New Mexico State University Art Museum director Marisa Sage will join a statewide panel discussion hosted by 516 ARTS focusing on the importance of curating feminist artwork. 516 ARTS is a non-collecting, contemporary art museum located in Albuquerque.

Sage joins four other New Mexico women curators for the panel discussion, “Women Curate Women.” The discussion will begin at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9 via Zoom.

New Mexico is home to four women-centered art exhibitions across the state: “Labor: Motherhood and Art in 2020,” curated by Sage at the NMSU Art Museum; “Feminisms,” guest curated by Andrea R. Hanley at 516 ARTS, “Indelible Ink: Native Women, Printmaking, Collaboration,” curated by Mary Statzer at the University of New Mexico Art Museum; and “Feminist Art in the Age of Trump,” curated by Lucy Lippard at Axle Contemporary in Santa Fe.

Sage, Hanley, Statzer and Lippard will be joined by moderator Lauren Tresp, a publisher and editor of Southwest Contemporary in Santa Fe.

"I think this panel says a great deal about our current social political environment that four New Mexico Museums and contemporary spaces simultaneously see the urgency in recognizing the underrepresentation of femme identifying women and mothers in our collections and exhibitions,” Sage said.

The panelists will focus on exploring feminist themes in their shows including the value of gender-based art exhibitions, the cultural and economic circumstances negotiated by female artists and curators and how art can serve as a departure point for the cause of social justice.

“Hopefully one day equality will create the conditions that allow us to forget gender,” Sage said. “But until then it is our institutional imperative to recognize there are structural issues within our programming, collecting and societal practices which tends to leave women’s voices out of art history and our contemporary dialogue.

“All of the women on this panel see it as their duty to support and amplify marginalized artists and give a platform to contemporary movements in feminism. I am proud to be one of these curators and directors.”

This event is in conjunction with a new initiative spearheaded by the Feminist Art Coalition, a national effort seeking to inspire a broad variety of exhibitions and programs across the country to centralize feminist perspectives.

To pre-register for the panel, email viola@516arts.org.