Artpace alum Jeff Williams wins Texas Prize
Jeff Williams receives the 2012 Texas Prize at a reception on May 18, 2012
On Friday, May 18, AMOA-Arthouse supporters gathered to award this year’s coveted Texas Prize, a handsome monetary grant recognizing artistic excellence that also bestows definitive bragging rights for one fortunate Texas artist. This year, the three artists in the running included two past Artpace residents: Jamal Cyrus and Jeff Williams. As an onlooker on Friday evening, I was rooting for both of these wonderful artists, and was elated when the envelope revealed I would not be disappointed.
Jeff was a resident at Artpace in 2011, and was selected for the International Artist-in-Residence program by guest curator Russell Ferguson along with fellow artists Graham Fagen and Frank Benson. For those of you familiar with the installation he completed for Artpace, you may recognize a notable link between Jeff’s installation for the Texas Prize and There is not anything which returns to nothing which debuted at Artpace on November 17, 2011. At Artpace, he included a piece, Conservation Fountain (Cibolo Creek Fossil), which included a fossil sourced from outside of San Antonio. His Texas Prize installation directly followed his Artpace project, again including a fossil mined from the same resource.
The Texas Prize exhibition will be on view at AMOA-Arthouse’s Jones Center location through July 22, 2012.
Mary Heathcott
Surely you’ve seen Deputy Director Mary Heathcott around Artpace, as she’s been a regular fixture for more than six years (only Riley has her beat). A native Texan, she adopted the Midwest in the early ’00s as her home, but returned to San Antonio after getting a Master’s degree at the University of Chicago and cutting her teeth in the museum world at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. A self-proclaimed sandwich connoisseur, she recommends you order the Torta El Tacomiendo the next time you join us for Taco Friday.