Art

  Adam Gopnik knows a few things about writing, being the author of seven books and winning several magazine writing awards. He knows a few things about Paris having lived there for several years and being awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. He knows a few things about art having devoted his life to the study of it and the promotion of it through his many essays.

An exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art takes the public into the private collection of one of the 20th century's greatest patrons of modern art, Nelson Rockefeller.

The tapestries of Pablo Picasso's masterworks, commissioned for the Rockefeller compound at Kykuit, have been largely absent from the art scene, remaining within the family's estate. This is the first time so many of these tapestries have been presented together outside their original home. 

On Thursday night, about 350 western art lovers gathered at the Briscoe Western Art Museum’s Jack Guenther Pavilion to see the twenty-six winning artworks and meet the high school kids who created them. Student Western Art Committee Chair Gus Salazar runs the show.

“I’ve been blown away by the talent that these kids have. The talent is just incredible. I mean, you would think that these were professional artists up there."

The San Antonio Museum of Art thinks the best way to understand contemporary Japanese Ceramics is to wind the clock back about twelve thousand years.  That’s because unlike other cultures, twelve thousand years ago Japanese were actually making pots.

“The earliest known culture in the world that produced ceramics."

Emily Sano curated the exhibit.

"It’s one of the earliest steps that mankind took towards a civilized society.”

The exhibit features ancient pieces, all the way to very edgy, modern pieces.

The McNay Art Museum is turning 60 years old, and is celebrating in a way contrasting its age--by doing something edgy. I spoke to the McNay’s Rene Paul Barilleaux.

"We decided to create a kind of Pop-Up Installation that would be new art by San Antonio artists. I selected six artists who represent different ways of working, different kinds of subjects, different kinds of materials.”

Those six artists represent very different styles. But if you want to see them, you really ought to hurry.

It’s been a busy year all around, and that includes art in San Antonio. TPR’s Arts and Culture Reporter Jack Morgan looks back at the year that was.

Stories on arts and culture in the San Antonio area are probably a bigger deal than in most cities. Why? Because they really do matter here. It’s in the city’s collective DNA. Or, as county judge Nelson Wolff puts it:    

“San Antonio is in the middle of a cultural renaissance.”

The city’s Felix Padron said there’s a reason for this renaissance.

You may think the ‘Day of the Dead’ as a celebration around Halloween, but at the Texas A&M Cultural  Arts Center in San Antonio, an exhibit is drawing new attention. I took a tour with its creator. Deborah A. Cortez helps run her family’s Mi Tierra restaurant at Market Square in San Antonio, but she’s also an artist who created this ‘Day of the Dead’ exhibit.

“The exhibit is a story of The Children of the Revolución, which was originally put together by Lionel and Kathy Sosa.”