sa国际传媒官网网页入口

Editor's note: The Journal would like to clarify that Joan Weissman works with paid Indigenous artists to produce her designs.

The exhibition 鈥淎bstracting Nature鈥� at the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum includes nine women artists and one male artist. Six of the 10 are absolutely amazing.

It鈥檚 refreshing to see an almost all-woman show that doesn鈥檛 essentialize gender or even put gender front and center. A mark of progress, for sure. Unfortunately, the curatorial framework has other flaws.

For one, the idea of artists 鈥渁bstracting nature鈥� in New Mexico is a tiresome cliche. Georgia O鈥橩eeffe, Andrew Dasburg, Agnes Pelton and many others were 鈥渁bstracting nature鈥� almost a hundred years ago. Indigenous artists were doing it long before that.

It鈥檚 also odd to step into a show called 鈥淎bstracting Nature鈥� and be confronted by Karen Yank鈥檚 welded steel sculptures, which are about as 鈥渘atural鈥� as a fleet of Cybertrucks. I鈥檝e heard Yank say in interviews that the circles in her pieces reference the shape of the Earth. But is that all her art has to say about nature? That the Earth is round? Aesthetically, she鈥檚 still stuck in the 1960s 鈥� the era of boxy Tony Smith sculptures and B-movies about robots 鈥� which is where Cybertrucks belong, too, as far as I鈥檓 concerned.

Next to her hangs Agnes Martin 鈥� an even weirder choice, since Martin stated multiple times in her lifetime that her works were not abstracted from nature.

Don鈥檛 get me wrong; it鈥檚 always great seeing Martin鈥檚 work in the flesh. After staring at 鈥淯ntitled #6鈥� for only 15 seconds, the six fat stripes of pink, yellow and blue started quivering, then disappeared and became a single, glowing white square. Try it; it works! Martin鈥檚 countless imitators rarely obtain such reality-warping effects, which is why she鈥檚 the master.

But if we continue past Yank and Martin and turn the corner, this is where the exhibition gets really interesting: Judy Tuwaletstiwa and Marietta Patricia Leis, two phenomenal artists who use abstraction to think about the tension between what鈥檚 natural and what鈥檚 not.

Tuwaletstiwa has several great works in the show, but her most affecting is 鈥淪ong 1,鈥� which resembles a bombed-out desert viewed from above. Beige fabric is scarred with thousands of burn marks and embedded with blackened, shriveled clay 鈥渇rogs.鈥� A text panel explains that the artist was thinking about the desert frogs that perished in the Trinity blast. According to the nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer鈥檚 brother, thousands of frogs were singing and mating just hours before the explosion.

Leis is a great artist, too. She makes playful abstractions of natural phenomena using the language of minimal painting, although not always the medium of painting. Her gemlike 鈥淎ir鈥� series, which I initially thought were paintings, are in fact 18 metal-printed photographs. They come in a veritable crayon box of colors 鈥� red, purple, yellow and even a wispy green one, evidently taken during the aurora. Like the conceptual colorist Byron Kim, Leis gives us close-up fragments of larger pictures 鈥� in her case, the sky. And, although a text panel incorrectly identifies her as a 鈥渕onochrome鈥� painter, most of these works, whether photographed or painted, contain two or more colors. What makes them so extraordinary is that the colors are all technically 鈥渘atural,鈥� but they don鈥檛 seem so at all.

Leis鈥� only true monochrome works in the show are her shiny black rubber 鈥淚nferno鈥� sculptures, which look like chunks of obsidian glass or black tourmaline crystals, at least from afar. Such materials protect against negative energies, according to crystal healers, although Leis鈥� artificial ones are more in line with the synthetic aesthetic of Lynda Benglis or Ugo Rondinone. I am thoroughly intrigued by the interplay between the simulated and the real in Leis鈥� work.

