Site Santa Fe

Site Santa Fe
Onehandclapping · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Name	Site Santa Fe
Established	1995
Location	Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Director	Lisa Harrell
Type	Contemporary art museum

Site Santa Fe is a contemporary art institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico, known for commissioning, exhibiting, and publishing new work by national and international artists. Founded in the mid-1990s, the institution has presented experimental exhibitions, large-scale commissions, and public programs that connect local audiences with global contemporary art practice. Site Santa Fe operates within a network of museums, biennials, and arts organizations across North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

History

Site Santa Fe was founded in 1995 amid a period of expansion for contemporary art institutions alongside entities such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, New Museum, and Tate Modern. Early leadership drew comparisons to initiatives at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Basel, Serpentine Galleries, Haus der Kunst, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao for commissioning new works. Over time Site Santa Fe hosted artists associated with exhibitions like the Venice Biennale, Documenta, Liverpool Biennial, São Paulo Art Biennial, and Sharjah Biennial. Directors and curators have come from institutions including Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Pompidou, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. The institution’s projects intersected with the practices of artists linked to Yayoi Kusama, Cindy Sherman, Anish Kapoor, Tracey Emin, Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, Tino Sehgal, Olafur Eliasson, Kara Walker, Theaster Gates, Kehinde Wiley, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tacita Dean, Julie Mehretu, Stan Douglas, El Anatsui, Rashid Johnson, Doris Salcedo, Jenny Holzer, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois, Donald Judd, and Robert Smithson in broader dialogues within contemporary art.

Architecture and Facilities

Site Santa Fe’s facilities have been part of discussions alongside architectural works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, I. M. Pei, Luis Barragán, Adolf Loos, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Santiago Calatrava, Richard Meier, Philip Johnson, Antoni Gaudí, Jean Nouvel, Oscar Niemeyer, Eero Saarinen, Arne Jacobsen, Charles and Ray Eames, Louis Kahn, Alvar Aalto, Gunnar Asplund, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Sven Markelius, Daniel Libeskind, Moshe Safdie, Paul Rudolph, Erik Gunnar Asplund, Harry Seidler, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Ben van Berkel, Shigeru Ban, Kazuyo Sejima, Kengo Kuma, Rafael Moneo, SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), Gensler, OMA, and Herzog & de Meuron. The building offers gallery spaces, a project room, learning studios, and an auditorium used for talks and performances by visiting curators and artists. Site Santa Fe’s campus has also functioned as a venue for performances and installations that reference precedents at The Kitchen, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, British Council, Brentano's, Frick Collection, and Neue Nationalgalerie.

Exhibitions and Programs

Site Santa Fe is known for thematic exhibitions and biennial-scale projects comparable to the Whitney Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, Berlin Biennale, Biennale of Sydney, Ibero-American Biennial, Prague Biennale, Marrakech Biennale, and Taipei Biennial. Past programs have included collaborations with curators from Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Serralves Museum, Kunstverein, Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Fondazione Prada, Museo Tamayo, Museo Jumex, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Pinault Collection, Kunsthalle Zürich, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, MAXXI, Kunstmuseum Basel, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Dallas Museum of Art. The institution commissions new work across media including installation, performance, sound art, video, painting, sculpture, and new media, engaging artists who have exhibited at Serpentine Pavilion, Frieze Art Fair, Art Basel, Armory Show, Documenta 14, X Biennial of Havana, Triangle Arts, The Shed, Dia Art Foundation, MoMA PS1, ICA Philadelphia, CAM St. Louis, Hammer Museum, LACMA, BAM, Lincoln Center, and Festival d'Automne à Paris.

Education and Community Engagement

Education and community programs at Site Santa Fe align with public-facing initiatives seen at Smithsonian Institution, New-York Historical Society, American Folk Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, El Museo del Barrio, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, Dallas Museum of Art’s Studio, Oakland Museum of California, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Turner Contemporary, and Queens Museum. Programs include artist talks, panel discussions, workshops, youth outreach, and partnerships with regional universities and tribal institutions such as University of New Mexico, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Institute of American Indian Arts, Northern New Mexico College, New Mexico Highlands University, and local school districts. Collaborations have involved cultural organizations like New Mexico Museum of Art, Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Palace of the Governors, Lensic Performing Arts Center, Meow Wolf, and City of Santa Fe.

Collections and Acquisitions

While primarily project-based and focused on commissions and temporary exhibitions, Site Santa Fe has developed an acquisitions and archives program that documents exhibitions and editions similar to practices at Archives of American Art, Getty Research Institute, MoMA Library, British Library, Getty Museum, National Gallery of Art Library, Tate Archive, Smithsonian American Art Museum, European Union National Institutes for Culture, Princeton University Art Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Columbia University Libraries, Stanford University Libraries, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The institution maintains records, catalogues, and limited acquisition holdings that support scholarship and loans to institutions such as Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, Museo Nacional de Antropología (Mexico City), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Centre for Architecture, and Bogotá Museum of Modern Art.

Governance and Funding

Site Santa Fe is governed by a board of trustees and executive leadership model similar to governance structures at The Getty Trust, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Walmart Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Kresge Foundation, Knight Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lannan Foundation, McCune Charitable Foundation, Helena Rubinstein Foundation, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, and State of New Mexico. Funding sources combine membership, earned revenue, philanthropic support, foundation grants, corporate partnerships, and government grants from entities like NEA and private donors associated with arts philanthropy networks such as Art Dealers Association of America, International Council of Museums, Association of Art Museum Directors, and Independent Curators International.

Category:Art museums and galleries in New Mexico