On Thursday, Feb. 13, the Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections hosted the sixth annual Love in the Archives event at the Frank Waters Room in Zimmerman Library.
This year, the theme was “Then and Now.”
Portia Vescio, the university archivist at the CSWR, co-organizes Love in the Archives. The theme explored the progression of time, she said.
One of the collections on display was a group of archival materials related to the life and work of American artist Wilson Hurley. The renowned landscape painter frequently depicted the grand vistas of the Southwest in his work.
In 2023, Hurley’s widow Rosalyn Roembke Hurley donated a collection of items from his long career as a painter to the CSWR. These include brochures from retrospectives of Hurley’s work and initial sketches. A laptop at the event showed a website containing images of all of Hurley’s paintings.
Another exhibit traces the evolution of UNM’s library, from one room in Hodgin Hall when the University opened in 1892 to the construction of Zimmerman Library in the 1930s and subsequent expansions and renovations.
Love in the Archives has included a different exhibit on artificial intelligence each year the event has occurred, according to Vescio. This time around, the event organizers focused on AI-generated art. Vescio got ChatGPT to generate five different images centered around love, archives and “then and now.”
The AI-generated images were displayed alongside images created by Art1, a software program that was created at UNM in 1968 by Richard Williams, according to UNM Libraries. The juxtaposition of two very different types of computer-generated art was intended to show that AI-generated art is only the newest form of a decades-old concept.
Attendees were invited to vote for which AI-generated image was their favorite. Vescio also included one of the Art1 images in the contest, which was the most popular with library patrons.
Other displays included a set of first edition New Mexico stamps and a collection of technology from various decades that was used for archival purposes, such as VHS and cassette tapes.
Maxwell Bush, a history master’s student at UNM, put together an exhibit on the PBS miniseries from the 1990s called “Tales of the City,” an adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s 1978 novel of the same name. While it received critical acclaim, the miniseries elicited a considerable deal of controversy due to its frank depictions of drug use and Queer life and sex, especially because it was broadcasted on public television. No follow-up series was produced by PBS due to the backlash “Tales of the City” received.
The CSWR has a collection of materials from Albuquerque’s PBS affiliate station KNME, including papers related to the channel’s uncensored airing of “Tales of the City” and its subsequent backlash. These include letters from outraged viewers and a petition put together by the American Family Association, which highlighted the material in the show that they deemed “objectionable.”
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“If you’re familiar with LGBTQ issues today and you read these letters, it’s disheartening because you’re hearing a lot of the same language (and) the same arguments that you hear today,” Bush said.
On the other hand, some letters came from audience members who recognized the importance of the miniseries and felt represented by it.
Mark Campbell, a master’s student in Latin American Studies at UNM and a fellow in Latin American Collections at the CSWR, co-curated an exhibit entitled “Love for La Tierra.” Centering around the history of farmworkers’ movements in America, the exhibit drew attention to the continued exploitation of Latin American farmworkers and their varied forms of resistance and community organization.
Prints on display as part of “Love for La Tierra” included protest posters from the 1970s from organizations such as the Fireworks Graphics Collective and the Texas Farm Workers Union. Other pieces come from the Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca, who have produced works focusing on farm work with a uniquely Mexican perspective.
“We wanted to do something relevant to both Latin America and our current time, (as well as) expanding the idea of love,” Campbell said. “We didn’t want to do a superficial romantic love. We wanted to look at the idea of love for place.”
Elijah Ritch is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. They can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
