 CAM
SAN
ANTONIO
2007
22 Years of
Strength
and Commitment
By SHANNON HUNTINGTON STANDLEY
Photography COURTESY OF
MUSEO ALAMEDA, ARTPACE, SOUTHWEST SCHOOL OF ART AND CRAFT, MCNAY ART MUSEUM, BLUESTAR CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER & SAN ANTONIO MUSEUM OF ART
Defined as artistic works of the “here and now,” contemporary
art is celebrated as just that in San
Antonio each July. Since 1985, San
Antonio has observed Contemporary Art
Month (CAM) — the only city in the
nation to annually dedicate a monthlong
celebration to contemporary arts.
Each year hundreds of private studios,
foundations, galleries, institutions
and artists from around the world proudly
participate in CAM — a direct reflection
of the exciting and vital art community
in San Antonio. CAM has continued
to grow and strengthen, and the
2007 schedule is right on course with an
extraordinary level of commitment
throughout the city.
 Extending art beyond gallery walls
and into the outdoors, Blue Star
Contemporary Arts Center and the San
Antonio Botanical Society are hosting Art
in the Garden, a sculpture exhibition by
artist James Surls. Opening July 27 at the
San Antonio Botanical Garden, this exhibition
features four large-scale cast
bronze sculptures by Surls,
one of the paramount
artists in Texas. Local artist
Katie Pell,who has made a name for herself
in the art scene this year, has been
added to the showcase with four largescale
geometric ceramic sculptures.
This year’s Blue Star Contemporary
Arts Center’s annual CAM exhibition,
Blue Star 22, is Michele Monseau: Gone
Again II. Opening on June 28, this exhibition
encompasses the Main, Middle
and Project Space Galleries and is
curated by Anajli Gupta, editor of
ARTL!ES Magazine. Monseau’s largescale
diptychs and triptychs function
like paintings and continue her exploration
of the self as both a conduit for —
and casualty of — the sublime.
Regional, national and international
artists are the feature of New Works: 07.2 opening July 12 at Artpace San
Antonio. Curated by James Rondeau,
the Frances and Thomas Dittmer curator
of contemporary art at the Art Institute
of Chicago, this exhibition touts three
artists-in-residence — Stefano Arienti of
Milan, Italy; Lorraine O'Grady of New
York, NY; and Eduardo Muñoz Ordoqui
of Austin. Arienti alters printed materials
with basic art-making techniques in
order to disturb anticipated meanings.
O’Grady’s performance works and
photo-installations challenge racial and
sexist ideologies, and Muñoz Ordoqui’s
multiple-exposure photographs join the
past and the present into dreamlike
visions loaded with memories.
 Also opening at Artpace San
Antonio, on July 26, is Marie Lorenz, a
self-titled exhibition of unconventionally
installed sculptures with hand-built forms
and ambitious scale. Lorenz engages
the viewer by using unexpected places
and settings and is most notable for her
use of boats and water, representing a
means to convey. In particular, Lorenz
will journey the river in a small, self-built
paddleboat and chronicle the journey
with a series of woodblock carvings. The
woodblocks will then be translated
through rubbings on paper, combining
the images with rubbed text from historical
markers along the river — creating
her own navigational journal.
Complementing the renowned
American modernism collection at the
McNay Art Museum, ARTMATTERS 11:
Lynda Benglis boasts more than 25
abstract ceramic sculptures by the revolutionary
American artist. On view
through July 29, this collection of sculpture uses traditional, yet diverse materials
in nontraditional ways. Benglis entered
the art world in the mid- 1960s and quickly
became a force to be reckoned with
by refusing to be categorized, thus allowing
her to continually explore.
 With his first showing in the United
States since the 1970s, Fernando Botero,
one of Latin America’s best known contemporary
artists, hits San Antonio this
summer in grand style. The Baroque
World of Fernando Botero debuted in
May at the Southwest School of Art &
Craft with 40 works of art and at the San
Antonio Museum of Art with 60 works of
art. Both shows remain on view through
August 19. Botero, known for capturing
the humor of human life,makes his work
recognizable by his depiction of violence,
beauty, misery, humor, politics
and exaggeration.
On July 7 visitors to the San Antonio
Museum of Art will see brand-new contemporary
galleries. The contemporary
collection has been completely refigured
into cohesive themes,providing context of
the works’ history, purpose and content.
Areas include still lifes, portraits, landscape
and abstract painting — the strength of
the collection. Other groupings incorporate
assemblage sculpture and works
related to social issues. The reinstallation
features existing favorites, several new
acquisitions and works that have been
brought out of storage. They are by prominent
artists such as Hans Hofmann, Frank
Stella, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen
Frankenthaler, Alberto Mijangos, Michael
Tracy, Faith Ringgold, Dario Robleto,
Cynthia Carlson, Donald Lipski, Ronald
Davis, Irene Rice Pereira and many more.
One of San Antonio’s newest museums,
Museo Alameda, is also joining
forces with CAM. On June 27 Cape
opens, an exploration of the bullfight
through paintings by artist Jerry
Cabrera. After discovering a correlation
between movements of a matador and
a ballerina, Cabrera was inspired to
extract beauty from a violent event.
Furthermore, intense studies revealed
the movements of the cape itself possessed
all the elements to portray the
narrative of the event. This realization
resulted in a series of paintings without
the bull or the matador, but simply with
the movements of the cape.
Since its inception 22 years ago, CAM
San Antonio remains committed to one
simple goal: to foster, showcase and promote
contemporary art in all its forms.The
recognition of this effort, not only by individual
artists, studios and galleries, but
also major institutions such as those mentioned
here, illustrates the dedication
throughout the city of San Antonio to
educate and increase awareness of the
importance of the arts, not only in the
past but here and now.
|
