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# New Mexico Museum of Art Announces September Opening of Vladem Contemporary
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/new-mexico-museum-of-art-september-2023-opening-vladem-contemporary/
- Published: 2023-08-15T18:02:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:05:09.000Z
- Description: The newly reimagined space in the Santa Fe Railyard District presents its inaugural exhibition Shadow and Light.
- Author: New Mexico Museum of Art
- Tags: Announcement, Exhibition Announcement, New Mexico, Santa Fe, Sponsored, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:29 (2023, 2024, part 1)

[New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary](https://bit.ly/3OPwNr9?ref=hyperallergic.com) is a newly reimagined venue to showcase and house contemporary art from the collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Often large in scale and complex in materials, current art making practices require expanded solutions for display and storage. Through a creative and ambitious adaptive reuse renovation by DNCA + StudioGP of the former Joseph F. Halpin New Mexico State Records Center and Archives (previously the Charles Ilfeld Mercantile Company Warehouse) located in the Santa Fe Railyard District, the museum now has the capacity and the means to present cutting-edge contemporary art. Various programs designed to engage directly with artists aim to deepen the connection with art and artists living and working in the state of New Mexico.

Vladem Contemporary’s inaugural exhibition, [*Shadow and Light*](https://bit.ly/442pkJF?ref=hyperallergic.com) (September 23, 2023–April 28, 2024), uses the famed Southwestern light as a means to explore both the physical and metaphorical contrasts between light and darkness. Beginning with Transcendental Painting Group members such as Emil Bisttram and Florence Miller Pierce, who saw light as a symbol of transcendence, the exhibition will offer an examination of how contemporary artists use light and shadow as both physical media and conceptual ideas.

**To learn more, visit** [**nmartmuseum.org**](https://bit.ly/3OPwNr9?ref=hyperallergic.com)**.**

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2023/08/ortizvirgil_mitznopek.jpg)

Virgil Ortiz, “Jai Nopek” (2022), Recon Watchman, 41 x 31 x 17 inches; “Ha’pon (war shield)”, high-fire clay and glazes, 39 x 21 x 5 inches (© Virgil Ortiz, photo by Virgil Ortiz)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2023/08/2--pantaloncini-double-untitled-agnes-42648-pearl-corsage-pins-colored-dress-pins-fabric-steel-26-x-26-x-11-2019_detail.jpg)

Angela Ellsworth, “Pantaloncini Double Untitled (Agnes)” (detail) (2019), 42,648 pearl corsage pins, colored dress pins, fabric (image courtesy the artist and Modern West Fine Art)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2023/08/10--kusama-pumpkin.jpg)

Yayoi Kusama, “Pumpkin” (2015), stainless steel, urethane (image courtesy the Tia Foundation)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2023/08/23-07-vladem-contemporary-24.jpg)

Close up of the Vladem Contemporary facade (photo by Beau Sniderman)