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Museum of New Mexico - Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
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6 reviews for Museum of New Mexico - Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
This branch of the MNM - Museum of New Mexico (just one of four branches) is located on Camino Lejo and is known as the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture / Laboratory of Anthropology. The Museum of International Folk Art (a second branch of the MNM) is also located on Camino Lejo - fondly known as Museum Hill.
The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture used to be just simply the Laboratory of Anthropology - primarily a research facility with a small exhibit space. (When it was just the "Lab" I worked there for several years - I know every sub-basement, nook & cranny & every black widow spider!) Since it's expansion and face lift it now has a major exhibit space, but the archeological and anthropological research still happens here. They have a marvelous research library, that many a movie company has used to research background for some of the block-buster westerns we all know and love. Much of the excavation, research & publication done on the state's public lands for highway development was initiated in this facility and satellite offices.
If you want to know what's happening in archeology and anthropology around New Mexico this is the place to visit.
One of the highlights of my art venturing in Santa Fe, this museum packs a powerful punch. The coolest thing to me about it is (I don't know if it's the case all the time) that it displays both contemporary and traditional art. The vintage art that I saw there was amazing, but what really blew me away was the contemporary art. The Museum certainly provides the viewer with a new perspective. I will definitely check out what's happening here next time I am in town!
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AKA the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
Seriously a cool place with absolutely beautiful things. I went through a turquoise faze after coming here. Just beautiful things that are curated quite well.
The cafe and gift shop were well staffed and very nice too.
People thought this was:
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Chris is part native american so I chose to visit this museum to humor him. As it turns out it was a fascinating way to spend a couple hours in Santa Fe. It also creates the allusion of me being a thoughtful and loving girlfriend, which I am so not.
I wrote the following to describe the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in Washington, DC, but it also applies to this museum:
I can only describe the NMAI on the Mall by contrast to the American Indian museums in Santa Fe, New Mexico. NMAI shares with the two Santa Fe Indian museums the goal of showing art and culture from a contemporary Indian perspective. In the NMAI on the mall, this is done in a sketchy, impressionistic way. Artifacts seem to be piled together, and it's hard to find out who made them. There's also a lot of Political Correctness involved.
In Santa Fe, the museums try to achieve these goals by involving many ordinary members of the local Indian communities; by displaying panels (and having recordings) of Indians' memories; by showing ancient Indian dwellings side by side with typical homes/apartments on the current Indian Reservation; by showing art expressing such things as how Indians feel about products that use Indians in their logos (like did you ever notice the logo on Land O'Lakes butter?) The ancient artifacts are shown with reverence, but also with historic context.
Here's a major contrast: in one of the Santa Fe museums, a whole room shows tribe-by-tribe the pottery in historic context. Frank acknowledgement is given to the role of the tourist industry in re-invigorating the old pottery ways. The museum in DC is skittish about frankly talking about the relationship of the Indians to the outsiders and tourists, or by talking about one tribe at a time, while the history is much more head-on in Santa Fe.
That said: NMAI is a fascinating museum, and its restaurant is by far the most interesting one on the mall.
And that said, the museum in Santa Fe is one of the most effective presentations of another culture that I've ever encountered.
This is a great place to learn about the native cultures of New Mexico. It is very well detailed with many exhibits.