The back wall is devoted to monumental works on paper by Yoshiko Shimano, who stamps thousands upon thousands of prints on top of each other to create shadowy, swirling, multicolored dust clouds. Technically, these are not abstractions of nature. They鈥檙e abstractions of abstractions of nature, since she begins with plum blossom motifs appropriated from the work of Edo-era artist Ogata Korin. As a Japanese-born artist who lives in New Mexico, the process of turning plum blossom prints into dust storms feels autobiographical. It shows how radically a new landscape can alter a person鈥檚 sense of self.

On the final perimeter wall, which is also the shortest, are two well-known artists of Indigenous heritage, Lydia Madrid and Emmi Whitehorse. It鈥檚 never a good look to lump your two Indigenous artists together on the gallery鈥檚 worst wall, but at least they were included.

In Madrid鈥檚 works on paper, Wassily Kandinsky-like expressive bursts of color waft in and out of the faint graphite outlines of petroglyphs, agave plants and antlers. Like spirits who freely transgress the bounds of bodies, rocks and sky, her colors drift and float, unencumbered by the laws of physics. There鈥檚 a spareness to her work but also an incredible freedom, which I always find moving. Color is permeable in Whitehorse鈥檚 works, as well, so perhaps there鈥檚 a logic in pairing them with Madrid鈥檚. I still think it does them both a disservice.

Moving into the middle of the gallery, we encounter Joan Weissman, a commercial rug and terrazzo flooring designer who works with Indigenous weavers from around the world to execute her rug designs. A text panel states that Weissman worked with the same family of Tibetan weavers in Nepal for over 20 years, but their names are not mentioned. Their identities remain as invisible as their labor. Of course, the conceptual rug artist Faig Ahmed, whose work I love, doesn鈥檛 list his weavers by name, either. But Weissman is a commercial designer, not a conceptual artist. And while I鈥檓 sure my mom鈥檚 retirement community friends in Florida would find Weissman鈥檚 silvery rug with its big floppy ginkgo leaves appealing as home decor, I鈥檓 not convinced it merits more floor space than literally any other work in the exhibition.

Now, before you accuse me of being a fiber art hater, let me go ahead and name two artists who would have been better: Emily Trujillo and Eric-Paul Riege. Trujillo is an eighth-generation Chimay贸 weaver who makes experimental abstractions. Riege is a Din茅 artist who makes highly original fiber art installations and performance art pieces. Both have deep roots in New Mexican weaving traditions, and both do their own weaving. Also, unlike Weissman, they鈥檙e interesting.

To the left of Weissman is a painting from Richard Diebenkorn鈥檚 鈥渟a国际传媒官网网页入口鈥� series. It鈥檚 nowhere near as good as the 鈥淥cean Park鈥� paintings that came later, but it鈥檚 a step in that direction.

Finally, to the right, is an outstanding installation by Joanna Keane Lopez that combines black-and-white images of New Mexico with squares of hand-daubed adobe. The work references the artist鈥檚 now-derelict ancestral home in L贸pezville. The images, which have been cut into circle, square and lozenge shapes, look like black marble. Similar shapes, made of adobe, are installed on the floor. But what happens when you stand a lozenge on the floor? It becomes a tombstone. Others become upside-down tombstones, balanced precariously. So, there鈥檚 a deadpan humor in Lopez鈥檚 shapes and in her transposition of materials, not unlike the subtle humor of Richard Artschwager鈥檚 sculptures. Her title, 鈥淕host Spell,鈥� suggests that she鈥檚 trying to exorcise the ghosts of her family鈥檚 past, yet her clever use of materials shows she鈥檚 got one foot in the future, too.

I don鈥檛 think I learned much about nature from this exhibition, but I loved seeing how the different artists approached abstraction, sometimes through an autobiographical or historical filter. A more rigorous curatorial framework could have helped tease out connections between the works, but sensitive and observant visitors will discover their own connections regardless. There are true masterpieces in this show by Martin, Tuwaletstiwa, Leis, Shimano, Madrid and Lopez, which is reason enough to add 鈥淎bstracting Nature鈥� to your must-see list. And despite its flaws, I know this is a show I鈥檒l be mulling over in my head for quite some time.

Abstracting Nature' at the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum a must-see despite flaws

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. He covers music, visual arts, books and more. You can reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com.