Click here to request a Las Cruces, New Mexico Visitor’s Guide

Who: For The Love of Art month
What: Andy Warhol Exhibit
When: February – April  2010
Where: Las Cruces Museum of Art
Contact: (575) 541-2137

Andy Warhol Exhibit highlights this year’s For the Love of Art month

The 11th annual “For the Love of Arts” month will feature the work of Pop artist Andy Warhol on display at the Las Cruces Museum of Art, Feb. 5 – April 3, 2010.

The exhibition features over 20 pieces by Warhol and several from his well-known Pop Art contemporaries, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, and Roy Lichtenstein.

A lecture about the cultural and historical importance of pop art will be given, in conjunction with the exhibition, by Art Historian Debora Rindge on Feb. 6. The lecture, titled “The Transformative Power of Pop Art: Celebrating the Mundane and Taming Celebrity,” will begin at 11 a.m. in the museum.

The exhibition will also feature a poetry reading about Warhol, Warhol’s iconic images (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Mick Jagger, Sigmund Freud, Campbell’s Soup, etc.) and more generally, popular culture, that will be presented on Feb. 20. The reading entitled, “Warholed: Poetry and Pop Culture,” will begin at 11 a.m. in the museum.

Organized by the Las Cruces Museum of Art, the exhibition, titled, “Warhol & Pop Art,” includes art work from the New Mexico State University Art Gallery’s permanent collection, as well as, works belonging to a private collector, some of which have never been publicly displayed.  The opening reception is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5 and will include a musical performance by La Cella Bella and a screening of an excerpt from the Andy Warhol film, Empire.

Recognized as one of the most important artists of the last century, Andy Warhol created a body of work that transformed and revolutionized our understanding of art. Blurring the boundaries between art and popular culture, his now iconic work has influenced generations of artists and continues to resonate with audiences today.  Classic Warhol images, such as Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s Soup Cans, are on display.

The Las Cruces Museum of Art is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. and is closed on Sunday. It is located at 490 N. Water Street.

In addition to the exhibition, there will be a large number of events, throughout Las Cruces and Mesilla, as part of, “For the Love of Arts month,” sponsored by ArtForms. “For the Love of Art month,” will include a variety of special art exhibits, performance art events at area restaurants, galleries and businesses that are expected to take place throughout the month.

“There will be arts in all forms for this celebration,” said Cheryl Fallstead, event coordinator. “You can find jewelry, collage art, photography and sculpture, just to name a few.”

An ArtForms member show, featuring paintings, sculptures, photography and multi-media works, exemplifying the variety of art created by artists in Las Cruces, will be held at Branigan Cultural Center, located at 500 N. Water Street, on Feb. 5 at 5 p.m., and will run through Feb. 27.

In conjunction with the month long event, artists all over the city will be opening their studios and galleries, offering new works for sale the weekends of Feb. 13 and 14 and Feb. 20 and 21. The public is encouraged to visit the studios, view art, meet artists and see demonstrations. Maps and venue lists are available at the Las Cruces Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, located at 211 N. Water.

Fallstead said “For the Love of Art Month,” began when a group of ArtForm members got together and came up with a way to promote the arts in Las Cruces.

“We really wanted to make Las Cruces a destination location for the arts,” said Fallstead.

For more information, contact the Las Cruces Convention & Visitors Bureau at (575) 541-2150, or by email at media@las-cruces.org

Click here to request a Las Cruces, New Mexico Visitor’s Guide

A solo exhibition of new work, It’s All In The Fold, by Peter Weber will open at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art on July 3 for the First Friday West Palace Art District Gallery Walk from 5:00-7:30 p.m. and extends through July 31. A Reception for the Artist will be held on Friday, July 17 from 5-7 p.m.

Squares of dense felt fabric are folded, woven, pressed. A red piece begins in a braided pattern that opens out into the natural drape of fabric. A white piece is intricately folded so that each line, highlight, and shadow offers a new aspect that echoes yet augments the last. Blue felt makes a rhythmic pattern of squares and lines that insinuate movement.

