Installation image of an exhibition in the Margie & Bobby Rankin Retablo Gallery, "NMSU Mexican Retablo Collection: New Acquisitions 2019-2023." Photo by Byron Flesher.
Learn how a university museum solved a storage dilemma by moving their cherished objects out of milk crates and into permanent, modern collections care, and then into the world through their website.
The New Mexico State University Art Museum holds the largest public collection of Mexican retablos in the United States. Thanks to generous donations from 1963 to 1973, the museum is home to over 2,000 retablos.
What are retablos? Evolving from 16-18th century religious paintings on wood, copper, and canvas, retablos are found across Latin America, with unique iconography found within different countries and regions, including the Mexican retablo.
The University Art Museum is located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, 41 miles north of the Mexican border. Scholars near and far have interest in the large, unique collection. So it was important for the museum to make the retablos widely accessible by bringing it online and housing it in a new state-of-the-art facility where scholars can view the objects.
But the collection has not always had such modern amenities. Hear how this collection went from living behind tubas to leaning on bleachers to hanging on chicken wire to finally, its current home on campus today.
From the music room to the bleachers
The retablo collection was actually formed before NMSU’s permanent art collection. Large donations of the retablos were made to the art department in the late 1960s, but they didn’t have capacity for the objects at the time.
So the retablos were stored in milk crates in the music department where the instruments were stored–specifically, behind the tubas.
In the 1970’s the art department was moved into a new space and they created the art gallery that exists today. The art space was retrofitted from a WPA gymnasium. The gallery was built into the side of the old cement bleachers. So the collection moved out of the instrument storage and into the bleachers when it officially created the basis of the NMSU Permanent Art Collection.
Images from NMSU's storage closet.
From bleachers to storage closet
Knowing that the collection needed a better storage solution, the museum built a storage closet for the retablos off of the gallery. This solution was better than the bleachers, but still rudimentary. The objects hung on chicken wire and there was not much light in the closet.
Courtney Uldrich, the collections curator of the University Art Museum shares, “we’d have people coming to the museum to see the US’s largest collection of Mexican retablos, but we couldn’t really show them the objects because they were hanging in a hallway.”
Uldrich tells the story of the storage situation:
“The conservation department professor at the time worked with a student to design a plan for storing the retablos in these individualized cabinets that allows for as much space-saving as possible for the large collection while also providing a safer solution for storing the relatively flexible objects made of thin metal. These cabinets were stored in an old "vault" that was located in the storage, but were moved over to the new building with us and still serve as our best method of storage for the unique collection. And, as we so often referred to that space as the "vault,” much of our staff has now taken to referring to our collection storage space as the "vault" in our new building.”
Image of new retablo storage cabinets.
From storage closet to protected facility
In 2019 the University Art Museum built a new “proper” space for the growing collection in Devasthali Hall.
Uldrich is thrilled to have a separate space for the intake of new pieces. “In general, it’s an important practice to assess the objects before they join the rest of the collection. It protects the pieces. For instance, we want to ensure wooden sculptures don’t have any insects.”
Before the collection moved, the museum staff did not have the capacity to accept scholars into their collection. Now, with a study room, they can bring pieces out from the collection to show not only scholars, but classes as well.
When constructing the new museum, they paid homage to the old space. Bleachers are outside of the museum and provide an excellent place for community programming, artist pop ups and lectures.
How was the space funded? NMSU received a General Obligation (GO) bond from the city of Las Cruces in 2018.
Image of NMSU's new "Bleachers" collaboration space where the museum hosts events and department of art hosts classes, as an homage to the old building.
From physical storage to online access
The University Art Museum switched from Filemaker Pro to Artwork Archive so that they could provide access to their community and beyond. Marisa Sage, the Director and Head Curator of the University Art Museum explains one of the reasons why they moved to a cloud-based solution: “We can quickly create rooms to share with visiting scholars and on campus professors which has vastly increased our ability to work collaboratively with our NMSU campus and outside.”
The art museum staff photographed the entire collection and scanned the provenance information into Artwork Archive so that they could have all of their resources available to faculty, students, scholars and community members.
Now, there is a dedicated retablo gallery space for showcasing the works, which wasn't something the museum had the ability to do before. And, there is even a tablet in the Retablo gallery for people to explore the collection. The tablet provides really quick and instant access to any of our visitors to explore the entire collection rather than just the selected objects displayed in the gallery.
The retablos, along with the rest of the museum’s collection including temporary exhibitions, are also embedded into the NMSU website straight from their Artwork Archive account. You can see the Mexican Retablo collection embed here.
Boosting discoverability with Artwork Archive tools
When the art museum started using Artwork Archive to manage their collections, they were able to quickly bring their retablos online and saw immediate response. “Within a week of bringing our collection online with Artwork Arhive’s Public Profile we saw a sudden increase of traffic to our website. No other variables changed,” explained Sage.
Now, people are contacting the museum with interest in their collection. The online component provides access to people outside of their region. “If someone is interested in a specific artist or theme in our collection, I can direct them to photographs and information online,” shares Uldrich. It’s been especially helpful for inquiries outside of the United States.
Screenshot from University Art Museum's Ex-Votos Collection hosted from their Artwork Archive account.
Turning inquiries into action
With their online presence, the museum gets inquiries from people asking about artists that are regional to New Mexico. People want to know whether the museum collects their works. Uldrich divulges: ”If we don’t have them in our collection, then we ask: is this someone we should have in our collection? Should we integrate them in some capacity?” These inquiries help the museum think about their future acquisitions.
What’s next for the University Art Museum?
Uldrich shares, “we are working on English/Spanish translations of objects in our collection – specially our 'ex-votos,' which are votive offerings to a saint or a divinity, given in fulfillment of a vow or in gratitude or devotion. We are really excited about starting to work with students in the future to start integrating audio descriptions of objects, and object labels in English and Spanish!" With the ability to include audio files in artwork records in Artwork Archive, the University Art Museum will be able to easily share out the informative audio descriptions.
And in a few years, the museum has a goal to 3D scan their collection. They will work with the conservation department to use the scannings for both internal and external needs. They look forward to hosting the 3D scans online through Artwork Archive–furthering the discovery and exploration of their collection.
