Harwood Musuem - UNM UCAM Newsroom

UNM Harwood Museum of Art’s new exhibit explores the intersection of ancestry and the future through adobe art

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Harwood Museum of Art and Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center present Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros, now open through Feb. 28, 2027. Unearthing Futures is a major exhibition exploring adobe as a living practice that links art, architecture and ancestral knowledge across the Americas.

Bringing together some of the most significant artists working with earthen architecture and land-based practice today: Gabriel Chaile, Rafa Esparza, Santino Gonzales, Joanna Keane Lopez, Ronald Rael and Christine Howard Sandoval. The exhibition examines how earth, water and fiber, shaped by hand and sustained through communal care, embody both tradition and transformation.

Artist Ronald Rael's installation called "Adobe Oasis."

At an unprecedented scale for the Harwood Museum of Art, the exhibition physically transforms the building through monumental, site-responsive installations. Galleries are reconfigured by large-scale adobe structures, architectural interventions and immersive environments that alter circulation, sightlines and the museum's spatial experience.

Extending beyond the museum through partnerships with Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center and historic sites across New Mexico and southern Colorado, Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros unfolds as a region-wide constellation of projects that trace adobe’s pathways across landscapes and generations, revealing its role in shaping shared histories and possible futures.

Adobe, a building material made from earth, water, natural fiber and dried in the sun, has been in use for approximately 10,000 years and can be found across nearly every continent. Buildings made from adobe represent some of the oldest extant structures on the planet, sustained through collective care and land-based practice.

While the artists featured in Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros hail from regions across the Americas, from Argentina to northern California, the exhibition is grounded in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, where earthen building traditions continue as part of daily life. Here, adobe remains inseparable from place, shaped through Pueblo architecture, Hispano and Indo-Hispano devotional forms, and the cultural memory of borderlands, maintained through touch, care, and communal responsibility.

The state boundary between New Mexico and Colorado—an imposed colonial demarcation—draws an arbitrary division across a valley united by shared histories, cultural practices, and language. The exhibition rejects this line, defining the region by heritage rather than colonial imposition, embracing the continuity of these borderlands.

Two community-rooted guest curators shape major sections of the exhibition. Guadalupe Tafoya, an archivist of San Francisco de Asís Church and descendant of generations of enjarradoras, curates a gallery centered on devotional art and adobe architecture, honoring parishioners and the annual enjarre as practices of faith and collective care.

Deborah Lujan, an artist and member of Taos Pueblo, curates a gallery focused on Taos Pueblo as one of the oldest continuously inhabited earthen architectural sites in the Americas, including her own photography that addresses adobe as lived sovereignty and self-representation.

Opening Weekend

The opening of Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros marks the culmination of years of research, artistic exchange, and community collaboration across northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Harwood Museum of Art and Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center will celebrate the exhibition with a weekend of public programs featuring exhibiting artists, guest curators, music, food and community gatherings that invite audiences to engage directly with the ideas, relationships and living traditions at the heart of the project.

Friday, June 26

Press and VIP Preview

2 – 3 .p.m (RSVP to lilywoodbury@unm.edu)

Saturday, June 27

Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros Artist Panel 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (Ticketed )

Opening Celebration at Harwood Museum of Art:

4–8 p.m. Community Celebration with live music by Lone Piñon and Communities of Questa Mariachi

8–10 p.m. After-party with DJ Sonny Goodnight, Free and open to the public.

Sunday, June 28

Opening Celebration at Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center 10:00 am–2:00 pm. Free and open to the public.

Featured Artists

Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros positions adobe not as something fixed in the past, but as a living material through which communities continue to build, repair, gather, resist, and imagine—holding together questions of land, sovereignty, care, extraction, technological change, and collective futures across imposed borders and layered histories.