German artist Peter Weber began as a painter in the Op Art movement, working primarily with pen and ink to create intricate patterned drawings. At that time he began to make small paper foldings as invitations to his exhibitions. He soon found that his experiments trying to create more and more elaborate foldings from one single sheet were more interesting than his painting.

Over the course of many years Weber has developed his technique, in which he uses a single piece of material to create intricate patterns and designs which often trick the eye into believing they must be made from multiple pieces. He uses a variety of materials, from paper to steel, but his favored material is felt.  As Weber says, “Felt is by far the most powerful for me, since this material is very repellent against my folding ideas. So it is a great challenge for me to ‘conquer’ the material.” Often described as structures, these felt works, hanging from the wall but with a sculptural, three-dimensional form have, as one spends time with them, a distinct and persistent presence.

Although some of Weber’s artistic influences may be easily referenced by a viewer, there are other influences which are more subtle, if not less profound. Weber is a talented jazz musician and has been playing double-bass for many years. Knowing this background the pattern and repetition of lines, shadows, and folds in his work, which form a visual rhythm across the piece, become clearly linked to music. One even less obvious relationship in Weber’s work is tied to his skill as a bee-keeper. As Weber says, “I am fascinated by [the bee's] complex structure, their incredible organization of their hives, their clearly structured systems. I admire their being an ‘entirety,’ a ‘wholeness.’” It is easy to feel the kinship between these small makers of delicate and mathematically precise constructions and Weber’s elaborate and complex structures.

Understanding Weber’s technique and that these pieces are made by hand, of one piece of material, after a careful process of planning and design based on mathematical ideas certainly adds a level of complexity. Although appreciation of contemporary art often seems to require a familiarity with art history, theory, and technique, what is so refreshing about the works of Peter Weber is that although they trace a lineage to Concrete Art, Op Art, Minimalism, and in fact to the very beginnings of abstraction with its links to music, they clearly have their own inherent weight. Knowing how they are executed only adds to their magic.

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

Quiet and contemplative, the pieces in Peter Weber’s It’s All In The Fold, offer viewers an experience which deftly combines mastery of material with a magic that transcends technique.

The glamour and fascination of the Old West is brought to life in a new way in this interesting collection of facts and figures. Historic photographs tell stories of their own as the faces of such Old West characters as Geronimo, General Custer and the Unsinkable Molly Brown enliven the text. This book covers the who, what, where, and how in the often violent settling of the land west of the Mississippi. The scope and history of the Old West is highlighted in a way that is both factual and entertaining in this unique presentation that will appeal to anyone interested in the Old West and the people and places that made it happen. Author Don Bullis has spent his life covering the people and places of New Mexico as a small-town newspaper editor and as a deputy sheriff and town marshal. He has traveled extensively throughout the Western United States to gather the facts, figures, and photos that make up this collection.

CHECK OUT THIS BOOK HERE!

Signings/Presentations

Friday, June 19, 2009 — 5:30-7:30pm, Western Writers of America Booksigning, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK (book signing)

Saturday, July 11, 2009 — 10am, Hispanic Geneaology Research Center, Albuquerque, NM (talk & signing)

Sunday, July 12, 2009 — 12noon, Lavender in the Village Festival, Los Ranchos, NM (book signing)

Sunday, July 26, 2009 — 12noon New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, NM (book signing)

The Old West Trivia Book was reviewed in the July 5 issue of the Albuquerque Journal.

“Old West trivia book revels in minutiae about the good, the bad and the ugly of life on the frontier. Bullis’ book covers hundreds of … famous and infamous individuals from the Old West in chapters on soldiers, Indians, cowboys, cattlemen, politicians, and literature. There’s a newly added chapter on “Movie and Television of the Old West.” — Albuquerque Journal, July 5, 2009

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