BE HERE NOW: SUMMER OF LOVE SANTA FE to Show Resilience of Human Spirit

A flashback to the social experimentation and activism that catalyzed the nation's young people during the 1960s to today is captured in Be Here Now: Summer of Love Santa Fe, a multi-partner, multi-venue, multi-event collaboration coming to Santa Fe this Summer.

Be Here Now: Summer of Love Santa Fe offers a powerful, relevant commentary about forms of resistance, individual and social empowerment, alternatives, and the resilience of the human spirit.

"Collectively, the Be Here Now exhibitions tell a broader story than any one exhibition can, providing meaningful context and texture to this revolutionary time and the fascinating role New Mexico played in the evolution of the sixties counterculture that still shapes the state today," said Andrew Wulf, director of the New Mexico History Museum.

Collaborating partners include the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), New Mexico History Museum (NMHM), Museum of Indian Art and Culture (MIAC), and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale group. The collaboration received a generous grant from the Santa Fe Arts Commission.

Voices of Counterculture in the Southwest opens at the New Mexico History Museum from May 14, 2017 through Feb. 11, 2018. Spanning over two decades, the exhibition explores the pilgrimage of young people to New Mexico, violent protests on the campus of the University of New Mexico, alternative communal living experiments, and the founding of environmental and Native American rights activists' groups.

Connective Tissue: New Approaches to Fiber in Contemporary Native Art, opens at MoCNA July 7, 2017 and runs through January 21, 2018. It features nationally and internationally known artists such as Brian Jungen (Dunne-za/Swiss), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax?), Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Inupiaq/Athabascan) and Marie Watt (Seneca). Their art reflects an atmosphere of protest, counterculture and experimentation addressing the social and political complexities of their time.

Opening in April 7, 2017 and running through October 1, 2017, in space adjacent to the NMHM counterculture exhibit, will be Sleeping During the Day: Vietnam 1968, a photographic exhibition by Herbert Lotz which tells the story of a young gay man's experience of being drafted and serving in Vietnam in 1968. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, Herb's photographs humanize the men who served amidst the rising disillusionment with the war that became the rallying point for the emerging counter-culture movement.

MIAC's Into the Future: The Cultural Power of Native Art runs through October 2017 and is about self-determination and cultural power in Native Art. The exhibition demonstrates how Native American artists use their artwork to convey their own histories as well as to tell others, in their own voices, who they, and their communities, are now and what they are striving to become in the future.

Also at MIAC is Frank Buffalo Hyde: I-Witness Culture, an exhibition that transforms street art techniques into art practices with humorous narrative, investigating the ancient and the new, pre-and post-millennium, the space where Native Americans exist today. It runs through January 7, 2018.

Touching Beauty now in the Atrium Gallery of the Bataan Building in Santa Fe is included in the collaborative. This exhibition highlights sculpture by Santa Clara Pueblo's Michael Naranjo, who is celebrated the world over for his bronze and stone forms suspended in fluid, graceful movement.

Santa Fe Desert Chorale's programming theme for the 2017 Summer Festival Season is Liberte and Justice: Music of Resistance and Revolution. The second of the core programs, "Justice," traces the evolution of spirituals through the protest movements of the 1960s and into today. Performances will be held August 8 and 13, 2017.

Be Here Now: Summer of Love Santa Fe is a collaboration forged between the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Art (MoCNA) exhibition Connective Tissue: New Mexico History Museum (NMHM) exhibitions Voices of Counterculture in the Southwest and Sleeping During the Day: Vietnam 1968; the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) exhibition Into the Future The Cultural Power of Native Art and Frank Buffalo Hyde: I-Witness Culture, and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale's 2017 Summer Festival Season. The Museum Resources Division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs is implementing the program.

Pictured: (photo 1) from Voices of Counterculture in the Southwest Wavy Gravy on top of Further (Ken Kesey and the Merry Prankster's Infamous Bus) at the 1969 Summer Solstice Celebration in Tesuque Meadow, Santa Fe Baldy, 1969, photo by Roberta Price; (photo 2) from Connective Tissue: New Approaches to Fiber in Contemporary Native Art Artwork: Brian Jungen 27th Street, 2016 ?Nike Air Jordan insoles, laces, 153.5 x 136 x 7 in.

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