Suspension

Our border context is built into who we are, and recent initiatives with contemporary art—the Border Biennial, La Frontera convening, After Posada: Revolution exhibition, commissioned artworks by Andrea Bowers and Jaime Carrejo, exhibitions of artwork by Antonio Castro and Gloria Osuna Perez, upcoming project with Juarez-based Animales de Poder—hone in on that from various perspectives.

If art makes me feel good, it is meaningful.

As … images have this power of re-interpretation, keeping even the most antique or contemporary of subject and materials alive, vital. Like a great relationship, meaningful art has [the] ability to regenerate.

Art is truly life and it’s disconcerting when people mistake mere decoration or pretty stuff with art.

The El Paso Museum of Art proudly houses the nation’s second-largest collection of artwork by Tom Lea (1907-2001), beloved El Pasoan and prominent early Texas draftsman, muralist, author, and war correspondent. The collection includes landscape paintings, portraits, drawings, and ephemera, including the sketchbook Lea carried with him while working as a World War II artist correspondent for LIFE magazine. A number of Lea’s paintings–including Sarah, the 1939 portrait of his wife–are on view in the museum’s newly renovated Early Texas Art Gallery, located on the second floor.

Great question! Some walls in the museum are not suitable for hanging art because they have obstructions or distractions, like light switches or fire prevention circuitry. Over the last year we have been making small adjustments where we can to maximize hang-able space. Did you know we have 35,000 square feet of exhibition and programming space?

We are always considering questions like “Why do this right now here?” and “How will this serve our communities, our visitors?” We remain vital to the cultural ecosystem in the region by presenting a variety of exhibitions, programs, and ideas that those of us living in the area would not otherwise be able to access. Examples of this include our Border Biennial, last year’s exhibition Power and Piety featuring Spanish Colonial Art from Venezuela, and the upcoming exhibition Luces y Sombras: Images of Mexico.

A special encounter and yet with each … visit a fresh revelation is fueled by the image, material or context.

It captures a time, place, or passion.

As Edmund Wilson said “No two persons have read the same book” and no person sees the same image twice.

[If] something … poses more questions than it answers.

Art is a form of human expression, and the creative act is most meaningful to the creator.

We wish the museum had an industrial kitchen, so that we could have a café! In lieu of that, visit the store for pop-ups with local merchants selling refreshments like cold-brewed coffee and other treats.

To me as an artist, the meaning relies on a Symbiotic Relationship, affecting any or all senses

We are always looking to expand our audiences! That being said, we are proud to say that a majority of our visitors are Latino.

We have over 7,000 treasures and only 35,000 square feet of exhibition and programming space! At any given time about 5% of our permanent collection is on view, which is average for a collecting art museum.

Its aesthetic, cultural and universal worth is relative.