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  • The Wright Contemporary in Taos, New Mexico

ABOUT

The Wright Contemporary is a new venture on the Taos art scene, a set of galleries dedicated to the best in contemporary art of northern New Mexico, as well as a space for lectures, panels, and films (we have state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment and reasonably comfortable chairs and air-conditioning). There is ample parking around the gallery, and we’ve been getting a good turnout for movies and talks, especially for the documentary Agnes Martin: Beyond the Grid and Jason Andrew’s introduction to estate management for artists (see Archived on the main menu). Sign up for our Newsletter in the Gallery News panel box  (it appears to the right of most pages and in the Footer) or use the Contact page, and keep an eye on the Tempo calendar in The Taos News, along with our social media posts on Instagram and Facebook.

The galleries are open every day but Monday and Tuesday, from 2 to 6 p.m. and by appointment. For further information: ann@thewrightcontemporary.

ANN LANDI, Director of The Wright Contemporary

Ann Landi, Director Wright ContemporaryAnn Landi has been an art journalist for nearly 30 years, writing for publications like The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, The New York Times, Sculpture magazine and others.

For more than two decades she was a contributing editor of ARTnews, and for six years the editor and publisher of Vasari21.com, a website for an audience of about 2,500 artists. She is the author of the four-volume Schirmer Encyclopedia of Art, and holds degrees in art history from Princeton and Columbia universities.

IRA WRIGHT, Founder of The Wright Contemporary

Ira Wright, Founder of Wright ContemporaryIra Wright is largely self-taught as an artist, although he studied industrial design at the University of Michigan and design at Cranbrook Academy of Art. At Litton Industries, in the 1950s, he designed the cases for early computers and had the distinction of naming a color “Tahitian Sunrise.” Throughout his long life, he has held various gigs, including art director and graphic designer, foundry worker, and teacher of studio art and art history at local colleges.

Since 2004, when he settled in Santa Fe, NM, Wright has turned his attention to a unique and unsettling iconography that encompasses both benign and savage images of Mickey Mouse (a childhood totem), bare-breasted women, slobbering dogs, out-of-control party games, and self-portraits in many different guises. Words and sentences sometimes march across the surfaces—“sparkle plenty,” “women in gold,” “for a good time call”—but one is reluctant to scrape too hard for literal interpretations.

His most recent show was at Bareiss Gallery in Taos, NM, in February 2021.

MICHELLE COOKE, Curator of The Wright Contemporary

Michelle Cooke, Curator The Wright ContemporaryMichelle Cooke has worked as a curator for museums, private collections, and artists since 1983. Beginning as a preparator for the Orange County Museum of Fine Art she went on to organize exhibitions for the Ettinger Gallery at the Southern California Institute of Art, Scripps College Williamson Gallery, and the Montgomery Gallery, Pomona College, as well as United Cerebral Palsy of New York. In 2006 she was Exhibition Curator for the Doel Reed exhibit at the Harwood Museum.

In 2003 she opened her own gallery, 1030, in Santa Fe exhibiting artists from northern New Mexico. Cooke’s own work has been shown in numerous museums and solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe. She lives and works in Taos, NM, and New York, NY. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, and a BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design, in Laguna, CA.

HANNAH HUGHES, Curator, The Project Space at The Wright Contemporary

Hannah Hughes is an artist based in Gorieta, NM, and Los Angeles. Her performance work frames philosophical questions in an absurd and poetic sculptural manner informed by psychoanalytic theory, comparative religion and the long history of art. She has performed at Track 16, Post Gallery, Libertine and Maiden LA in Los Angeles, Boxo Projects in Joshua Tree, and at the Contemporary Art Center in Santa Fe, NM. Residencies include Mountain School of the Arts LA, Largo das Artes Rio de Janeiro, and The American Academy in Rome.

She has also worked extensively in the contemporary art world, as co-owner of Silo Art, a business serving collectors; gallery assistant for the Lannan Foundation; associate director at James Kelly Contemporary; director of William Shearburn Gallery; and exhibitions and publications coordinator at SITE Santa Fe. She holds a BA in art history from Mills College and an MA in the Philosophy of Media from European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Ann Landi

The Wright Contemporary Gallery in Taos Ann Landi, gallery director, in conversation with artist Donald Martiny at Madison Gallery, La Jolla, CA.

