SANTA FE, NM.- The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation announces the opening of a new 3,500 square-foot space for experiencing contemporary art in the Santa Fe Railyard District. Art Vault is dedicated to sharing the Foundation’s world-class collection of digital, electronic, virtual, and new media artworks, curated in thematic exhibitions.
Art Vault at 540 South Guadalupe Street is the only digital art collection open to the public in the Southwest, and one of very few in the United States. Artworks from the Thoma Foundation collection are on view year-round, rotating seasonally. There is no admission fee, and school and group tours are available by appointment.
Featured exhibitions will include emerging and mid-career artists alongside internationally renowned pioneers of video sculpture, self-taught computer artists, and influential digital time-based media artists. Large-scale digital and video installations invite viewers to broaden their understanding of technology with innovative perspectives on the human experience.
Art Vault will take the place of The Thoma Foundation’s Art House, at 231 Delgado Street in Santa Fe, which will transition to the Foundation’s main office location.
Founder Carl Thoma’s vision to bring larger, more accessible works of digital and media art to the international art hub of Santa Fe has been realized. “We are thrilled to increase our cultural contribution to the vibrant visual arts scene in Santa Fe. With Art House, we established the foremost digital art exhibition space in the Southwestern United States, and now we’ve transitioned into a building with three times the exhibition space in the Railyard Arts District, the center of Santa Fe’s contemporary art scene.”
Quick Look: Art Vault Santa Fe
• 540 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Nonprofit gallery and public exhibition space
• 36 contemporary and traditional artworks in the debut exhibitions
• In the heart of the Santa Fe Railyard Arts District
• 3,500 square feet of exhibition space on 2 floors
• Admission is free to the public
• Hours: Thursday-Saturday 10am to 5pm
Art Vault opens with two exhibitions showcasing 36 artworks from the Thoma Foundation collection spanning the 18th to 21st centuries.
The Art Vault entrance on Guadalupe Street brings viewers directly into the first-floor exhibition space containing Networked Nature, an exhibition of Digital & Media artworks that connect with nature’s creative energy. Artworks on this floor feature artists’ pioneering approaches to artificial intelligence, machine learning, real-time software, custom algorithms, and virtual environments.
Filling the second floor of Art Vault, the 15 works in Saint Somebody are curated on the theme of sacred people and icons in global societies, with artwork from the 1700s through the present from the Thoma Foundation core collection of Digital & Media Art, Art of the Spanish Americas, Post-War Painting & Sculpture, and Southwest Contemporary.Throughout this floor, traditional religious icons such as Saint Catherine are considered beside modern icons like Britney Spears and Wonder Woman.
Exhibition artists include José Armijo, Dara Birnbaum, Nancy Burson, Jim Campbell, Daniel Canogar, Harold Cohen, R. Luke DuBois, Guillermo Galindo, Carla Gannis, Ja’Tovia Gary, John Gerrard, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Desmond Paul Henry, Gary Hill, Madeline Hollander, Christian Marclay, Bruce Nauman, Thiago Rocha Pitta, Martin Reinhart & Virgil Widrich, Miguel Ángel Ríos, Jason Salavon, Peter Sarkisian, Hiraki Sawa, Elias Sime, Cauleen Smith, Sommerer & Migonneau, Anne Spalter, Jennifer Steinkamp, Siebren Versteeg, Bill Viola, Saya Woolfalk, and an unidentified artist from 18th-century Cuzco, Peru.
