New Mexico Museum of Art

Creative Spark! The Life and Art of Tony Da

Huichol Art and Culture: Balancing the World

The Buchsbaum Gallery of Southwestern Pottery

Woven Identities
Nov 20, 2011 - Apr 1, 2014

For the first time in over 30 years, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture opens a major exhibition of North American Indian baskets on Sunday, November 20, 2011. Opening events on Sunday November 20th run 10am-4pm, and are free for New Mexico Residents. The exhibition runs through April 1, 2014.

All objects tell a story, if you know the right questions to ask. At the time the baskets in this exhibition were collected little to no information was recorded; the weaver’s names are largely unknown. Nonetheless, each basket has an identity, a woven identity. The identity of each basket—where it was made; when it was made; who made it; who it was made for; why it was made—by “reading” its individual characteristics.

To read a basket five principal traits must be taken into account: material, construction, form and design, and utility. Woven Identities is divided into five sections representing these essential and diagnostic Native American basketry traits. If you ever wanted to learn the language of baskets, begin your journey with this exhibition.

On exhibit are baskets woven by artists representing 60 cultural groups, today referred to as tribes, bands, or pueblos. The weavers’ ancestral lands are in six culture areas of Western North America: The Southwest, Great Basin, Plateau, California, the Northwest Coast, and the Arctic.

Creative Spark! The Life and Art of Tony Da
Feb 13, 2011 through Dec 31, 2011

Creative Spark! The Life and Art of Tony Da is a groundbreaking exhibition that features approximately 40 ceramic pieces and 20 paintings and offers an unprecedented exploration of Tony Da’s life and the works he created.

The grandson of famed potter Maria Martinez and the son of Popovi Da, Tony rose to the legacy of his talented family while pioneering bold innovations in his dynamic but tragically short career. This exhibit will be his first comprehensive retrospective in a museum and will feature major works, some never before seen by the public. Spanning the 1950s to the 1980s, the exhibit includes paintings and pottery, from public and private collections, ranging from red, black and polychromatic jars and plates to sculptural bears and turtles. The first book dedicated to Tony Da’s life and work, written by Charles King, owner of King Galleries in Scottsdale and Richard L. Spivey, author of The Legacy of Maria Poveka Martinez, will be available, in conjunction with the exhibition, in August 2011. The Museum of Indian Arts & Culture has in its permanent collection the works of Maria Martinez, Julian Martinez, and Popovi Da. As a descendant of this renowned San Ildefonso family, Tony Da took Native American art to new heights and having his work on display is especially relevant at this pivotal time in the Museum’s growth.

Tony Da left an impressive legacy in his short career. Born in 1940, he showed early enthusiasm and skill as a painter. As a youth he excelled in art, even winning a Hallmark Card contest. While attending Western New Mexico University in Silver City he was exposed to prehistoric Mimbres pottery which held great influence on his artistic future. Da started painting full time after his discharge from the United States Navy and was soon recognized for his talent, winning top prizes for his artwork.

Tony Da used his favorite source, prehistoric Mimbres designs, as a subject for his paintings and pottery alike. At other times he explored the traditional, interspersing with the abstract, realistic and semi-realistic. During the six years that he lived with his grandmother, Maria, in the late 1960s, he started making pottery. His artistic skill in ceramics developed rapidly and in 1967, Tony began to work on his sculptures, creating an exciting new form of Pueblo ceramic art. These sculptures included turtles, owls, and bears. As a tireless experimenter and innovator, he was the first to etch sgraffito designs into the clay; the first to incorporate the use of turquoise on pottery, then adding coral, jet, mother-of-pearl, shell and turquoise heishi, and silver; and the first to use a torch to create his black and sienna pots. All were fresh, uses of materials and daring techniques.

Da led a very modern life as he navigated between the two worlds of his Indian culture and the non-Indian world. In 1982, Tony sustained severe head injuries in a motorcycle accident. Although he was no longer able to make pottery, Da continued to paint while living in a care facility until his passing on February 12, 2008. Tony Da’s artistic legacy is not isolated in the past, but one which continues to inspire artists and challenge them to become transformational in their creative explorations.

Huichol Art and Culture: Balancing the World
Extended through Feb 12, 2012
For the first time, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology presents a significant collection of Huichol art from the early part of the last century in Huichol Art and Culture: Balancing the World. The exhibition opens at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture April 11, 2010 and will run through March 6, 2011. There are important ties between Huichol work and Native American, prehispanic, and Hispanic art histories and cultures. Known today for colorful, decorative yarn paintings, the origins of modern Huichol art are found in the earlier Huichol religious arts of the Robert M. Zingg ethnographic collection at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

The Buchsbaum Gallery of Southwestern Pottery
on long-term display
The Buchsbaum Gallery features each of the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona in a selection of pieces that represent the development of a community tradition. In addition, a changing area of the gallery, entitled Traditions Today highlights the evolving contemporary traditions of the ancient art of pottery making.

Here, Now and Always
on long-term display
Here, Now, and Always is a major exhibition based on eight years of collaboration among Native American elders, artists, scholars, teachers, writers and museum professionals. Voices of fifty Native Americans guide visitors through the Southwest's indigenous communities and their challenging landscapes. More than 1,300 artifacts from the Museum's collections are displayed accompanied by poetry, story, song and scholarly discussion.