Read Ann's essays, profiles, and reportage on: Vasari21.com

Gallery News

The Wright Contemporary Art Gallery in Taos
The Wright Contemporary is a gallery in Taos, NM, dedicated to the arts and artists of northern New Mexico.
HOURS
Tuesday through Sunday, 2 to 6 PM

LOCATION
627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur
Taos, New Mexico 87571
(575) 224-0530

Instagram

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I first met Amy Cowart a few weeks ago when she vi I first met Amy Cowart a few weeks ago when she visited the gallery and told me she was working with an artist in Albuquerque whom I had profiled for Vasari21, Ed Haddaway. She’s organizing his archives, putting his studio in order, and helping streamline the business end of his practice. She is such a vibrant presence and seems to have a good handle on what she’s doing, and so I asked her to give a talk at the Wright about archiving. What it entails and in what ways it’s helpful to artists, Cowart holds a BA in printmaking from Baylor University and an M.A. in art history, criticism, and conservation from the University of New Mexico. Expect about 45 minutes of solid info with questions and answers after. That’s at 4 pm this Saturday the 25th. Please rsvp to ann@thewrightcontemporary.com so I can get a head count. #thewrightcontemporary #santafeartists #taosartists #vasari21
I first became acquainted with Phillis Ideal’s i I first became acquainted with Phillis Ideal’s iPhone prints a few years ago, when she asked me to write an essay about them, and I happily agreed. So allow me to quote myself: To realize these, the artist downloaded and mastered an app known as Zen Brush and created a series of drawings that recall ink of graphite works by the “founding fathers” of gestural painting—Pollock, Gorky, de Kooning, et al. What is remarkable is the range of effects achieved on a tiny cell-phone screen, from snaking lines that look like they should have been made with a sweep of the arm to subtle tones that range from pale gray to blackest black.
These are one-of-a-kind images and in their unexpected collisions and suggestive shapes, they relate to the artist’s other works, but the iPhone prints, most about 34 by 22 inches framed (and a bargain at $1800) have an elegance and a wit all their own. And though they are made with the most up-to-the-minute tools available, they still show the unmistakable evidence of the human hand—a quality that connects them with drawings made by artists from the Stone Age right up to the present. They are at the Wright Contemporary through April 9. Come for a look, Wednesday through Sunday, 2 to 6. #thewrightcontemporary #vasari21 #santafeartists #iphonedrawings
Please join us for a celebration of J.S. Bach’s Please join us for a celebration of J.S. Bach’s birthday on Sunday March 19th with Ken Boiarsky at the Wright Contemporary in Taos. Those of you who attended Ken’s concert on the electronic keyboard in December know that he presents an engaging informal mix of the classics with some astute historical background and observations. In honor of Bach’s birthday (March 21, 1985), he will offer selected works and include a discussion of the last piece of the maestro, which he wrote on his deathbed (Contrapunctus VXIII of Die Kunst der Fuge. Expect an hour of sheer delight. That’s Sunday at 4 p.m. This event is free but please RSVP to ann@thewrightcontemporary so that I can get a head count (This is Ken at the organ he built in his Taos home….obviously we don’t have those kinds of pipes at the gallery). #thewrightcontemporary #taosartists #vasari21 #taosconcerts
Three works by the remarkable Tom Martinelli from Three works by the remarkable Tom Martinelli from the exhibition “Ideal & Martinelli” at the Wright Contemporary through April 9. These show the range of his adventures in painting over the years, and none is larger than 24 by 18 inches, but all pack an enormous punch. Come have a look at the careers of these two dedicated and talented artists (the other is Phillis Ideal). I will be bringing you more in the weeks ahead, but you can check out the real deal at 627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur in Taos, NM, Wednesday-Sunday, 2 to 6 pm. #thewrightcontemporary #santafeartists #taosartists #vasari21
She may not be everyone’s idea of a powerful wom She may not be everyone’s idea of a powerful woman or a good female role model, but the legendary (and presumably fictional) Carmen surely exploited her talents to the max. So let’s just say it’s in honor or International Women’s Month that we’re showing Carlos Saura’s movie “Carmen,” choreographed and starring Antonio Gades (sad, but I can’t find the name of the female dancer who plays the lead anywhere online). Join us at the Wright Contemporary Saturday at 3 pm to watch this flamenco ballet based on Bizet’s classic opera. The event is free, but please RSVP to ann@thewrightcontemporary.com so I can get a head count. #vasari21 #thewrightcontemporary
