Larry Bell's Pacific Red II now stands inside SITE SANTA FE, and it's the image the museum chose for the front of its fall season. Out in the courtyard, Sara Genn has painted a commissioned mural that shades through a gradient of blue. A few blocks away at 404 Montezuma Street, the Vladem Contemporary has spent the fall on a show about the internment camp that once stood in Santa Fe.
So the Railyard has four new exhibitions at once, and they don't share a schedule. The three free shows at SITE close first. The ticketed show at Vladem stays up until spring. The days you can get into Vladem without paying fall on just a few Sundays and Fridays. If you live within walking distance of both buildings, the order you see them in matters this winter.
Three Shows on a Short Clock at SITE
SITE opened all three of its fall exhibitions on October 16, 2026, and two of them close on the same day, January 11, 2027. Admission is always free, and you don't need to register in advance.
Larry Bell: Improvisations covers four decades of Bell's work, from tabletop glass pieces to large freestanding installations, along with wall works in a range of media. Bell has lived and worked in Taos since 1973. He coats his glass with vaporized metal films inside a vacuum chamber known as "The Tank," and his collages and works on paper use the same prismatic optical effects. Rachel Zebro curated the show.
Sayre Gomez: Closed Forever brings together large paintings and sculptures from the past five years. They include airbrushed canvases and finely detailed three-dimensional pieces about Los Angeles storefronts, strip malls and convenience stores, about abandonment, and about the look of late-capitalist consumer culture. Brandee Caoba is the curator.
Sara Genn: How to Build a Sky runs about a month longer, through February 14, 2027. Genn made paintings that respond to SITE's own architecture: poured acrylic on raw canvas, softened edges, and tiered works built from several panels. The courtyard mural is part of the same show. Louis Grachos curated it.
Two of SITE's three shows will be gone by mid-January, and the building costs nothing to enter. That puts the urgency on SITE's side of the street. SITE is also already looking further ahead. Ekow Eshun has been named curator of the 13th SITE SANTA FE International Biennial, which opens June 11, 2027. The galleries will turn over at least once more before then. SITE's open days and hours are on its Plan Your Visit page, so check there before you walk over.
Vladem's Show Runs Until Spring
Reclaiming the Future: The Legacy of Japanese American Incarceration opened at the Vladem Contemporary on September 5, 2026, and runs through May 31, 2027. The museum built the show around the former Santa Fe Internment Camp nearby. It brings together Ruth Asawa, Aisuke Kondo, David Horvitz, Lehuauakea, Patrick Nagatani, Ken Okiishi, Roger Shimomura, TT Takemoto, Gaku Tsutaja and Carrie Yamaoka, working in sculpture, painting, photography, installation, video and mixed media.
The Santa Fe Reporter's cover story on the show identifies the curator as Machiko Harada. It describes the exhibition as a contemporary-art response to incarceration, memory, migration and place. Southwest Contemporary's preview starts from Lehuauakea's family history of incarceration. It notes that the show also covers other sites, including Topaz and Lordsburg. The same piece describes some of the works inside. Lehuauakea contributed a stitched textile about 17 feet wide. A Patrick Nagatani photograph shows Japanese Children's Day carp banners at the Jackpile Mine site on Laguna Pueblo. TT Takemoto has video works in the show.
The show also reaches past the Railyard. On October 17, the New Mexico Museum of Art opened Legacies on the Land: Photographs by Joan Myers and Patrick Nagatani at its Plaza Building, also running through May 31, 2027. Nagatani appears in both buildings this season. One museum ticket covers both locations.
Vladem's show runs about four and a half months past SITE's January closings. That long run means you can plan your Vladem visit around the free-entry days instead of rushing. Those free days change when the calendar turns to November.
November 1 Changes the Museum's Week
The New Mexico Museum of Art keeps one schedule from May through October and another from November through April. The winter schedule starts this Sunday, November 1.
- Mondays close. Both locations are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- The Friday late hours end. Through October, the museum stays open until 7 p.m. every Friday. In winter, the Vladem stays open until 7 only on the final Friday of each month, and the Plaza Building does the same on the first Friday.