Artist Gabriel Chaile installation called "The Milk of Dreams"

The installations for this exhibition began with the artists gathering in Taos, entering into sustained time together and with those who continue adobe practices every day. Each artist arrived with their own adobe knowledge and cultural lineage; what unfolded was reciprocal exchange. Through visits to San Francisco de Asís church, la Hacienda de Los Martinez, Taos Pueblo, Ute Indian Agency, la Capilla de Viejo San Acacio, adobe yards, and kitchens, they shared techniques, histories of land and labor, and material knowledge carried across generations. The artworks in this exhibition arise from these relationships—carrying forward the lived knowledge exchanged in conversation, presence, and respect.

Gabriel Chaile (Argentina) creates a monumental adobe figure rooted in horno traditions and the zoomorphic ceramic lineages of northern Argentina, scaling the earthen oven into a vessel for gathering, nourishment, and collective dignity. Chaile’s work has been presented internationally, including at the Venice Biennale.
rafa esparza (California/Mexico) builds a large-scale adobe tunnel formed through collective labor—an immersive passage that folds histories of land, migration, and care into a speculative architecture of survival. esparza has been featured in major U.S. institutions, including the Whitney Biennial, and his work has been exhibited at museums such as the Hammer Museum and MASS MoCA.
Santino Gonzales (New Mexico) transforms adobe into a medium of transmission, embedding radio and sound technologies within earthen forms so memory and signal move through space and distance. A Dedalus Foundation Fellow, Gonzales’s installation and video works have been exhibited internationally and explore connections between land, technology, and speculative futures rooted in the New Mexican landscape.
Joanna Keane Lopez (New Mexico) presents Energetic Materials, a multimedia installation combining adobe construction, archival research, and video to examine the legacy of land use and militarization in New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin. Keane Lopez has exhibited nationally, including at SITE Santa Fe and The Momentary at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and has received support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Ronald Rael (Colorado/California) debuts LIMINAL, a site-specific threshold that reorients the Harwood’s entrance through robotically 3D-printed adobe—a contemporary fabrication method rooted in generational earthen building knowledge. Rael is a professor at UC Berkeley, and his work has been exhibited at institutions including Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and LACMA, and includes major public commissions such as Desert X.
Christine Howard Sandoval (Canada/California) works adobe by hand to trace the intertwined histories of the acequia, mission, and dam as colonial infrastructures—allowing the material to crack and shift as an assertion of land as living rather than fixed. Howard Sandoval has exhibited internationally, including at the Vancouver Art Gallery and El Museo del Barrio, New York, and is represented by parrasch heijnen.

To learn more about this exhibit, visit the Harwood Museum’s exhibition webpage.

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UNM's 2025 Year-in-Review highlights notable general news across campus

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 18:45:00 GMT

Each year, University Communication and Marketing (UCAM) curates a Year-in-Review that captures the stories shaping the University of New Mexico—from campus milestones to research making an impact. Below is a curated selection of UCAM Newsroom’s top general news stories of 2025, spotlighting the achievements and moments that defined the year for UNM students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Highlights range from the long-awaited return of stolen paintings to the Harwood Museum of Art more than four decades after their disappearance, to record-setting enrollment growth, an art-inspired road trip, and the demolition of the former Humanities building. The year also marked major moments in University life, including President Garnett Stokes’ retirement announcement and the reopening of the iconic UNM Duck Pond following its renovation.

Looking ahead, UCAM will release the 2025 UNM Health Sciences Year-in-Review next week, followed by the 2025 Research News Year-in-Review on Jan. 2, 2026.

FBI returns stolen paintings to UNM’s Harwood Museum of Art and Taos community 40 years after art heist
TAOS, N.M. – It has been a nearly forgotten, 40-year circuitous path for two brazenly stolen paintings to find their way back to gallery walls at Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico. Victor Higgins’ Aspens and Joseph Henry Sharp’s Oklahoma Cheyenne are, at long last, returned home in Taos, where both artists lived and worked for most of their careers. FBI Agents from its Santa Fe office delivered the stolen paintings to Harwood Museum of Art’s Collections Department on May 12, 2025, 14 months after agreeing to take the 39-year-old cold case.

