The Agnes Martin Gallery at Harwood Museum

This room (sacred temple) is the reason I keep coming back to Taos and the best way to experience Agnes Martin's work.

--

In the 1990s, Agnes Martin gave seven paintings to the Harwood and helped shape the room that holds them: an octagonal gallery lit by a skylight, with four Donald Judd benches at its center. Because the light comes from above, the paintings shift with the hour and the weather, so no two visits are quite the same. It’s one of the few places where you can sit with her work the way she intended, in a room made for nothing but looking.

At Stillness Study, curator Gwendolyn Fernandez guided us through a private meditation with these paintings. Throughout the retreat, we returned to their titles (Lovely Life, Love, Friendship, Perfect Day, Ordinary Happiness, Innocence, Playing) and asked how solitude might cultivate each of these states in our own lives.