Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio

The Paisano

Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio

The Paisano

Independent Student Newspaper for the University of Texas at San Antonio

The Paisano

​New faces bring work to life at Artpace

(arts) artpace 1(courtesy of mark menjivar)

Native and international artists bring fresh takes on cinematic film, sculpture and photography to Artpace’s Spring International Artist-in-Residence exhibit.

The main objective of the program is to encourage artists to push boundaries and take risks by experimenting with their ideas. Artpace hosts the program three times a year where artists are in residence for two months and their exhibitions are on display for another two. A guest curator chooses one international, one national and one Texas-based artist each time, bringing different backgrounds and diversity to the program to reflect the art being created. Stipends are provided by Artpace, and artists are provided with everything they need, including studios and production money.

This spring, artists were chosen by guest curator Rita Gonzalez, associate curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Artists include Rosa Barba from Berlin, Liz Glynn from Los Angeles and Jessica Mallios from Austin.

Barba is best known for “Coro Spezzato, The Future Lasts One Day” for which she won the Nam June Paik Award. Barba’s work explores the relationship between the idea and the matter within cinematic film. She uses 16 mm and Super 8 film with the projector in the middle of the gallery being the focal point. She explores the “duality of dialogue and monologue,” and her exhibition at Artpace, “New Works” is part of an ongoing project on traces left by trains.

In one of the two pieces, she layers text and colors that cut across the image repeatedly, the film moving rapidly and playing with light, a large component in Barba’s works. The video is on loop and the text spells out “Pssst.” The text becomes embedded in the viewer’s mind and becomes a meditative chant.

Glynn is a Los Angeles-based artist best known for her reenactment of “Buckminster Fuller’s failed attempt to build a geodesic dome with a group of students in 1948” for Performa 11. Glynn works with sculptures and performance, exploring the monetary value of objects in correspondence with the financial system of the time. Glynn’s interest is in the shift of physical systems of trade to a more digital trade. In her exhibit at Artpace, “Hold Nothing,” Glynn bases her work on the Medici Grand Ducal Furniture workshop; Medici furniture were displays of wealth instead of being functional.

Throughout the gallery, objects range from ceramic tiles placed strategically on the floor to large pieces of furniture painted a rich brown or shining gold. Glynn used the texture from the Artpace parking lot for some of the tiles, which she sees “functioning like coinage.”

Mallios is the Texas-based artist-in-residence. Hailing from Austin, she uses a combination of photography and video to study the dislocation of objects. Mallios’ most recent exhibition before Artpace, “Contemporary Photographic Practice and the Archive,” was at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She explores how images and objects are perceived in relation to each other.

“Sight lines” explores viewing glass as itself rather than looking through it, as well as dislocated objects displayed in frames. A video plays on a television screen showing the glass window at the Tower of Americas, with the viewer focusing on the glass itself and how lights and space play with it instead of just the images beyond the glass.

The exhibition will be on display until May 18. Artpace is open Wednesday through Sunday from 12-5 p.m. and is free to the public. Tours are also available by appointment. For more information visit artpace.org.

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