FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Alberto Cuessy, Deputy Director

National Hispanic Cultural Center

Cell Phone: 505-238-2695

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National Hispanic Cultural Center to Highlight
New Mexico Portraits in Museum’s Community Art Gallery

ALBUQUERQUE, NM - 10/8/2015. On November 6, 2015, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum will open the exhibition “El Retrato Nuevomexicano Ahora / New Mexican Portraiture Now”, beginning with a free public reception from 6 to 8pm for an expected audience of 400-800 people. The exhibition will run through March 27, 2016, and features paintings, drawings and photographs by eleven artists: Lydia Gallegos, Miguel Gandert, Edward Gonzales, María Dolores Gonzales, Oscar Lozoya, Max-Carlos Martinez, Derrick Montez, Arturo Olivas, Gene Ortega, Cecilia Portal, and Jocelyn Salaz.

Opening alongside its companion exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, “Staging the Self / Ponerse en Imagen”, the exhibition will highlight portraiture by New Mexican artists. “Inspired in part by the exclusion of New Mexican artists in the Smithsonian exhibition, the New Mexican Portraiture Now exhibition is intended to validate and celebrate the long tradition of portraiture by New Mexican artists,” said NHCC executive director Rebecca Avitia.

Long before the current smart-phone “selfie” craze, Nuevommexicano/a artists were rendering the “self” via media such as paintings, photographs and even retablos. Yet, most of these Nuevomexicano/a artists are not known for their portraits. The same holds true in the larger Latino art world where Hispanic and Latino portraits, other than those of male heroes and members of elite sectors, are rarely included in fine-arts exhibitions highlighting art and culture.

“Portraits represent status, identity, history, culture, and family. Their interpretation and exhibition in institutions represents inclusion in a larger story,” says Tey Marianna Nunn, visual arts director and curator of the exhibition.

The National Hispanic Cultural Center is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and advancement of Hispanic culture, arts, and humanities, and is a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

If you would like more information about this exhibit or other events at the NHCC, please call Alberto Cuessy at 505-238-2695 or e-mail .

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