UNM Board of Regents approves land conveyance for Lobo Crossing Retail Center
The University of New Mexico Board of Regents has approved the conveyance of approximately 38.06 acres of university-owned land to SimonCRE, a Phoenix-based commercial real estate developer, for the creation of the proposed Lobo Crossing Shopping Center. The site is located on the west side of University Boulevard, south of Sunshine Terrace and north of Gibson Boulevard.

UNM President appoints Dr. Mike Richards as executive vice president of Health Sciences
UNM President Garnett S. Stokes has announced the appointment of Dr. Mike Richards as the executive vice president of UNM Health Sciences and CEO of the UNM Health System, effective immediately. This decision comes after Richards' successful tenure as interim leader since August 2024.

UNM sets news records for enrollment growth, fall 2025 numbers show
For the fourth consecutive year, total enrollment is on the rise at The University of New Mexico, and for the sixth year in a row, first-year student registrations grew as well, according to data released for the fall 2025 semester. Total enrollment at the Albuquerque campus grew to 23,955 for fall 2025, an increase of 3.13% over last year’s total of 23,228. Total enrollment across all UNM campuses for fall 2025 stands at 28,285, an increase of 4.5% from last year.

Humanities building demolition makes way for state-of-the-art Humanities & Social Sciences Facility
Throughout the remainder of 2025, the Humanities Building located on the southern edge of Smith Plaza on UNM Central Campus will be demolished to make way for the new state-of-the-art Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) Facility. The demolition process began mid-July and was completed in late fall 2025. The new HSS Facility is scheduled to begin construction mid-year 2026 and is planned to be open for classes the fall semester of 2028.

Route 66 Remixed: An Art-Fueled Road Trip includes a stop at UNM's ARTS Lab
The University of New Mexico is taking part in one of the city’s most ambitious public art initiatives in decades—Route 66 Remixed, a cornerstone of Albuquerque’s Route 66 Centennial Celebration. The citywide project reimagines Albuquerque’s 18-mile stretch of the legendary highway through a collection of murals, sculptures, and cutting-edge augmented reality (AR) experiences, blending history, art, and innovation into an immersive celebration of culture.

Lobo Lift to launch, other ASUNM campus safety initiatives
The Associated Students of the University of New Mexico (ASUNM) are tackling the student complaint they receive the most—safety. The first item on their initiatives list is launching Lobo Lift in the spring. It will provide students who live on campus with a ride back to their dorm in the evenings after late classes.

UNM President Garnett S. Stokes announces retirement after eight years of transformative leadership
The University of New Mexico (UNM) announced today that President Garnett S. Stokes, the University’s 23rd president and the first woman to hold the position, will retire in July 2026. The UNM Board of Regents approved a six-month contract extension to ensure she remains in office through that date, providing continuity of leadership and steady progress on the University’s major initiatives during the transition.

UNM launches Feasibility & Development Plan Study to modernize University Stadium and develop South Campus
The University of New Mexico (UNM) is launching a comprehensive development planning and feasibility study to create a long-term vision and implementation action plan for modernizing University Stadium and revitalizing South Campus as a mixed-use, economic development district. The plan created through this process will outline modernization options for the stadium and explore development opportunities that benefit students, fans, and the community.

UNM professors publish rock climbing guidebook to support local recreation and safety
With ropes, notebooks, and a shared mission, two UNM professors have turned passion into purpose—developing new rock-climbing routes in the Sandias and publishing a guidebook to benefit mountain rescue teams and outdoor access across the state. Dr. Michael Russo, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and Benjamin Warner, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, recently co-authored Nova Canyon: A Rock Climber’s Guide, a community-driven climbing resource that also serves as a fundraising tool for outdoor safety.