At the opening for "Ideal & Martinelli" at the Wri At the opening for "Ideal & Martinelli" at the Wright Contemporary last night. That's Tom Martinelli in the center of the first photo; Phillis Ideal at far right in the second; Larry Bell in the main gallery in the third; and the lost Musketeer in the last shot (he may have wandered into the wrong set). Fab evening, great painting, come visit. Wednesday-Sunday, 2 to 6, 627 Paseo del Pueblo, Sur, Taos, NM #thewrightcontemporary #taosartists #santafeartists
Tom Martinelli and Phillis Ideal are two artists I Tom Martinelli and Phillis Ideal are two artists I’ve been following since I moved to northern New Mexico more than a decade ago. Both are committed to a kind of rigorous, though often lyrical, abstraction, and both have produced some outstanding work over the years. The Wright Contemporary is pleased to present mini-surveys of both artists through April 9, with an opening on Saturday, March 4, from 3 to 5. Come visit us at 627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur in Taos, NM, 2 to 6, Wednesday through Sunday. The first two paintings are by Phillis, and Tom is the author of the second two. #Santafeaartists #thewrightcontemporary #vasari21
I did a Zoom talk with David Chickey, publisher of I did a Zoom talk with David Chickey, publisher of Radius Books in Santa Fe, a little more than a year ago, and was so impressed I wanted to invite him to the Wright almost as soon as we opened our doors. Here’s what The Wall Street Journal had to say about his endeavors: “Monographs produced by or in collaboration with artists have a long history of formal experimentation, one that stretches from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience to Tom Sachs’s Monday, a duct tape and cardboard collage produced in multiple. Since starting Radius in 2007, Chickey has worked with the….Doug Wheeler, Lee Friedlander, Marlene Dumas and many others, his main contributions being an obsessive attention to materials and the way he attempts to lay bare the artists’ creative process. ‘Doing the right thing in the right way for an artist—sometimes there’s magic in it,’” he says. Chickey will be giving a talk at the Wright on Saturday February 25 at 3 p.m. with questions and answers after. Like all our events, this one is free, but please rsvp to ann@thewrightcontemporary.com so that I can get a head count. We're at 627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur in Taos, NM. #thewrightcontmporary #vasari21 #santafeartist #taosartist
Even as I push forward with The Wright Contemporar Even as I push forward with The Wright Contemporary, bringing you beautifully curated shows of artists from northern New Mexico, as well as a full slate of lectures, panels, and films, I continue to find time to scribble Eat My Memoir, my ongoing series on Substack. Lately I am turning to fiction, because even I need a break from myself, and have published the first part of a story called “Three Women.” If you will go to any post at alandi.substack.com, you can sign on for FREE by scrolling halfway down. If you stick with the series I will eventually tell you an interesting story about Picasso’s “Three Women at the Spring” (shown here), which involves Françoise Gilot (still alive at 102!), cranky art historian Leo Steinberg, and the maestro himself. #thewrightcontemporary #eatmymemoir #vasari21
There are only two weeks left for the drop-dead go There are only two weeks left for the drop-dead gorgeous “Botanicals” show at the Wright Contemporary. I’ve decided it’s perfectly okay, especially in cold snowy weather, to like things that are simply stunning to look at. If you need a little tropical uplift, come spend some time with Robbie Steinbach’s lush photos of Hawaiian vegetation, like the ones here. They are archival pigment prints on wood panels, 20 by 16 inches each, and a steal at $600. The gallery is open Wednesday-Sunday, 2 to 6, and by appointment. 627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur. #thewrightcontemporary #taosartists #vasari21
Magritte's "Lovers." No comment. Magritte's "Lovers." No comment.
Sandra Filippucci, “Ukraine Flower Series,” at Sandra Filippucci, “Ukraine Flower Series,” at Five Points Arts Gallery in Torrington, CT, through March 11, 2023. If you are in the area, run don’t walk! Amazing mixed-media works on panel, a whole new direction for the artist, and damn! I’m proud of her. #vasari21
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