SITE Santa Fe

SITE SANTA FE is a contemporary art institution in the Railyard district with no permanent collection. It commissions and stages exhibitions rather than keeping objects, which means there is nothing to come back and see a second time, and no way to know what will be inside until you go.

The Biennial

It was founded in 1995, largely on the initiative of the Santa Fe gallerist Laura Carpenter, who had the idea in 1992 and raised more than a million dollars to make it happen. The first biennial opened that July with thirty-one artists from thirteen countries, and at that moment it was the only international biennial of contemporary art in the United States. Editions have followed under guest curators including Bruce W. Ferguson, Francesco Bonami, Robert Storr, and Lance Fung.

In 2011 the format was rebuilt as SITElines, narrowed to the art of the Americas and researched across the hemisphere in the years between editions rather than assembled in one curatorial sweep. It runs now as SITE SANTA FE International. The whole enterprise remains slightly improbable and is the institution’s real argument: a city of this size sustaining a biennial that the rest of the art world has to travel to.

The Building

The building was a disused beer warehouse beside the rail line, which is why it has the proportions it has. The first conversion, into roughly 21,000 square feet of exhibition space, was directed by Richard Gluckman, who was working on the O’Keeffe Museum in the same years. In 2016 and 2017, SHoP Architects took it to about 36,000 square feet, glazed the lobby, painted the stucco black, and added the folded, perforated aluminum prow that now fronts Paseo de Peralta. The aluminum was drawn from the corrugated siding of the boxcars in the yard next door, which is a better reason for a building’s skin than most buildings can give. It is one of the few significant buildings here that argues with the city’s inherited architectural vocabulary rather than repeating it.

What Else Happens There

Between exhibitions there are artist talks, screenings, performances, and workshops. The institution works with Santa Fe Public Schools and makes grants to artists here. Roughly one in five of the artists it shows is based in New Mexico, which is a deliberate ratio rather than an accident of geography, and it is the reason SITE functions as a working part of the local art economy and not only as a destination.

It stands at 1606 Paseo de Peralta, a short walk from the Railyard park, the Saturday farmers market, and a cluster of commercial galleries. An afternoon takes in all of it comfortably. La Choza is a few minutes away on Alarid Street, the older galleries of Canyon Road are a short drive east, and Meow Wolf is fifteen minutes southwest.

Common Questions

What is SITE SANTA FE?

A contemporary art institution in the Railyard district of Santa Fe, founded in 1995. It has no permanent collection and commissions and stages changing exhibitions instead.

Who designed the SITE SANTA FE building?

It began as a disused beer warehouse beside the rail line. Richard Gluckman directed the 1995 conversion, and SHoP Architects carried out the 2016 to 2017 expansion that gave the building its black stucco and its perforated aluminum prow.

What is SITElines?

The 2011 reconception of SITE’s biennial, narrowed to the art of the Americas and researched across the hemisphere between editions. It runs now as SITE SANTA FE International.