UNM's Duck Pond reopens to campus community
Finally, University of New Mexico’s Duck Pond is officially open. UNM’s Duck Pond reopened amid a celebration featuring speakers, duck shaped cookies and buttons commemorating the reopening. The only thing missing was the ducks. Originally designed by Garrett Eckbo and completed in 1976, the Duck Pond has long been celebrated for its scenic beauty and thriving wildlife. It was initially created as a man-made urban water feature, but over its nearly five decades, it grew into a beloved landmark for the campus and even greater Albuquerque community.

Clarence Cruz leaves a lasting Native pottery legacy at UNM
If you've ever taken a traditional Native American pottery class at The University of New Mexico or gone hiking to gather natural earthen resources for making traditional Native pottery, chances are you've met Clarence Cruz. Cruz is Tewa from Ohkay Owingeh, formerly known as San Juan Pueblo. He is an associate professor of ceramics in the Art Department in UNM's College of Fine Arts.

Campus Watch: Community policing to help protect the pack
It’s a proven concept that The University of New Mexico hopes will strengthen communication, awareness, and shared responsibility to help ensure a safer campus. UNM’s latest safety initiative—Campus Watch—adapts the long-standing Neighborhood Watch model created by the National Sheriffs’ Association in the early 1970s, bringing its community-policing philosophy to a large, diverse urban university environment.

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'It’s (Probably) Not Rocket Science' returns for Season 3 with an intriguing art heist

Manuel Valdez — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 15:40:00 GMT

The University of New Mexico’s award-winning podcast, It’s (Probably) Not Rocket Science (IPRNS), returns for Season 3 this fall with an episode worthy of a best-selling detective novel.

It happened nearly 40 years ago when two paintings were stolen from UNM’s Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, N.M. The paintings have now been recovered and returned to the museum in what became a decades-long mystery that haunted the northern New Mexico community.

This episode of It’s (Probably) Not Rocket Science, titled “Two Paintings, 40 Years, One Unexpected Homecoming,” takes listeners to the Harwood Museum of Art where the “Harwood Heist” took place.

In 1985, at the time of the heist, the Harwood operated primarily as a public library. “The Aspens” by Victor Higgins and “Oklahoma Cheyenne” by Joseph Sharp were on display upstairs in the gallery. In March 1985, Jerry and Rita Alter walked into the library, and while Rita distracted the front desk worker, Jerry went upstairs and took the paintings, leaving only a piece of broken frame as a trace of “The Aspens.” There was no security in the library at the time. Ironically, then-curator David Witt was away at a security conference that day, pressing the university for better protections.

“Sure enough, the day he’s gone, some very infamous art thieves decided to take advantage of our situation,” said Juniper Leherissey, director of the Harwood.

Police and the FBI were contacted, and a report was filed. What was not known at the time was that the Alters would later be linked to other high-profile art thefts.

For years, many thought the paintings would never be found, until a writer’s breakthrough. Lou Schachter, author of the True Crime Road Trip blog, began digging into the Alters after following a story about a Willem de Kooning painting they stole in 1985 from the University of Arizona. That painting was later recovered in 2017, and a documentary titled “The Thief Collector” was made, now available on Peacock and Prime Video.

While researching auction records and the Alters’ estate in Cliff, New Mexico, Schachter spotted images of the Higgins and Sharp works belonging to the Harwood.

“I’m not an art detective,” Schachter said. “I’m not a reporter or any kind of journalist. I just, through sheer determination and force of will, connected dots that no one else had connected.”

Schachter quickly alerted Leherissey. Though skeptical, after looking through old police reports and records, it was confirmed that the works were indeed the stolen pieces.

“I definitely was skeptical,” Leherissey recalled. “They didn’t say they knew where they were, but they said, we think these works belong to the Harwood.”

In 2024, the FBI’s Art Crime Team opened a case. After coordinating with museum officials, in May 2025, the paintings were discovered, and the FBI personally returned them to the Harwood. The FBI did not disclose who purchased the paintings at auction or how they were recovered. The works now hang back on the walls as part of the permanent collection titled “Taos Treasures Returned.”

