Albuquerque Courier

09/07/2022

{Backstory}
“Prey to the Pursuit” by Reyes Padilla.

"I wanted to just throw all the chaos that goes on in my head all against the wall."

His new exhibit Synful Norteño at the Lapis Room in Old Town is an evolution and maturing of this approach to painting developed through personal work. The results are astounding, if you have the sense to see them.

09/05/2022

The fourth in a four-part review of Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’

For last in our four-part series covering the Albuquerque exhibition of Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’, we highlight the untitled work by Daisy Quezada Ureña on display at Exhibit/208.

09/02/2022

{The 5@5 for the 505}
The Albuquerque Courier's event recommendations for this weekend.

Dust City Opera
Friday | La Sala
Billed as their last local show of the year, Friday is the day to catch Dust City Opera playing outside as the summer fades. Also on stage will be Garry Blackchild & The Ghost Train with Thursday Marks Fall. Don't hesitate, tonight the North Valley is great.

Grounded and Scattered
Friday | Mountain
The artist currently known as LadyJennD continues to produce boundary-breaking mixed media work in Albuquerque that always comes with a twist. Her latest opens this Friday at the Ricochet Gallery. As botanical as it is radical, it's a show not to be missed.

Corporeal Property
Friday | Nob Hill
Remarque Gallery hosts the opening of a series of new works on paper by Juliana Coles as she takes off through the ever-evolving Map Room and onward with a new exhibit that serves "as tangible evidence of the journey." It's going to be a trip.

Last Days of Summer
Friday | Menaul
D’Ali Roberts' solo exhibition, Last Days of Summer: Friends, Foes & F***s opens at The Curated Creative Friday night at the little gallery up on Menaul next to the Play It Again Sports. You know where that is, but have you ever been to the gallery next door? You are going to want to check that out.

Sip In
Monday | Old Town
Want to support Labor on Labor Day? Of course you do, so stop in and tell the baristas at the Rio Grande Starbucks that are trying to organize the first Starbucks in New Mexico you got their back. From 5pm to 7pm stop in, order some coffee, tip in cash and show your support.

Get the 5@5 + the cocktail of the weekend in your inbox at 5pm every Friday at https://www.abqcourier.com/newsletter

09/01/2022

{Review}
Thoughts on “Road Tripping: Midwest” by Dana Patterson Roth.

"Riding in cars for long distances when you’re a kid is brutally dull. Those of us old enough to have suffered through this before the rise of cell phones and other such electronic devices remember a time when your options were minimal. Sit there. Do nothing. Look out the window. I guess you could read, if you knew how and it didn’t make you car sick."

The photographer Dana Patterson Roth remembers that feeling well and recreates what it looked like for her piece Road Tripping: Midwest on exhibit now at Wild Hearts Gallery in Placitas.

08/31/2022

{Backstory}
Paul Hunton talks about the song "Love of Mine" off the Dust City Opera album Alien Summer for this edition of Backstory.

More about Alien Summer’s fourth track for this edition of Backstory, Paul Hunton’s “Love of Mine.”

08/24/2022

{The Good, The Bad and The Ugly}
This week’s view from the editor’s desk.

THE GOOD
The good this week was the campaign kickoff to pass a constitutional amendment here in New Mexico to invest the largest surplus the state has ever had (due largely to oil and gas revenue) in education. This means more money for childcare workers, early childhood education of all stripes and more money for the Public Education Department. This ballot measure goes to voters in November.

THE BAD
As I reminded readers last week, New Mexico just slipped from 49th to 50th in childhood well-being rankings. This would help, if anybody knew it was happening.

THE UGLY
While both U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich and U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury were on hand to stump for this ballot measure, Albuquerque’s media was not (well, Albuquerque’s magazine of art was there). Maybe they were hiding. This has to rank as a more important story. Investing the money we make from the fossil fuels that are wrecking the place for the next generation is critical. If we don’t make these kids smarter then we are how are we ever going to find our way out of these problems?

https://www.abqcourier.com/daily/08212022/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

08/22/2022

{Review}
"For the third part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we stay with a New Mexico artist, Eric j. Garcia, and spend some time with a work that is very much a product of New Mexico, “Alien Species,” currently on exhibit at El Chante: Casa De Cultura."

