Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor —

Just as Artpace was ready to show the work of its first 2020 resident artists, the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close its doors to help prevent the spread of the infection. So, the three artists – Carlos Castro Arias, Milagros de la Torre and Daniel Ramos – left San Antonio, leaving behind their creations to sit in the dark, unseen and uncelebrated. They didn’t even have an opening reception.

“The shutdown happened on the day we were supposed to open in March,” said Artpace director Riley Robinson, who just the night before had shared a few beers with the artists and staff while relaxing after installing all three shows.

Today, most of the staff is back, and visitors are invited to return, albeit by appointment, to keep the flow of people controlled and ensure the proper social distancing in the galleries.

Of the three exhibits on view, Castro Arias’ is probably the one that will attract the most attention. Mounted in an upstairs gallery, the show, “I came to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already kindled” (Luke 12:49) was inspired by the artist’s curiosity and interest in religion and churches, and, more specifically, his visits to multiple churches in Texas, including mega places like Joel Osteen’s Houston organization, and houses of worship that have been attacked, some with devastating consequences.

He focused on the imagery of fire, which is “viewed as a metaphor for pain, but also purification, a material that is considered simultaneously generative and destructive.” The exhibition space is appropriately darkened and the mood will envelop you as soon as you walk in to see a figure of a man bent over his cell phone, while a flame encircles his neck. It’s hard to take your eyes off him. But everything else in the room “smells” of fire, too, burnt wood, soot, ashes. There’s also a little church on fire on a pedestal, titled “Body.” The flames keep on leaping out of the structure very realistically.

Downstairs, you’ll find the exhibit “The Land of Illustrious Men” by the prominent photographer Daniel Ramos, who documented and interpreted his and his family’s life journey, which started in Mexico where his father was born, and stretched all the way to the West Side of Chicago where the artist grew up. This show takes time to really take in. Photos, artifacts, installations, rich details, and a van – yes, a real van the family used on annual trips back to Mexico – are all packed into the space. It’s a story of a family, retrieved and reappraised. While your family’s story may be very different, the exhibit will likely resonate with you on many levels.

The third show, is the most subtle and intellectual one, not the kind that grabs you from the get-go. Called “Systems and Constellations,” it’s a work of New York-based artist Milagros de la Torre, who has a condition that makes it very hard for her to remember faces. According to Artpace exhibition notes, another factor that influenced her art might have been her father’s work in the Peruvian counter-terrorism intelligence. The items in the show focus on the human face and facial recognition methods that have not always been used for benevolent purposes. Again, it takes some time to absorb all aspects of the exhibit, from the convex mirrors etched with constellations of stars, to the video about historical systems used to supposedly identify people with criminal or mental health issues. “There is an intimacy, quietness and depth in de la Torre’s Systems and Constellations,” the show’s brochure says. “… The artist poetically offers for consideration the ideas of systems and science alongside the idea that human beings, faces in particular, are themselves constellations.”

Also on view at this time, is the unrelated exhibit “Visibilities” installed in January and featuring women artists who have been affiliated with Artpace.

While all of those shows waited in darkness, Robinson and his staff decided to tackle other projects.

“Something I have wanted us to do for a long time was to go back and look at our archives, which are all digital. We have hours and hours of video tapes of our exhibitions that needed to be produced so that we can publish them and put them online,” he said. “Now we have a dedicated crew working on that. Olivia (Hinojosa), who works at the front desk turned out to be a really good video editor, so she has been working with the rest of our team, on putting all that material online- exhibits, talks, information about the building, etc.”

At the same time, the organization’s education team used the quarantine time to update the educational projects and make them available online, as well he noted. “We publish a weekly educational project, which has become popular. School districts have been using them.”

Though Artpace never charges admission – and in that sense has not lost revenue from that source – it has nevertheless suffered cuts in funding, including funding from the city which at some point eliminated its arts support altogether due to budget shortages.

“I am going to talk to our leaders about the value of art and culture in the city,” said Robinson as another discussion on the subject was nearing at the time of our interview. “A lot of other cities had to cut budgets but they were a little more generous to the arts. We are a small business. And instead of furloughing everybody and sending them over to unemployment, we kept people working.”

To this day, Artpace’s main source of income continues to be the Linda Pace Foundation, set up by its founder, artist, visionary and philanthropist Linda Pace. But the foundation and Artpace are not part of the same entity.

“We are two separate organizations though there’s a lot of confusion about this,” pointed out the director with some vehemence. “Even people who should know ask me, ‘Hey Riley, how’s your new building?’ They mean Ruby City (a new museum built by the foundation.) Ruby City is fantastic. I give people tours of Ruby City; I show them art that was made at Artpace that is now in Ruby City; it’s an amazing organization, but it’s a separate one. The foundation finds about 40 percent of our operation through a planned giving from Linda.”

That program will end in 2023, however, and Robinson’s “main job right now is working on replacing it.” He proudly points out that Artpace has put its financial house in order and has been in the black for the past three years.

Since its founding by Pace in 1995, Artpace has hosted more than 240 artists through its much-admired International Artists-in-Residence program, with three residency periods a year, each bringing three artists to work at Artpace for two months. Chosen by respected curators, the trio of artists consists of one Texas-based artist, one chosen from the rest of the nation, and one from the world beyond our borders. The residents are provided with living expenses and resources they need to realize their dream projects with complete freedom to experiment and explore.  

Artpace does not influence any of their choices. “There’s no Artpace style,” said Robinson, who before becoming the top boss worked directly with artists to facilitate their projects. “There’s no, if you come to Artpace, you have to do this or, you have to do that. All the artists get the same funding, and as long as we can do it safely, and it’s within the budget, and there’s an exhibition at the end, there are no other requirements”.

In fact, the institution will go out of its way to help, even if an artist wants to film a WWII bomber for a project, as one indeed wanted to do. He got his vintage plane and filmed it dropping pumpkins on a field.

Due to current circumstances, the summer 2020 residencies have been postponed until the summer of 2021, and the fate of the fall program depends on how the pandemic evolves.

Is the Artpace residency a pivotal experience in propelling the careers of artists to greater recognition and success? We wondered.

“I’ve been here for 25 years, and I would like to think that that’s exactly what we do,” came the prompt reply.

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Artpace, 445 N. Main Ave.; Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 12 noon to 5 p.m.; 210-212-4900 You must make an appointment. Free parking at 513 N. Flores St.