“It was really surreal … all this almost mythological story and then all of a sudden they’re here, they’re in the museum,” Leherissey said. “The former curator, David Witt, thought about those paintings every day for many years, and I’m so glad they’re back. It’s definitely a homecoming for them.”

In anticipation of their return, the museum echoed the University of Arizona’s tactic when the de Kooning painting was returned, hanging empty frames in the gallery. For Schachter, this case revealed the hidden world of art crime and how easily stolen pieces can end up in private collections.

“Art theft is much more common than people realize,” Schachter said.

For the Harwood, the return of “The Aspens” and “Oklahoma Cheyenne” helped restore cultural and community history. Higgins and Sharp were both key members of the Taos Society of Artists, a group of early 20th-century artists who helped northern New Mexico create its footprint in the art world.

“I think everyone loves a happy story of an art heist,” Leherissey said. “And it’s so intriguing to have these bizarre individuals who made a habit and a living off of taking advantage of smaller institutions.”

To hear the podcast episode about the Harwood Heist, listen to It’s (Probably) Not Rocket Science, available at podcast.unm.edu, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else you get your podcasts. You can also follow IPNRS on Instagram and TikTok.

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FBI returns stolen paintings to UNM’s Harwood Museum of Art and Taos community 40 years after art heist

Thu, 22 May 2025 13:47:00 GMT

Extensive FBI investigation results in the homecoming of two Taos treasures by Taos Society of Artists Victor Higgins and Joseph Henry Sharp Aspens and Oklahoma Cheyenne (also known as Indian Boy in Full Dress), stolen off Harwood Museum walls in 1985. The stolen works will be revealed to the public on June 6, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. MDT.

TAOS, N.M. – It has been a nearly forgotten, 40-year circuitous path for two brazenly stolen paintings to find their way back to gallery walls at Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico. Victor Higgins’ Aspens and Joseph Henry Sharp’s Oklahoma Cheyenne are, at long last, returned home in Taos, where both artists lived and worked for most of their careers.

FBI Agents from its Santa Fe office delivered the stolen paintings to Harwood Museum of Art’s Collections Department on May 12, 2025, 14 months after agreeing to take the 39-year-old cold case.

“It’s a joy—and a profound relief—to welcome these works by Victor Higgins and Joseph Henry Sharp back to the Harwood,” said Executive Director Juniper Leherissey, who was in elementary school when the 1985 heist took place, and a frequent visitor to the Harwood Public Library and its small gallery. “This homecoming means so much—not just to our staff, board, and members, but to the entire arts and cultural community of Taos. We can’t wait to celebrate their return with everyone.”

Higgins’ Aspens and Sharp’s Oklahoma Cheyenne will be unveiled to the public as part of the museum’s First Friday event on Friday, June 6, 2025, from 4 to 7 p.m. Admission is pay-what-you-wish.

Two Taos Society of Artists paintings reunited at last
Victor Higgins (1884-1949) and Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953), both influential members of the Taos Society of Artists, devoted their work to portraying the Southwest's landscape and culture. Higgins, who was on the Harwood’s founding Board in 1923, is celebrated for his expressive landscapes and modernist approach, which captured the unique light and atmosphere of New Mexico. Sharp, a founder of the Taos Society of Artists (TSA), depicted Indigenous cultures, producing portraits and scenes that emphasize a romanticized view of Pueblo culture. Harwood Museum will display these two paintings beginning June 6, 2025 as part of its The Return of Taos Treasures exhibition which reunites these long lost works with other pieces by Higgins and Sharp from the Harwood’s collection, celebrating the resilience of art and the enduring impact of these artists in shaping Taos as a center for creativity and cultural vibrancy.

