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Jewel in the rough: the annual Contemporary Art Month reveals a city with a dynamic and increasingly progressive art scene - Report From San Antonio
Art in America, Feb, 2002 by Frances Colpitt
Two of the most intriguing installations responded to the Sunday-school classrooms still occupied by children's desks. Andrea Caillouet's Wishes (2001) consisted of a video of a little girl's hand clasping a pencil and writing on a tablet. The video was projected from overhead onto a desk, conforming perfectly to its surface. In another classroom, Alex Lopez wrote made-up lessons on the chalkboard. He also installed a tiny, difficult-to-see video monitor in the open drawer of one desk, placed hard-sided briefcases beside each desk and filled the space with garbled speech emanating from overhead speakers. Downstairs, Anne Wallace installed fresh-cut stargazer lilies in vases on shelves in a walk-in broom closet set up like a small chapel.
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On opening night, the nave was given over to a spectacular performance by the Reverend Ethan Acres, a visiting artist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, with local artist Hills Snyder. This was the second San Antonio performance by Acres, an ordained minister who received his MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He typically delivers a sermon scripted for the occasion. The theme of this one was Dunk, referring to both baptism and basketball. While Snyder, in a yellow basketball uniform, hurled china coffee cups from his location in a balcony in the apse, Acres paced below, costumed in a combination of a preacher's vestments and athletic attire, pontificating to the good-humored crowd of spectators. At the event's conclusion, Acres made his way up to the balcony to baptize Snyder, who emerged from the "dunk" dripping wet.
ArtPace
A decade ago, the San Antonio art scene had a more regional flavor. Now, however, it has begun to garner international attention and has consequently developed an awareness of itself on that level. This is primarily due to the establishment of the ArtPace Foundation. Established in 1995 by Linda Pace, the daughter of the creator of Pace picante sauce, ArtPace sponsors a residency program that brings artists, along with curators and critics, to San Antonio, where they interact with the art community through lectures, panel discussions and studio visits. ArtPace also supports international travel by San Antonio artists, establishing further ties between the local scene and the larger art world, and has four exhibition spaces located in a renovated 1920s Hudson automobile dealership on the north edge of downtown. Three of these are devoted to the artist-in-residence program. Each installment of the program includes a regional artist, a national artist and an international artist. For the first four years, artists were selected by a six-member panel. Now a single curator is responsible for choosing the three artists in each group. Lisa Corrin, chief curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London, selected last summer's residents. Valerie Cassel, associate curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, is responsible for next summer's.
With a healthy stipend and materials budget, as well as a knowledgeable staff of fabricators, artists are in residence for two months, using their exhibition spaces as studios. Works remain on view for two months after the residency period. From the beginning, ArtPace has attracted an impressive roster of artists. The first show, organized by Robert Storr before the panel system was instituted, included Annette Messager, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Jesse Amado. Many residency projects, which remain the property of the artists, have traveled to other venues. Amado's White Floating (1994), an installation that includes a rubber suit, mirrors and a sink with soap, was exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. Cornelia Parker's Mass (Colder Darker Matter), 1997, was seen in the 1997 Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Gallery, as well as at SITE Santa Fe and at Deitch Projects in New York. Works in Arturo Herrera's recent exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Christian Marclay's The Sounds of Christmas (1999), performed at the New Museum in New York in 2000, were also created during residencies at ArtPace.
