Atomic Histories

June 3, 2018 – May 30, 2019 New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Ave, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The History Museum’s Atomic Histories exhibition opens June 3, 2018 and runs through May 2019. The exhibition will highlight American artist Meridel Rubenstein’s artwork including two photo/video/glass/steel installations from the traveling exhibition Critical Mass (1993-97) and “Oppenheimer’s Chair” (1995) commissioned by the first SITE Santa Fe Biennial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first atomic test.

“To enhance understanding of the legacy of the Manhattan Project, the New Mexico History Museum is developing an interpretive exploration of our state’s atomic history,” said Andrew Wulf, executive director of the New Mexico History Museum.    

“Through our extensive collaboration with the Los Alamos History Museum, the Atomic Heritage Foundation, the Santa Fe Opera, Los Alamos’ Bradbury Science Museum and the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, the New Mexico History Museum will exhibit a wide variety of resources to tell our state’s nuclear story,” said Melanie LaBorwit, Museum Educator.

“At different stations on the museum’s second floor Gathering Space, visitors will learn about the Science of Radioactivity, the Places in New Mexico that contributed to the Manhattan Project, and the People who participated in the World War II effort,” Wulf explained. “Visitors will be able to map the arrival of scientists in Lamy, their stops in Santa Fe, the building of the city of Los Alamos, the workers from northern Hispanic villages and Pueblos, contemplate the impact of the nuclear test in nearby Tularosa and Alamogordo, downwind from the Trinity site, as well as the post war uranium mining initiatives near Grants. “

MERIDEL RUBENSTEIN began her professional career in the early 1970s, evolving from photographer of single photographic images to artist of extended works and multi-media installations.  From the beginning her art making has argued for an awareness of how we are connected to place. Her works are known for their unusual combinations of materials and ideas. Cultural critic Rebecca Solnit describes Rubestein as ”a consummate maker of metaphors, an artist who can never talk about only one thing at a time, but speaks of things in relationship, of lives to landscapes, of corporeal location and homing in terms of labyrinths and minotaurs, of bombs in terms of other myths, of physicists in relationship to pueblos.”

About the New Mexico History Museum and Palace of the Governors National Historic Landmark: http://www.nmhistorymuseum.org – Opened in May 2009, as the state system’s newest museum, the New Mexico History Museum is attached to the Palace of the Governors National Historic Landmark, a distinctive emblem of U.S. history and the original seat of New Mexico government. The History Museum serves as an anchor of the campus that includes Palace of the Governors, the Palace Press, the Fray Angelico Chavez History Library, and Photo Archives. The Museum presents exhibitions and public programs that interpret historical events and reflect on the wide range of New Mexico historical experiences and serves as a history center for research, education and lifelong learning, delivering quality programs that encourage knowledge, understanding and appreciation of New Mexico’s diverse cultures. A division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. 113 Lincoln Ave. in Santa Fe, NM 87501. (505) 476-5200. Hours: 10 am to 5 pm daily, May through October; closed Mondays November through April.  Events, news releases and images about activities at the History Museum and other divisions in the Department of Cultural Affairs can be accessed at media.newmexicoculture.org.

Image Credits:

Test of Atomic Bomb at Trinity Site, New Mexico, July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, NM. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives. Credit: courtesy, National Park Service

Meridel Rubenstein – Oppenheimer’s Chair, 1995

Dormitories at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico People/Object shown in image: Negative Number 056389 Brief description: Dormitories at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico Photography