Stolen works discovered by one investigative reporter
A single phone call by an investigative reporter in late 2023 to Executive Director Juniper Leherissey cascaded into a plethora of discoveries by the then 100-year-old institution’s leaders. LA-based writer and art theft sleuth, Lou Schachter informed Leherissey that he had uncovered substantial evidence connecting the dots to the theft of two prized TSA paintings from the walls of the museum’s second floor gallery on March 20, 1985. In 1985, Harwood was primarily a public library. The art heist of both oil paintings was a case that had long gone cold, and, for many, forgotten.

Harwood Museum’s Collections Manager, within a half-hour of Leherissey’s request, was able to find documents verifying details of the theft and documentation of due diligence reporting of the incident. The ‘Harwood Heist,’ as it has been called, Schachter explained to Leherissey, was incredibly similar to the well-publicized November 1985 theft of Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ocher from the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Rita and Jerry Alter of Cliff, New Mexico are profiled in the 2022 documentary The Thief Collector as the art thieves of Woman-Ocher, which was returned to University of Arizona’s art museum in 2017 after being a cold case for 32 years. In the film, a still photo of Jerry Alter in his living room reveals the stolen Higgins and Sharp paintings hanging on their wall. The Alters were never found guilty of this crime as they each died before the de Kooning was discovered by a Silver City, N.M. estate sale company hidden behind the couple’s bedroom door.

Leherissey swiftly convened an Art Recovery Task Force composed of Harwood Collection Committee, Board members, and key staff. The task force immediately began gathering additional evidence to build its case. On March 25, 2024, task force members and Leherissey presented a two-inch thick binder to Santa Fe-based stolen art bureau’s FBI Agent Susan Garst. Dozens of documents provided evidence of the due diligence conducted immediately after the theft by the Executive Director David Caffey and Curator David Witt in1985, including placing notice of the stolen art on three national and international stolen art lists including International Foundation for Art Research’s and Art Dealers Association of America’s stolen art lists.

Leherissey received another breakthrough phone call on April 17, 2024: the FBI confirmed it would take the Harwood’s case, thus increasing the museum’s opportunity to confirm the whereabouts of its two paintings stolen 39 years prior.

As a result of Schachter’s earlier investigations, it was confirmed that both Harwood paintings were sold in 2018 by the Scottsdale Auction House: Higgins’ Aspens sold for $93,600 and Sharp’s Oklahoma Cherokee/ Indian Boy in Full Dress sold for $52,650. It is noteworthy that the Scottsdale Auction House in its 2018 auction catalogue advertised the paintings with changed titles as Fall Landscape and Indian in a War Bonnet, which are not cited in any documentation as the artists’ titles.

Public invited to welcome Higgins and Sharp paintings home
Harwood Museum invites the public to celebrate The Return of Taos Treasures at its First Friday event, June 6, 4 to 7 p.m. MDT. The reveal of Higgins and Sharp paintings is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. in the Ellis-Clark Gallery. There will be a free screening of The Thief Collector documentary preceded by a Q & A featuring Harwood executive director Juniper Leherissey, art heist reporter Lou Schachter, David van Auken, co-owner of Manzanita Ridge Furniture and Antiques, who helped break open this story with the discovery of the University of Arizona’s Art Museum’s missing Woman-Ocher by Willem de Kooning, and David Witt, who was Harwood Museum’s curator at the time of the 1985 Harwood art heist.

“It is really quite gratifying to see these paintings returned full circle,” said FBI Special Agent Susan Garst, who led the investigation beginning in April 2024.

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ABOUT HARWOOD MUSEUM OF ART: Founded in 1923, Harwood Museum’s mission “Celebrates Taos’s artistic legacy, cultivates connections through art, and inspires a creative future.” Harwood is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Harwood’s permanent collection now includes more than 6,500 objects and reflects Taos’s important contributions to the region’s arts, culture, and history. Located at 238 Ledoux Street in the heart of Taos’s historic district, Harwood Museum is New Mexico’s second oldest museum. UNM’s Harwood Museum of Art’s nonprofit vision “Inspires a thriving creative community connected through excellence in the arts.” For more information call (575) 758-9826 or visit harwoodmuseum.org.

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