For the third part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we stay with a New Mexico artist, Eric j. Garcia, and spend some time with a work that is very much a product of New Mexico, “Alien Species,” currently on exhibit at El Chante: Casa De Cultura.

08/19/2022

{The 5@5}
The Albuquerque Courier's Event recommendations of the Weekend.

I Speak Through My Cello
Friday | Fusion Theatre
Cellist Keely Mackey performs her new album I Speak Through My Cello with an interdisciplinary performance with aerialists, dancers and yoginis at Fusion Theater Friday night.

Eric-Paul Riege Performance
Friday | Downtown
Dancing Friday afternoon and into the night at 516 ARTS is Eric-Paul Riege adjacent to his work jaatłoh4Ye’iitsoh [9–10])(to/too coccoonz currently on display. You're not going to see this type of thing anywhere else. Wander in or wonder what you missed.

As You Like It
Friday | Westside
The New Mexico Shakespeare Festival takes As You Like It to the Open Space Visitor Center patio on Friday night for free. Bring a chair, some bug spray and settle in for a night with the Bard and maybe some bats. You might see bats there around dusk.

Horses. Horses.
Saturday | North Valley
Got plans to sit at home on Saturday without a horse? That's lame. Instead, come on down to the Buckaroos, Bites and Brews Adopt-a-Thon and Festival and get yourself an actual horse. There will be food and music there as well, but mostly horses looking for a forever home at your house.

Pirate/Viking Summer Bash
Weekend | Edgewood
The history of pirates and Vikings in New Mexico is rarely told because so few ever came here. But that changes this weekend in Edgewood with the Pirate/Viking Summer Bash. $5 off if you wear a costume. Feel free to email The Courier if stuck for costume ideas.

Sign up to get the 5@5 in your inbox every Friday at 5pm at Abqcourier.com.

08/19/2022

{Review}
"In his exhibit at the Harwood Art Center, Pijoan uses the paranormal palette – Aliens, Bigfoot, Mothman – to tell personal stories much like a retablo painter renders the saints and for many of the same reasons. They all form the characters in stories we tell each other here in New Mexico. The truth is, after all, out here. "

In his exhibit at the Harwood Art Center, Pijoan uses the paranormal palette – Aliens, Bigfoot, Mothman – to tell personal stories much like a retablo painter renders the saints and for many of the same reasons. They all form the characters in stories we tell each other here in New Mexico. The t...

08/17/2022

{Review}
The second in a four-part review of Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’.

"Let it suffice to say the consensus is that Santa Librada was being forced to marry a man she didn't want to so she asked God to make her ugly, she then sprouted a divinely-gifted beard and was crucified for her troubles. You could see how this story could go several ways."

For the second part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we again stay with an Albuquerque artist Brandon Maldonado and take a look at his Santa Librada at the South Broadway Cultural Center.

08/16/2022

{Backstory}
"Is this coming from like a super consciousness? You know, a collective consciousness. Some of these songs feel universal in a way.”

The performance promises to be a trip to a place you didn’t even know you always wanted to go.

08/15/2022

{Review}
The first in a four-part review of the work of the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’.

"I’ve always thought that Pema Chodron’s suggestion to start where you are could be applied to just about anything, if for no other reason than it requires no travel time. When it comes to the ambitious 60-artist, four-venue exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’, starting with a work from here also makes sense. Artists from Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas have efforts to show here in Albuquerque at Exhibit/208, the South Broadway Cultural Center, El Chante and where we begin our four-part look at this exhibit at Tortuga Gallery, with Albuquerque-native Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”."

“Whirl(wind)” is a cyanotype and a prime example of this age-defying craft. What continues to be striking about all cyanotypes two centuries on is its most obvious trait. The blue is captivating. It draws you in.

08/14/2022

{The Good, The Bad and The Ugly}
This week’s view from the editor’s desk.

The view from the editor’s desk this week wasn’t very nice. Finally, I published the interview I did with Albuquerque’s new poet laureate Anna Martinez this week. We spent a lot of time talking through the idea of being nice and the fallacy of masks. It is one of my favorite interviews ever. Next week we look into a bunch of great art and a new cello album that is truly exceptional. Onward.

THE GOOD
This week we’ll put the first approval of a city-sanctioned safe space in the good column, if only because disapproval would be worse. This is a very minimal step towards doing anything for the people of this city that are experiencing homelessness, but it is a step.

