INSTALLATION OF LABOR MOTHERHOOD & ART IN 2020- Margie and Bobby Rankin Retablo Gallery

The NMSU Permanent Art Collection has the largest holdings of Mexican retablos in the United States. In the Margie and Bobby Rankin Retablo Gallery we view motherhood by telling the story of The Virgin Mary who has represented the role of the traditional mother in the visual arts, literature and music of the Christian and Islamic worlds for thousands of years. In this gallery featuring the NMSU retablo collection, we explore Mary’s role as mother of Christ in a timeline format from Immaculate Conception to the moment her son died on the cross and she became Our Lady of Sorrows and subsequently, humanity’s ultimate mother. Mary’s life as seen in these paintings on tin, is a model to so many mothers in this world who simultaneously rejoice at the moment of conception and grieve for the suffering their children will go through in life. This chronology, including the multiple traits of Mary as seen in both the retablo santos (painting of saints) and ex-votos (paintings commissioned as prayers during moments of hardship), presents an intimate look at an iconic figure who provides relief and guidance to mothers around the world.

This gallery was co-curated by Courtney Uldrich and Silvia Marinas-Feliner