NHCC News:
ALBUQUERQUE — This summer, the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) will welcome a new art exhibition that celebrates an art form that often goes underappreciated but acts as a great marker of place in so many communities: street art.
“Street art and murals have been a core part of our soul in communities ranging from East LA to Juarez to the Center’s home in Barelas,” NHCC Executive Director Zack Quintero said. “Street art and mural art add color, vibrancy, and a way for us to express our culture for all to see and respect. For that reason, it’s a tremendous honor to showcase an exhibition that explores that tradition across the United States and Mexico.”
Opening Friday, June 7 at the NHCC Visual Art Museum, Convergence x Crossroads: Street Art from the Southwest highlights the beauty and ingenuity of the street art scenes across the American Southwest and in Northern Mexico. The exhibition explores the webs that connect graffiti art, murals, and practices of placemaking in predominantly Hispanic and Latinx neighborhoods through a collection of more than 90 individual works of art.
“The NHCC Visual Arts team works to challenge binary understandings of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art through the artworks we display, and Convergence x Crossroads is a perfect example,” said NHCC Art Museum Curator Rebecca Gomez, who is curating the upcoming exhibition. “Through the work of artists using primarily spray paint as their medium, all types of surfaces are transformed, the architecture that surrounds us takes on a new life, and the landscapes of our daily lives change overnight.”
Often considered ‘outsider art,’ street art holds a unique and somewhat contested place in the art world. Many artists working in the medium began by tagging buildings and exploring graffiti and choose to remain anonymous and work in the dark of night as their works often go up in “illegal” locations. Because of that, many artists in the field have complicated relationships with museums and the nuance of their work has, at times, been overlooked. Convergence x Crossroads looks beyond the restraints of museums and related institutions, showing that at its core, street art is about skill and ingenuity, community accessibility, neighborhood reclamation, peer mentorship, and culture.
Convergence x Crossroads showcases a wide range of artwork from more than 30 artists who identify as Chicano/a/x, Latino/a/x, Indigenous, and Native American, working in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, and Northern Mexico. The more than 90 pieces of art on display vary by medium, from canvas, to painted records, to the adorned hood of a Chevrolet Impala. A blacklight room will showcase a specific artwork from a unique perspective. The work shows the wide variety of mediums, perspectives, and styles that are part of the street art and mural movement in the Southwest.
Moreover, the exhibition will provide a unique opportunity for the NHCC to collaborate with artists and community members in new ways in an effort to illuminate the significance of this artform at home and throughout the Southwest. Conversations with artists showcased in the exhibition offer an open dialogue around street art from this era.
Convergence x Crossroads is on view at the NHCC Visual Art Museum through Feb. 23, 2025. Visit https://www.nhccnm.org/exhibitions/ to learn more and buy tickets. This exhibition is generously supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
More about the National Hispanic Cultural Center
The National Hispanic Cultural Center is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and advancement of Hispanic culture, arts, and humanities. The NHCC presents mission-related events throughout the year, some produced by its history, literary, performing, and visual arts programs, and others by partnering with external organizations. Events take place at its 20-plus-acre campus, which includes a plaza, an art museum, a historically designated building, a library, and a genealogy center. The NHCC is a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and is further supported by the National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation.
