Alan Petersen
Fine Arts Curator
Museum of Northern Arizona
Flagstaff, AZ
(928) 774-5213
www.musnaz.org
What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why?
Here at the Museum of Northern Arizona we’re currently working on a retrospective exhibition of Diné painter Baje Whitethorne’s work. Baje is a gifted painter and storyteller and an artistic treasure here in Flagstaff. His colorful work addresses the concepts of family, tradition and place. I’ve always loved Baje and his work, and it’s been a great honor for me to work with him on this project.
What are you reading?
Right now, I’m reading The Living Mountain (1977), a classic natural history book by Nan Shepherd that is an immersion in the remote wildness of the Cairngorm Mountains of northern Scotland. Also, Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma (2007) by Ethan Carr. I really love many of the Mission 66 buildings found in our national parks, and this is a great history and survey of the program and its projects.
Interesting exhibit, gallery opening or work of art you’ve seen recently.
Given the recent conditions created by the Covid pandemic I haven’t been to many museums recently. Although I don’t believe that online exhibitions are as satisfying as seeing them in person, I really love the online exhibition presented by ecoartspace titled Embodied Forest, curated by Lilian Fraiji. Its theme is based on coexisting, interacting and exchanging energy with other organisms and natural phenomena.
What are you researching at the moment?
I’m working on a monograph on the Swedish-American painter Gunnar Widforss. I’m roughly three-quarters of the way through the first draft and it’s going well. I’m continuing to research details of his life and career right now, particularly about his relationship with Stephen Mather and Widforss’ work in the late 1920s. Last year I published the Gunnar Widforss Catalogue Raisonné.
What is your dream exhibit to curate? Or see someone else curate?
A dream that I’ve had for some time is to present a comprehensive survey of work about the Colorado Plateau region, from the earliest Indigenous examples to the present day. As I write that, it seems huge in scope, which it would be. But this is a very special region on Earth, and I believe that it would be a very revealing exhibition.
A painting by Baje Whitethorne Sr. (Diné) for an upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Northern Arizona.
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