 45 million, and U.S. Hispanic purchasing power surged to nearly $870 billion.  Native New Mexican and national business leader Rudy M. Beserra has been at the forefront in the political and business arenas during this period of phenomenal growth.

Rudy M. Beserra’s family has for many generations been very active in New Mexico politics.  Ruby began his career as Director of the LULAC Family Learning Center in New Mexico.  He was recruited in 1982 to work for the Campaign Committee to coordinate Hispanic Outreach as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) for Small Business Issues.  During President Reagan’s second term, Rudy served in the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison.  In a feature article of “Latino Leaders,” Rudy was described as “The Real Thing.”

Co-sponsored by the NM Humanities Council, Intel, NM Tourism Department, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, Bank of Albuquerque and the University of New Mexico.  For more information please visit www.centerforinternationalstudies.net

For more New Mexico information visit www.new-mexico-visitor.com

Who: Zane Bennett Contemporary Art
What: “Nineties ‘til Now” by Peter Lodato
When: April 24 - June 6, 2009
Where: Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, at 435 South Guadalupe Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Contact: (505) 982-8111

Beginning on April 24, 2009 Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, at 435 South Guadalupe Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico will present “Nineties ‘til Now”, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper spanning two decades from 1990 through 2009, by Peter Lodato.  There will be a reception on Friday, April 24, 2009, from 5-7 pm, and the show continues through June 6, 2009.

Peter Lodato, who was born in 1946 in Los Angeles, California, has exhibited extensively and received significant acclaim throughout his art career.  During the 1960’s and 1970’s, his art consisted of environmental works utilizing space, powerful lights, mirrors, shadows and reflections.  Soon after, Lodato realized he could make a similar statement by replacing the reflected light and shadow images with paint applied directly to the walls in large flat and glossy panels of color and black and white. These works were exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1972), PS1 in New York City (1978), the Whitney Biennial (1981), and the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (1985).  More recently, Lodato’s work has consisted of abstract paintings and works on paper that have the same perceptual quality as his early light and space installations. Lodato’s simple compositions are concerned with positive and negative space, and the pitting of shapes against edges and margins. He mixes geometric abstraction, in the vein of Ellsworth Kelly, with investigations of defined luminosity, similar to Mark Rothko.

For more New Mexico information visit www.new-mexico-visitor.com