- Winter weather can close the museum. The front desk is at 505-476-5064.
Admission works like this:
- General admission is $12. New Mexico residents with ID pay $7.
- Everyone gets in free from 5 to 7 p.m. on the final Friday of each month at the Vladem.
- New Mexico residents get in free on the first Sunday of each month.
- New Mexico residents 60 and older get in free on Wednesdays with ID.
- Children 16 and under always get in free.
The museum is closed on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, and hours may vary on Christmas Eve. The last Friday of December 2026 is Christmas Day, so there is no free final-Friday evening at the Vladem that month. That leaves November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, as the only final-Friday free evening at the Vladem before SITE's January 11 closings.
The Dates That Line Up Between Now and January 11
Put the two buildings' calendars side by side and a few dates do double duty.
- Sunday, November 1: Family Art Making at the Vladem, a drop-in collage session from 10 a.m. to noon based on the museum's permanent collection. It's also the first Sunday of the month, when New Mexico residents get in free.
- November 5, 6 and 7: Tessellations at SITE, a performance by the New Mexico School for the Arts Dance Department directed by Fernando Ramos Cintrón. Shows are at 6 p.m. on November 5 and 6 and at 2 p.m. on November 7. It's free, but you need to RSVP.
- Sunday, November 8: the El Palacio Plática at SITE, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Editor Emily Withnall and five contributors to the magazine's latest issue will talk about land, art and action. It's free with RSVP.
- Thursday, November 12: Powaqqatsi with the Philip Glass Ensemble, a SITE program at 7:30 p.m. at the Lensic.
- Saturday, November 14: two events in the same day. From 10 a.m. to noon, Linda Mae Tratechaud continues work on The Promise (Or, A Resting Reality Room of Her Own) in the Vladem's Window Box. From 2 to 3:30 p.m., SITE's Innovative Thinker program brings Larry Bell together with Randy Kennedy and James Merle Thomas, moderated by Rachel Zebro. Tickets are $25 or free for SITE members.
- Saturday, November 21: a curator talk with Stefanie Hessler at SITE, 2 to 3 p.m. Admission is $10 or free for members.
- Friday, November 27: the Vladem is free to everyone from 5 to 7 p.m. This is the only final-Friday free evening before the January 11 closings.
- Sunday, December 6: Drawing in the Galleries at SITE. It's the first Sunday of the month, so New Mexico residents get into the Vladem free. The Railyard Artisan Market also runs that day, as it does every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Friday, December 11: String of Lights Holiday Market at the Railyard Market Pavilion, 3 to 9 p.m., with more than 60 makers plus food and drink.
- Saturday, December 12: Coffee and Conversation on The Time Machine at SITE, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
- Saturday, December 19: another Window Box session with Tratechaud at the Vladem, 10 a.m. to noon. The next day, December 20, SITE holds another Drawing in the Galleries session.
- Monday, January 11: last day for Larry Bell and Sayre Gomez at SITE.
Seeing the Shows in Order
These dates suggest an order. See the Bell show at SITE before November 14 or soon after, so the talk is about work you've just seen. See Closed Forever in the same visit, since both shows close on January 11 and SITE is free any day it's open. Genn's courtyard mural and paintings stay up until February 14, so they can wait for a quieter visit after the holidays.
The Vladem show can wait for a free day. You have November 27 in the evening, and Sunday, December 6, if you're a New Mexico resident. Wednesdays are free for residents 60 and older all season, and the show runs through May 31. For anyone shopping the Saturday farmers market, which runs year-round from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Market Pavilion at 1607 Paseo de Peralta, the Vladem opens at 10, a short walk from the market. The Tuesday market runs through December 22.
The Santa Fe Internment Camp sat close to the neighborhood, and the Vladem show about it stays up into late spring. By the time the last Sunday in May comes around, SITE will be less than two weeks from opening its Biennial on June 11.
At the Ricky Allen-Tara Earley Group, we think a Santa Fe home's story includes the culture a short walk from its door, and in the Railyard that means these two buildings. If you'd like to talk about a home within walking distance of SITE and the Vladem, we'd be glad to share what we know. Tell your home's story. Work with the RCT Team.
