Hindsight Insight 5.0 is the final installment of the UNM Art Museum’s hybrid project and exhibition space devoted to complicating existing narratives about racism, colonialism, and gender stereotypes while de-centering curatorial authority and institutional voice.

Hindsight Insight 5.0 concludes the exhibition series by imagining the galleries as a laboratory, demonstrating how research and experimentation are put into action through projects at the intersection of art and science.

Created and curated by museum staff and collaborators, the exhibition features new artwork by five contemporary artists affiliated with the University of New Mexico and one object from the museum’s permanent collection: a nineteenth century album of microscopic photographs of the natural world.

"The intention behind this ongoing experimental project is to honor and engage student and faculty perspectives, interests, and concerns to make art relevant and alive for the UNM Art Museum’s core audience. From Spring 2023 through Fall 2024, the museum staff has developed multiple iterations that engage the university community to generate critical dialogue that resists static presentation and fixed interpretations."

-Mary Statzer, Curator of Prints & Photographs

Created & Curated By:
Fiona Bell
Kaitlin Bryson
Rachel Cox
Susan Hyde Holmes
Steven Hurley
Breanna Kappel
Joseph McKee
Amy Pilling
Andrea Polli
Mary Statzer

Hindsight Insight 5.0 features new artwork by five contemporary artists affiliated with UNM and one object from the permanent collection: a nineteenth-century album of microscopic photographs of the natural world. While previous iterations of Hindsight Insight have displayed dozens of artworks from the collection, the final installment of the series demonstrates that a single historical object can inspire individual artists as well as an entire exhibition.

Microphotographs Presented to the Royal Institute of Chemistry by Henry Droop Richmond was included in a study room visit for students in Andrea Polli’s spring 2023 class. The photographs depict various types of algae, micro-organisms, molds, fungi, plant fibers, vegetable tissues, animal tissues, starch granules, blood corpuscles, parasites, and crystals, all at 35x to 1100x magnification. Visually compelling and open to interpretation, it is the anchor and catalyst for this exhibition.

The Main Gallery features a group exhibition by artists Fiona Bell, Kaitlin Bryson, Amy Pilling, and Andrea Polli, all of whom engage with biomaterials and sustainable practices. Material exploration is key to Hindsight Insight 5.0. Bioplastics made from agar and prickly pear cactus, glass, water, clay, and clay-dough made from eggs, leaves, and orange peel take on an array of forms. Natural organisms like spirulina algae and kombucha SCOBY are also on view so that visitors may contemplate their inherent natural beauty and potential to feed, nourish, and inspire us.

Throughout the semester, Bryson will use the museum as a classroom for the course Art & Ecology/Material Practice, with students contributing their own artwork to the exhibition.

The title of the exhibition references the care the artist took when making decisions about how and when to create a family, the compassion she and her life partner Matt Iserman showed each other as they navigated the difficult process of in vitro fertilization (IVF), and the self-care Cox administered to her own body, emotions, and sense of self.

Representation is important for Cox; these photographs depict a medical procedure that is rarely observed by the public or depicted in the media, yet over 300,000 people in the United States underwent IVF cycles in 2020 alone, according to the Center for Disease and Control. By making her own body and treatment visible, Cox’s photographs serve as sources of information and comfort.
Notes on Care links to Hindsight Insight 5.0 through microphotography and further explores the intersection of science and art. The exhibition features three microscopic photographs taken by a technician in a fertility clinic that Cox claims as her own, honoring and infusing them with equal value, meaning, and care.

Rachel Cox has worked primarily in image-based media on two long-term personal projects, exploring the American funeral industry and the reproductive healthcare system. Cox holds an MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico and currently lives in Iowa City, IA, where she is Assistant Professor of Photography at The University of Iowa.

Cox’s photographs have been exhibited in museums and photo fairs in the US and abroad, including the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; The Houston Center for Photography; The Belfast International Photography Festival; The Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Museo Amparo, Pueblo, Mexico; and Photo London. Her work has been collected by more than a dozen museums, including The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, and Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco. She also has an active editorial career, with publishing credits in GUP International Photography Magazine, Vice Magazine, The Huffington Post, The British Journal of Photograph, The Guardian, and TIME.

Notes on Care will be on view in the UNM Art Museum’s Van Deren Coke Gallery from August 20 through December 7, 2024. We invite you to join us for an artist talk with Rachel Cox on Thursday, October 24, 2024. Visit our event calendar for more details

Print in Action: Lithography and the Modern World presents lithography as an agent of social, cultural, political, and artistic change. Spanning works in the UNMAM permanent collection from the early nineteenth century to the present, the exhibition is divided into six sections: Drawing on Stone, the Reproductive Print, Advertising, Travel, and Collaborative Printmaking and Lithography Today.

This exhibition was developed by Angel Jiang, Curator of Collections & Study Initiatives, in collaboration with Dr. Susanne Anderson-Riedel, Associate Professor of Art History at UNM, and her Spring 2024 History of Print II class. The class includes undergraduate and graduate students in Art History, Museum Studies, and the Tamarind Printer Training Program:

• Mar Arriaga
• Aniol Barris Cornet
• Andres Candelaria
• Hannah Cerne
• Teresa De Artinaño
• Anna Fiacco
• Ginny Fielding
• Alexander Jones
• Toryn Kelly
• Baahozohnii Bah Largo
• Eric Lucero
• Ava Moser
• Caroline Ongpin
• Nina Syaheda
• Kyra Zartner

Drawing on Stone
In the early 19th century, painters were drawn to lithography for its versatility, economy, and expressive potential. Traditional lithography allowed artists to draw directly on the surface of a smooth limestone matrix using greasy materials like crayon or ink. Printing with lithographic stones and presses made it possible to produce many copies of an image drawn directly by the artist onto stone quickly and efficiently. As a result, lithography became a popular medium for artists seeking to distribute their work in multiples.

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