Palm Springs Art Museum brings nearly six decades of the California artist’s work together in an expansive exploration of land, light, and the universe.
The ground beneath our feet and the stars above us may seem worlds apart, but for artist Lita Albuquerque, they are part of the same story. At Palm Springs Art Museum, Lita Albuquerque: Cosmic Land brings together nearly six decades of the celebrated California artist’s work, exploring the relationship between the terrestrial and celestial through painting, sculpture, installation, and film.
On view October 16, 2026, through May 3, 2027, the exhibition marks the first time Albuquerque’s work across these mediums has been presented together in a single exhibition. Spanning four galleries, Cosmic Land unfolds as a continuous journey through the elements, inviting visitors to consider their place within a universe that is both vast and intimately connected to the world around them.
A central idea throughout Albuquerque’s practice is that light carries information. Drawing inspiration from Southern California’s distinctive landscape and quality of light, as well as the influence of artist and mentor Robert Irwin, she approaches light as something more than a visual phenomenon: a language through which memory, consciousness, and the natural world intersect.
The exhibition opens with NAJMA Returns (Guardian of the Earth) (2023), a sculptural figure inspired by Najma, an interstellar female astronaut who appears in Albuquerque’s unpublished manuscript GENIUS REMEMBERED. Surrounding the figure are Wind Paintings (2026), created in collaboration with the movement of air itself. Through these works, Albuquerque gives form to forces that are often invisible, making the natural environment an active participant in the creative process.
At the center of the exhibition is Spine of the Earth (1980/2024/2026), a seminal earthwork originally created on a dry lakebed in the Mojave Desert using powdered pigment and sacred geometry. Conceived as a temporary intervention on the Earth’s surface, the work has continued to evolve through documentation, performance, and reconstruction. Its presence in the museum brings the scale of the desert landscape into the gallery, connecting a specific place to a broader planetary perspective. Nearby, Emanation (2022), featuring luminous gold leaf, captures and transforms the surrounding light.
The journey continues through a gallery dedicated to light and water. Solar Disc 6,000 BC, Mali (2021), an intimate gold sculpture, evokes ancient cosmologies while suggesting an imagined object from the future. Nearby, the films 20/20: Accelerando (2016) and Liquid Light (2022) follow Najma across terrestrial and cosmic landscapes, with water serving as a recurring element of reflection, movement, and transformation.
The final gallery turns toward the cosmos with Particle Horizon (2014), a multimedia installation centered on a cast of Albuquerque’s body in repose beneath projections tracing the movement of stars at the North Pole, South Pole, and Equator. Accompanied by spoken passages from GENIUS REMEMBERED, the installation brings together the scale of the universe and the physical presence of the human body. It offers a perspective in which time and space become interconnected, placing the individual within something far greater while remaining grounded in the experience of being on Earth.
“Southern California has long inspired artists to consider perception, consciousness, and our place within something larger than ourselves,” said Christine Vendredi, JoAnn McGrath Executive Director and Chief Curator of Palm Springs Art Museum. “Lita Albuquerque brings that inquiry to a deeply human question: how do we understand our place within the vastness of the universe?”
With Cosmic Land, Albuquerque invites visitors to reconsider the relationship between the familiar landscape and the seemingly distant cosmos. From the open expanse of the Mojave Desert to the movement of stars across the night sky, the exhibition suggests that the two are never separate. We are not simply observers of the universe, but part of it.
Lita Albuquerque: Cosmic Land
Palm Springs Art Museum
October 16, 2026 – May 3, 2027
More information: psmuseum.org