Aaron Curry at the McNay
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor –
Next time you visit the McNay Art Museum, don’t rush right away to see what’s in the galleries. Take a few minutes to examine the transformation of the AT&T Lobby, a transformation accomplished by artist Aaron Curry, a San Antonio native who now lives and works in Los Angeles. Even though he grew up in San Antonio and visited the McNay many times, this is Curry’s first ever hometown show.
His work first came to the attention of the museum’s Head of Curatorial Affairs, Rene Paul Barilleaux, several years ago in Miami, Fl., and it made an impression. “I was not familiar with his work but after that Miami show, I followed his work for a few years,” said Barilleaux. “I am a fan of abstraction and I liked how he referenced works of modern masters such as Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Picasso, computer digital work, past and present, while creating his own vocabulary.”
Titled Headroom, the exhibit includes four separate works: an edge-to-edge colorful backwall covering consisting of separate panels tightly assembled together to convey an expanse of abstract playfulness; a painting that looks like fireworks in a night sky, and two sculptures installed in the lobby’s window space. The larger one, Line Mind Body Hottie, is an abstract standing sculpture evoking a figure – with legs and sort of a neck and head – that the artist constructed out of flat cardboard and plywood panels. He likes the idea of transitioning between 2-D and 3-D. “I start with something flat and bring it into space, to make it 3-D,” he said. “I can convert it back into 2-D images. It’s a back and forth experience. There’s room to play.” Each panel is a silkscreen of a drawing, he explained. The entire sculpture seems to vibrate in its neon colors.
The second, smaller, sculpture, Little Bang, couldn’t be more different. It hangs from the ceiling like a light fixture, an elegant one, with black rounded shapes and a hot-pink part protruding out. And there’s an enigmatic little eye watching you as you look at it. Clearly the title wants to connect the piece to the other “bang,” the Big Bang, but that connection is elusive, at best. This “explosion” is rather thoughtfully composed albeit with a sense of humor.
The exhibition will remain in the lobby for an entire year, said Barilleaux. Unfortunately, the normal business of the lobby area diminishes somewhat the impact of the art.
Curry grew up drawing constantly, and eventually moved to Chicago to study art at the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited in museums and other venues around the U.S. and abroad, and reviewed in art publications. His pieces can be found in the collections of many museums and art centers, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and even Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.
And why is the exhibit named Headroom? We forgot to ask him but we think it has something to do with that “room to play,” that space where fantasy and creativity co-mingle and take you where they take you.
McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., 78209; Open Wed.-Sunday; 210-824-5368