SITE Santa Fe Names 42 Artists for 13th International Biennial

SITE Santa Fe has announced the theme and artist list for its 13th International Biennial, titled "There Are Other Worlds," opening next June in New Mexico. More than 40 artists will show work at SITE Santa Fe and at other venues around the city.

Curator Ekow Eshun chose the title. The exhibition, according to a release, posits that "other worlds already exist within the one we inhabit—whether they are hidden in plain sight, found in refusal of the status quo, or brought into being through acts of imagination."

What does the exhibition look like?

The biennial will run in three sections:

• "Worlds Beyond," partially informed by the Transcendental Painting Group, the New Mexico school associated with non-objective painting.
• "World in Common," examining how artists form community and kinship.
• "Worlds Alive," looking at the interdependence between humans, animals, and plants.

Eshun has commissioned new work from five artists: Edgar Arceneaux, Firelei Báez, Raven Chacon, Lotus L. Kang, and Cauleen Smith. The release did not specify what those commissions will be, how large they will be, or where each will sit within the three sections — details that typically arrive closer to opening.

Other participants include John Akomfrah, Frank Bowling, Olafur Eliasson, Jeffrey Gibson, Nan Goldin, Delcy Morelos, Eamon Ore-Giron, Rose Simpson, and Sandra Vásquez de la Horra.

What does the curator say?

In a statement, Eshun said: "Uniting these practices is a shared sense that the world is never singular or fixed, but continually reshaped by how we perceive, imagine, and relate to one another. There Are Other Worlds invites us to look beyond existing realities to consider how alternative ways of being might come into existence."

That framing is broad by design. Whether it produces a coherent exhibition or a sprawling one will depend on how the three thematic sections discipline a list of more than 40 practices spanning film, painting, sculpture, and installation.

The full artist list

• John Akomfrah
• Hurvin Anderson
• Edgar Arceneaux
• Firelei Báez
• Sanford Biggers
• Frank Bowling
• Nikesha Breeze
• Raven Chacon
• Olafur Eliasson
• Ellen Gallagher
• Cy Gavin
• Jeffrey Gibson
• Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
• Louise Giovanelle
• Nan Goldin
• Rafik Greiss
• Shilpa Gupta
• Sky Hopinka
• Klára Hosnedlová
• Marguerite Humeau
• Tomashi Jackson
• Arthur Jafa
• Julianknxx
• Hayv Kahraman
• Lotus L. Kang
• Idris Khan
• Bharti Kher
• Christopher Kulendran Thomas
• Cannupa Hanska Luger
• Danielle McKinney
• Delcy Morelos
• Michael Namingha
• Eamon Ore-Giron
• Mohammed Sami
• Zineb Sedira
• Rose Simpson
• Emilija Škarnulytė
• Cauleen Smith
• Tavares Strachan
• Emma Talbot
• Sandra Vásquez de la Horra
• Carmen Winant

What does this change for Santa Fe?

For a city of roughly 90,000 that has built its institutional identity around the biennial format since 1995, the 13th edition extends SITE Santa Fe's reach beyond its own walls into venues across the city. Eshun's list mixes established figures — Akomfrah, Jafa, Goldin, Eliasson — with regional voices including Cannupa Hanska Luger, Michael Namingha, and Rose Simpson, keeping the New Mexico context in play even as the roster reads globally. Whether the commissions and the multi-venue staging deliver on that ambition becomes clear only in June.