MIAC/Lab Exhibitions

The exhibitions at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture showcase the museum's pioneering approach to the interpretation of Native American arts and culture. Developed through active partnership between Native and non-Native people, the museum's permanent, temporary, online, and traveling exhibitions promote the message that Indian cultures are complex, diverse, steeped in tradition, and very much alive.

Comic Art Indigène
Comic Art Indigène examines how American Indian artists articulate identity, reclaim stereotypes, worldview, politics, and culture through the kinetic expression of sequential art. Inspired by this unique medium, using its icons, tropes and dynamism, this is a new world of American Indian art, full of the brash excitement first seen on newsprint a century ago, sometimes unrefined, even crude at times, but never sterile.

Bare Nation
Ten students from the Institute of American Indian Art's sculpture program will present their work in the school's sixth annual sculpture exhibition in the museum's Roland Sculpture Garden. The exhibition, "Bare Nation: Sculptors from IAIA," opens to the public on Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. and will remain on view for one year.

Native Couture: A History of Santa Fe Style
In the 1970's & 80's Dicky Pfaelzer epitomized the Santa Fe Style and this exhibition honors her and examines how this particular style has developed into a 21st century Santa Fe Style by Native American couturiers. Stunning jewelry that span over 100 years of jewelry-making traditions complement Santa Fe Style clothing from the 1970's to the chic fashions of some of New Mexico's hottest contemporary Native American designers.

Here, Now & Always
A major exhibition based on eight years of collaboration among Native American elders, artists, scholars, teachers, writers and museum professionals.

The Buchsbaum Gallery of Southwestern Pottery
The ceramic history of two millennia of pottery making in Pueblo communities of the Southwest, plus the work of contemporary artists and their families.

Travels With my Aunt
"Travels With my Aunt" tells of a unique collection of objects acquired by Sue Bacharach (1902–1999), a woman whose love of travel was exceeded only by her discerning eye for collectibles. During excursions to the American Southwest from the late 1920s through the 1950s, Sue assembled the 254 pieces that now comprise the Bacharach/von Preissig Collection. This collection, gifted to the museum in 1991, is unusual among museum collections in that it is made up entirely of art created for the tourist market.

Roads to the Past: Fifty Years of Highway Archaeology
During the past fifty years, the state of New Mexico's highway archaeology program has recorded thousands of sites and conducted excavations at hundreds. Roads to the Past describes the history of the highway archaeology program and provides a glimpse of the contributions the program has made to our knowledge of the past 8,000 years of New Mexico history.

Touched by Fire: The Art, Life, and Legacy of Maria Martinez
This online exhibition complements the temporary exhibition of the same name and showcases the life and work of the legendary San Ildefonso potter who forever changed the world of Indian art.

Tourist Icons: Native American Kitsch, Camp, and Fine Art Along Route 66
Highlights Native American art and artifacts of the Route 66 era.

The Buchsbaum Gallery of Southwestern Pottery
This online introduction highlights some of the themes in the permanent exhibit as well as a few of the most spectacular objects.

Weaving in the Margins: Navajo Men as Weavers
Weaving in the Margins: Navajo Men as Weavers was exhibited at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture from June 13 through September 5, 1999. This online version of Weaving in the Margins introduces the lives and work of the nine male weavers who who participated in the exhibition.

Keystone of the Arch: The Stewart Collection
The Keystone of the Arch: The Stewart Collection, a temporary exhibit on display through February 18, 2001, includes some of the most significant objects in the collection of Philip and Frances Stewart.