Contemporary Art Month (CAM), a San Antonio-based organization dedicated to promoting local artists through a month-long series of shows and other programming, has announced an open call for its 2023 Perennial.
Launched in 2012, the CAM Perennial was originally conceived as an opportunity to invite a curator from outside of San Antonio to organize an exhibition featuring area artists. However, CAM has also grown into a cross-city dialogue, which involves an exhibition exchange between San Antonio artists and artists from another city. The most recent examples of this programming are the pairing of works by local artists with artists from the Canary Islands (2018) and El Paso/Juárez (2019). Though in recent years the annual exhibition has been focused exclusively on San Antonio artists, this year’s call is open to artists living and working in San Antonio or Laredo.
Gil Rocha. Photo courtesy Contemporary Arts Month.
Part of this widening of focus comes with Laredo native Gil Rocha coming on as the guest curator for the 2023 Perennial. Mr. Rocha is an artist, educator, and curator, and his work, which incorporates painting, collage, sculpture, installation, and writing, focuses on issues related to the U.S./Mexico border. Mr. Rocha holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006) and a BFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio (1999).
The 2023 CAM Perennial will take place in March 2023 at the Michael and Noémi Niedorff Gallery at Trinity University. Artists can submit applications via an online form. The application deadline is Monday, October 3, 2022 at 11:59 pm.
