ALAMOSA – An award-winning Chilean film and Arthur López, a distinguished santero artisan, will be featured during the fourth week of La Monarca, an Adams State University Art Symposium. The following events are free and open to the public.

Neruda, (2016, Chile) directed by Pablo Larraín, will be introduced by Kathleen Chavez, Adams State English instructor. Neruda, an internationally co-produced biographical drama film, was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. It was selected as the Chilean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards. The film begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 7, in the Visual Arts Building room 227.

Popular poet and Communist Senator Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) opposes the administration of President Gabriel González Videla and denounces his brutal anti-communist repression in a speech in the National Congress in 1948. Threatened with arrest, he goes underground. Refusing to live the life of a fugitive, he taunts the government authorities by appearing in public venues or leaving evidence of his movements. His pursuer is the fascist Chief of the Investigations Police of Chile Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal).

A hands-on art workshop, Making Natural Pigment Paints for Santero Painting, with artist Arthur López, begins at 12 p.m. Friday, March 9, in the Visual Arts Building room 230. López, born and raised in Santa Fe, NM, is proud to be working in the long tradition of New Mexico santero artists. His high attention to detail has garnered him many awards and is highly esteemed as one of New Mexico’s most popular santero wood sculptures.

In 2015 he was awarded the City of Santa Fe’s Mayor’s Award for excellence in the Arts and in 2017 he received The Folk Art Society of Americas Award of Distinction for giving the Santero Tradition a contemporary style and being a leader in design and meaning. “My work comes out of my faith, I am a firm believer that you can still use traditional methods to create contemporary work. Though the majority of my work is of Saints you do not have to be of any particular religion to appreciate them as art.” Equally important to López is his need to transcend the bounds of the traditional santero, and use his art as a medium for expressing the full range of his culture and the world around him. López has exhibited in numerous shows throughout the Southwest and is in many prominent museum collections throughout the country. His work has recently been exhibited internationally at the 2nd International Triennial of Kogei - “The Arts Grounded in Region”, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, “Song of the West,” Kohi Kulturaum, Karlsruhe, Germany and “The Saints From a Land So Remote” - LAProjects, Landshut, Germany.

La Monarca represents beauty, migration, and transformation. These qualities are the conceptual starting point for a symposium that aims to cultivate discussion around the persistent and enduring effects of colonialism in the Americas. Through looking at the visual culture of indigenous and other underrepresented groups this symposium will highlight a chorus of voices and visions from the American Southwest, Mexico, Central and South America.

A closing reception for the Hatfield Gallery exhibit, Local Traditions, Contemporary Visions, will take place from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. Friday, April 6. The exhibition, currently on display, features select pieces from the Adams State Luther Bean Museum collection with work from artists featured in the La Monarca Symposium. Hatfield Gallery hours are 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday.

The Art Symposium will continue through March 14 featuring films and art workshops. For more information and a complete schedule visit adams.edu and click on the La Monarca link.