THE BAD
The bad this week is the discovery of West Nile Virus here in Albuquerque. Add that to monkeypox, resurgent polio and the seemingly never-going-away Covid and we can all look forward to more people getting more diseases. Check for standing water.

THE UGLY
The ugly this week was the state dropping from 49th to dead last in childhood well-being rankings. Anyway you slice it, this is ugly. I’m not sure how we ever evolve as a people if we don’t take making the next generation better than us seriously.

https://www.abqcourier.com/daily/08142022/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

08/14/2022

{The Good, The Bad and The Ugly}
This week’s view from the editor’s desk.

The view from the editor’s desk this week wasn’t very nice.

08/12/2022

{The 5@5}
for the weekend starting August 12, 2022

Obon Festival
Saturday | Botanic Garden
The Japanese Día de los Mu***os is the Obon festival and here at the BioPark's Japanese garden, we honor our ancestors by floating lanterns on the coy pond. There will be taiko drumming and plenty of tea, but we will have to wait a few months for sugar skulls.

Stranger Factory
Saturday | Algodones
Creature sculptor and toymaker Vanessa Ramirez opens the solo exhibit “Under the Cold Blue Sky” at the Stranger Factory this Saturday in Algodones. Take the drive and check out a slice of the monster life if you are looking for some truly stranger things.

High Desert Screening
Saturday | South Broadway
It is a day of film at the South Broadway Cultural Center starting with a screening of Driftless, then on to a forum, symposium and more screenings, then finally dancing the night away at the afterparty and award ceremony. Well, the dancing may be more of an ad hoc kind of thing.

Theater Grottesco: Survey
Saturday | UNM Area
Absurdist physical theater that ranges in style from "tragic buffoonery to gesture-based dance" awaits at the Outpost Performance Space as part of a collaboration with 516 ARTS. You can pretty much count on this being a pretty weird show with some New Mexican history thrown in, Greek chorus style.

Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’
Friday | EDO
The multi-venue, 60-artist Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ exhibit continues with an opening Friday night at Exhibit/208. Plus, next door are new paintings from Rocky Norton, BBQ and beer. There are many ways to go wrong, but this ain't one of them.

08/12/2022

{The Cocktail of the Weekend}

"The simple two-ingredient greyhound is recast as the Salty Dog with the addition of a little salt but the difference is immense. The salt tames this pooch, rendering it suitable for the dog days of summer. The salt balances out the tart grapefruit and masks nearly all the vodka flavor. To that end, I recommend a mild varietal when it comes to choosing a vodka for this drink. Skip the flavors or your less refined types and let the salt and grapefruit do the heavy lifting here. Also, though it should not need repeating, do yourself a favor and juice your own grapefruits. It makes the cocktail infinitely better. Ocean Spray only really pairs well with Aquanet."

The simple two-ingredient greyhound is recast as the Salty Dog with the addition of a little salt but the difference is immense.

08/11/2022

{Interview}
"Anna Martinez made it plain in the first poem she read after being named Albuquerque’s new poet laureate — “Take nice and shove it.”

Martinez has lived her life speaking out, speaking her truth and speaking to defend the truths of others. Now that she is the city's poet, she has no plans to change. Not two months into her tenure she is already getting hate mail. Imagine a poet getting hate mail about her words. Those must be some extraordinarily powerful words."
https://www.abqcourier.com/daily/08112022/anna-martinez-has-nothing-nice-to-say

Anna Martinez made it plain in the first poem she read after being named Albuquerque’s new poet laureate — "Take nice and shove it."

08/09/2022

{Review}
Thoughts on Legacies by Sam Elkind.
"Contemporary landscape photography is often plagued by the type of photographer that heads out into the American West to find the exact spot where Ansel Adams or some other such person made a famous photograph. They will seek out the exact tripod holes in the ground (sometimes even finding them there in the dirt left by some previous photo-geocacher with a similar goal) in order to recreate the same photo. Don’t think for a moment that it is like Hunter S. Thompson retyping The Great Gatsby to get the feel of the words. It is lamer.
Photographer Sam Elkind is not that sort of photographer. He tries to show a bit of his own perspective on the American West through his work."

https://www.abqcourier.com/daily/08092022/thoughts-on-legacies-by-sam-elkind

Elkind’s approach is worth a second look not simply because he offers a counter-narrative to the John Ford view of the American West, but because he does it in such a gentle way.