Where tradition meets innovation
TWO SHOWS AT THE MUSEUM OF SPANISH COLONIAL ART
Two new shows at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society has a long history in Santa Fe as an outgrowth of the Society for the Revival of Spanish Arts and the Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Spanish Mission Churches of New Mexico, both of which date from the early 20th century. But on Oct. 29, 1929, writer Mary Austin and artist and author Frank G. Applegate, along with a committed group of collectors, officially founded the society, which still exists today. The organization is known for its continued sponsorship of the annual Spanish Market and Winter Spanish Market, showcasing works of supreme craftsmanship in woodcarving, tinwork, colcha embroidery, hide painting, straw appliqué, furniture-making, jewelry, pottery, and other art forms that originated more than 400 years ago.
The society developed, in part, as a collecting institution. But with no museum to house its extensive holdings, most of which are centered on arts and crafts unique to the region, its artifacts were stored in the vaults of the Museum of International Folk Art. That was the case until 2002, when the society opened its own privately funded museum inside a historic 1930 Spanish colonial-style residence designed by architect John Gaw Meem, which was anonymously gifted to the society, along with 2.6 acres of land, in 1998. The home was originally built as a living space for staff of the former Center for Anthropological Studies. And while it no longer serves as a residence, for the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art’s acting director Josef Díaz, it has indeed been a kind of home.
Díaz first came to the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art (MoSCA) as an intern while in graduate school at the University of New Mexico. The museum was still under its first director, Stuart Ashman, who now directs the Center for Contemporary Arts. “I was one of the first students in the museum studies program at UNM, and part of that was to do an internship,” Díaz said. “My concentration was Spanish colonial.” Díaz began under the supervision of curator Robin Gavin, who retired last year. He worked with her for a few months and then under curator Nicolasa Chavez at Casa San Ysidro in Corrales, a historic Spanish colonial hacienda. “Nicolasa said, ‘I have money and I can pay you, so why don’t you come down and work for me?’ ” He did that for another couple of months until Gavin enticed him back to the museum, where Díaz took a position as an associate curator. “I love this place, so I decided, sure, let’s go.”
Most of Díaz’s career thus far has been spent at the New Mexico History Museum, where he oversaw the Spanish colonial art collection for the museum’s first 10 years of operation. The history museum hadn’t been built yet when he landed the position. “They were
just breaking ground,” he said. “I interviewed with Fran Levine, who was the director. I thought they were going to want someone seasoned, a really wellestablished curator, to lead their Spanish colonial department. But Robin encouraged me to interview anyway. So I did, and I got the position.” After curating his final show at NMHM, Fractured Faiths, Díaz was recruited by MoSCA’s former executive director, David Setford, to fill the position previously held by Gavin. “I knew in my heart that at some point in my career I would be back,” he said. “I know a lot of the artists, a lot of the staff, and I’ve always been connected with MoSCA, even when I was down at the history museum — coming to their events, supporting them, and collaborating with them, as well.”
Setford left MoSCA in early 2018 to helm the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington State, and Díaz slipped into the role of acting director. His background in a specialty area of regional art, having been honed at several institutions, makes him a good fit. He brings with him a vision for greater social engagement with an eye toward expanding the collection, particularly the Mexican and South American components. “We have to realize that New Mexico was part of Mexico at one point, part of the larger Spanish colonial empire,” he said.
Outside of the annual summer and winter markets, MoSCA has retained a lower profile than its neighbors up on Museum Hill. To increase interest in what is the only museum of its kind dedicated to the preservation of and research into the traditional arts of New Mexico, Díaz helped start a new group for members called Conexiones last October. “It’s a special interest group that you have to buy into, and we have a series of lectures and trips. It’s something we’re very proud of, and our membership is growing. In the first month, we had about 40 new members,” he said. “Of course, our biggest events are the Spanish Markets — summer and winter.” The winter event used to take place in Santa Fe but is now held in Albuquerque at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. The summer market, which is among the largest Hispanic art markets in the nation, showcasing upwards of 250 artists, remains on the Santa Fe Plaza. “This year, our special events director is initiating the first fashion show in conjunction with Spanish Market,” he said. “We’ll be showing fashions inspired by New Mexico and the Southwest look. Some artists who are showing in market will be participating in that.” The museum also organizes an annual fundraiser, ¡Celebración!, which occurs in November. “Something I was very good at and enjoyed doing — and that brought in a lot of people to the history museum — was programming. I’m hoping to bring that model up to MoSCA and get some more people through the door.”
While not a large museum, MoSCA maintains a vast historical record in the form of objects. Currently on view are several ongoing and semi-permanent exhibitions as well as a featured temporary show, Time Travelers: And the Saints Go Marching On. Time Travelers establishes direct connections between historic works in the collection and contemporary forms that — even when they’ve introduced some innovations in terms of materials, subject matter, or theme — retain an overall colonial aesthetic. One case in point is contemporary santero Arthur López’s exquisitely carved and painted bulto San Fiacre y Los Patrones del Jardín, showing the patron saint riding a giant praying mantis. Each historic representation of a saint is paired with a contemporary depiction showing how the iconography of regional santeros has been altered or has remained, in terms of imagery, virtually unchanged, even if the medium itself — like a Santo Niño de Atocha made entirely from computer parts — breaks from tradition.
Time Travelers was curated by Jana Gottshalk, who oversees the museum’s contemporary collections. “With this show — where I’m tracing the way the saints are changing — it’s kind of the precursor to the next show, which will be looking at younger artists and how they are rooted in tradition but taking it to the next level, using newer materials and exploring different ways of showing saints and relating them to indigenous imagery,” Gottshalk said. “There will be a section that looks at the people who started that, like Luis Tapia.” The upcoming exhibition is titled GenNext: Future So Bright, opening in early May. The show looks at the expanding colonial traditions through an expressly contemporary lens. It includes works by artists who represent the new generation of time-honored regional arts and who pay homage to the past while exploring their own unique, forward-looking visions. Several of these artists, including painters Patrick McGrath Muñiz and Brandon Maldonado, deal with social and political concerns such as gender, identity, and immigration.
So, while visitors to the museum can take in many historic pieces — such as an 18th-century Mexican bulto of St. Michael the Archangel or a 17th-century Mexican missal stand made of hardwood inlaid with tortoiseshell and bone — they are also treated to regional arts that express a certain fluidity while remaining rooted in tradition. In December, Díaz, who has retained his position as chief curator while taking on the role of acting director, plans a solo exhibition of the work of Paul Pletka, whose surreal paintings reflect the dynamic cultures and histories of the West. “I’m really focusing on pieces that deal with either New Mexico, the Southwest, or Mexico, like some of his pieces that incorporate the Penitentes,” he said. “I’m hoping to bring in some of these images and pair them with material culture — pieces that that inspired him to paint this particular piece or that particular piece. There are great stories to be told.”