This fall, museums in Austin and San Antonio will debut solo shows and significant exhibitions. The impressive list of shows includes an exhibition featuring Indigenous photographers, a celebration of the 100-year anniversary of Surrealism, and a number of solo surveys of important artists.
Kimowan Metchewais, “Cold Lake Fishing,” undated, paper, ink, adhesive tape, graphite, acrylic paint, 18 x 29.7 inches. Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution
Earlier this month, the Blanton Art Museum in Austin opened Native America: In Translation, an exhibition curated by artist Wendy Red Star and organized by Aperture, a magazine that focuses on photography. The show is an expansion of the Fall 2020 issue of Aperture, which was guest edited by Ms. Red Star; it features more than 60 artworks by nine Indigenous artists working in lens-based media.
In a press release, Ms. Red Star explained, “I was thinking about young Native artists and what would be inspirational and important for them as a road map. The people included here have all played an important part in forging pathways, in opening up space in the art world for new ways of seeing and thinking.”
In September, the museum will present Long Live Surrealism! 1924–Today, curated by Claire Howard, the Blanton’s Associate Curator, Collections and Exhibitions. A celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the Surrealism movement, the show features more than 70 works by artists such as Hans Bellmer, Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Wifredo Lam, Man Ray, and Dorothea Tanning, in conversation with pieces by modern and contemporary artists inspired by Surrealism.
In a press release, Ms. Howard commented, “This exhibition offers visitors an expanded understanding of Surrealism: not only its breadth and diversity as a historical movement that crossed disciplines, mediums, and geographies, but also as a revolutionary worldview that believes in transforming daily life by challenging a viewer’s sense of reality — a concept that artists continue to respond to today.”
Native America: In Translation will be on view through January 5, 2025, and Long Live Surrealism! 1924–Today will be on view from September 7, 2024, through January 12, 2025.
Carl Cheng, “Human Landscapes,” 2022 (detail), sand. Courtesy the artist and Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Brica Wilcox. Courtesy of REDCAT, Los Angeles
In early September, The Contemporary Austin will debut Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses, the first in-depth museum survey of the artist’s work. The exhibition presents 60 years of Mr. Cheng’s artistic practice, much of which focuses on identity, technology, and ecology. From 2025 to 2027, the show will travel throughout North America and Europe.
In a press release, Alex Klein, the Head Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Contemporary, remarked, “I am continuously inspired by Carl’s ethos and outlook. Informed by his own unique methodology and lexicon, his work consistently challenges disciplinary boundaries and is imbued with a genuine desire to engage broad publics. In our current moment of ecological calamity and rapid technological change, his prescient practice offers an alternative vision to humans’ relationship to nature, our ability to innovate and adapt, and the possibilities of art.”
Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses will be on view from September 6 through December 8, 2024.
Amalia Mesa-Bains, “What the River Gave to Me,” 2002, mixed media installation including hand-carved and painted sculptural landscape, LED lighting, crushed glass, hand-blown and engraved glass rocks, candles, 48 x 48 x 168 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. Photo: John Janca
Later in September, the San Antonio Museum of Art will present Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory, curated by María Esther Fernández, the Artistic Director at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, and Laura E. Pérez, Professor of Chicanx, Latinx and Ethnic Studies and Chair of Latinx Research Center, UC Berkeley. This exhibition is the first retrospective of Amalia Mesa-Bains, the Chicana artist and cultural critic who pioneered the genre of altar installation. For more than four decades, she has created altares (home altars), ofrendas (offerings to the dead), descansos (roadside resting places), and capillas (home yard shrines).
Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory will be on view from September 20, 2024 through January 12, 2025.
Martha Rosler, “Nature Girls (Jumping Janes),” 1966, photomontage, edition 4 of 10, 27 x 40 inches. Linda Pace Foundation Collection, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas, 2007
Also in September, Ruby City in San Antonio will open Irrationally Speaking: Collage & Assemblage in Contemporary Art, an exhibition showcasing works by Leonardo Drew, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Arturo Herrera, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ken Little, Hew Locke, Wangechi Mutu, Lorraine O’Grady, Jon Pylypchuk, Deborah Roberts, Martha Rosler, and Nancy Spero, among others.
A press release notes, “With the simple act of placing two or more distinct images or objects together (sometimes jarringly so) artists can create a complex whole to address a multiplicity of meanings. Combined wood fragments, cut-and-pasted paper, seamless digital and photo-based prints comprised of disparate pictures, bronze sculptures created from discarded shoes, and contrasting clothing articles put together —these are some of the ways that contemporary artists harness a myriad of materials and methods to craft the art in this presentation.”
Irrationally Speaking: Collage & Assemblage in Contemporary Art will be on view from September 21, 2024, through August 31, 2025.
Whitfield Lovell, “Because I Wanna Fly,” 2021, conté on wood with attached found objects, diameter: 114 inches. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
In October, the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio will present Whitfield Lovell: Passages, an immersive exhibition that explores Black history. The show features two immersive installations and approximately 30 artworks, including hyperrealist Conté drawings based on found photographs of unknown African Americans. The traveling exhibition, organized by the American Federation of Arts in collaboration with Whitfield Lovell, makes its sixth and final stop at the McNay.
In a press release, Matthew McLendon, the Director and CEO of the McNay, said, “Visitors to Whitfield Lovell: Passages will experience an immersive journey into African American history and heritage, moved by the ordinary lives and extraordinary journeys of anonymous individuals. This exhibition shines a light on America’s collective heritage, helping advance our mission to engage a diverse community in the discovery and enjoyment of the visual arts.”
Whitfield Lovell: Passages will be on view from October 23, 2024, through January 19, 2025.
