{"id":91393,"date":"2019-12-05T22:56:43","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T22:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/albuquerque-airport-highlights-lowrider-culture\/"},"modified":"2019-12-05T22:56:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T22:56:43","slug":"albuquerque-airport-highlights-lowrider-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/albuquerque-airport-highlights-lowrider-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Albuquerque airport highlights lowrider culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Lowriders and Hot Rods: Car Culture of Northern New Mexico exhibit is on display at the Albuquerque International Sunport.<\/span>Courtesy of Albuquerque International Sunport<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FARMINGTON \u2013 If your holiday travel plans include the Albuquerque International Sunport, take a moment \u2013 between loading up on snacks and a mad dash to the gate \u2013 to explore an internationally acclaimed art exhibit.<\/p>\n

Lowriders and Hot Rods: Car Culture of Northern New Mexico gained international notice when ArtDesk, an online magazine focused on contemporary arts, listed the Sunport\u2019s art exhibits earlier this year in the top nine best airport<\/a> art collections in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lowrider culture is such a part of the northern New Mexico culture,\u201d said Max Baptiste, art curator for the airport. Baptiste, who grew up in Taos, would often travel to Santa Fe, which is where his awareness of the lowrider culture began. \u201cI would always go through Espa\u00f1ola on Friday, which was cruising day in the \u201990s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Baptiste, who is in his second year as curator, said one of his priorities is \u201ccreating pride in place.\u201d He said it was important to highlight the art and beauty of the lowrider culture and its emphasis on family and community. The cars are often elaborately customized, detailed, painted and upholstered, and are a cultural symbol of what it means to be \u201chome-grown Neuvomexicanos,\u201d according to the Sunport\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lowriders and motorcycles are all on loan from people throughout northern New Mexico and rotate every three months. Baptiste said it was important to let the culture and community speak for itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to say what it is, we\u2019re just trying to exhibit it,\u201d he said of the community.<\/p>\n

In addition to the lowriders and motorcycles, Baptiste collaborated with the New Mexico History Museum to include more than 100 photographs of lowrider culture over the past 40 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the photos because a lot are of people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very community-oriented culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baptiste said it\u2019s not uncommon for many people to have worked on one of the cars or motorcycles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives people opportunities to be involved in creating something beautiful,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a very special part of the culture, it\u2019s so family and community oriented.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Baptiste\u2019s background has mainly involved working in gallery settings, he said designing displays for airports is slightly different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to a gallery, you\u2019re going to see the art, and when you go to an airport, you\u2019re going solely to travel,\u201d he said. The key to a successful airport exhibit, he said, is to create a calming atmosphere for travelers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re engaged with your environment, you might engage with the local food and drink culture, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In addition to the rotating lowrider exhibit, the airport has a permanent collection of about 115 pieces highlighting the Native American, Hispanic and Southwestern art scene unique to northern New Mexico, Baptiste said. The permanent display includes paintings, pottery, carving, sculptures and weavings from New Mexican artists.<\/p>\n

The lowrider exhibit will be on display until May.<\/p>\n

lweber@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

exhibit won international attention<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[246,28,138,443],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-91393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-general","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91393"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=91393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}