World AIDS Day is often synonymous with Day With(out) Art, which began on December 1, 1989, as the national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis. Since then, it has grown into a collaborative project in which an estimated 8,000 national and international museums, galleries, art centers, AIDS service organizations, libraries, high schools, and colleges take part. Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing and presenting visual art projects, while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. It is committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement.

The Visual AIDS website currently features notes on a steady decline, a compelling web gallery curated by Steven Evans. The images, selected from the Visual AIDS Frank Moore Archive Project, includes works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (an inaugural resident of Artpace’s International Artist-in-Residence program) and Ramirez. Read Evans’s curatorial statement here.

Photo credit: Chuck Ramirez’s World AIDS Day banner, created in 2002. Photo by Wendi Kimura

ViddyWell Part 2
Hosted by Barbara Perea
Saturday, October 20, 7-9pm
The Warehouse behind The Monterey
(enter through the Sala Diaz compound yard)
Free and open to the public

Mexico City-based curator, critic, and lecturer Barbara Perea is the inaugural participant in the Casa Chuck Arts Residency Program. In 2011 she was part of the international New Media and Video festival Transitio_MX. During her residency at Casa Chuck, she will present her ongoing research on the history, state, and import of alternative art spaces in Mexico City, engaging the local community in conversations about this shared cultural phenomenon, as well as seed future projects with San Antonio-based artists, institutions, and publications.

Tomorrow evening, Perea will host ViddyWell Part 2, an evening of video projection at The Warehouse behind The Monterey, presented by Sala Diaz and Casa Chuck.

Video Art from (or about) South of Mediterranean
Selected by Marc Mercier/Instants Video

The Arab Spring brought the eyes of the World to this geolocation in what has since become a sweeping World Revolution movement. Curator, writer, and poet Marc Mercier has been producing video festivals in Ramallah, Palestine, and the Moroccan desert for many years. This program reflects his research and exchange with this region. Presented in collaboration with Instants Video Festival (Marseilles) and commissioned for Transitio_MX festival (Mexico City).

Artists
Rania Stephan/Sama Alshaibi/Ala Younis/Tara Goudarzi/Makan Ashouri/Ikon/Ismail Bahri/Nidal Khatib/Sharif Waked/Marc Mercier

Speaking of Erik Sanden, the musician will collaborate with artist Julia Barbosa Landois on Friday, October 19 at the UTSA Satellite Space in a multimedia performance that examines sex, masculinity, and the tourist mentality along the Texas/Mexico Border. Culo de Oro/The Golden Ass features dialogue taken from interviews with friends and brothel patrons, sex tourism website testimonials, regional folklore, and ideas about sex and spirituality from ancient Mexico. The texts are then woven with strangely apropos pop songs and a grand finale video animation. The entire piece, suggested for audiences 18 and up, begins at 7pm. One night only!

KRTU 91.7’s Year of Jazz Grand Finale is this Sunday, October 7 at 4pm at the Laurie Auditorium, concluding a yearlong initiative to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Trinity University’s radio station. The free concert will feature The San Antonio Jazz Suite with the King William Jazz Collective and the string quartet from Musical Offerings—and a performance by The Jim Cullum Jazz Band.

Since last October, KRTU has partnered with more than 20 non-profit organizations—including Artpace—to stage monthly jazz performances. To do our part to celebrate a fellow San Antonio institution during the Year of Jazz, we featured the Kris Kimura Quintet live in concert in our Hudson (Show)Room in early June.

We think every year should be a year of jazz. And we’ll be at the Grand Finale on Sunday, so look for Membership Associate Mike Martinez and Grant Writer Ryan Sachetta at the Artpace table. In the meantime, hit up KRTU radio online for some quality jazz programming.

Image credit: The Kris Kimura Quintet concert at Artpace in June during the Year of Jazz. Photo by Francisco Cortes

The Round 5 deadline is October 19, 2012. The Idea Fund grants $4,000 awards to 10 artist-centered projects that illustrate unconventional, interventionist, conceptual, entrepreneurial, participatory, or guerilla artistic practices. Round 5 jurors include Dean Daderko (Curator at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), Ayanna Jolivet McCloud (past Idea Fund recipient), Christina Rees (Curator at The Art Galleries at TCU), and Carol Stakena (Executive Director at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions). For more information on applying, visit www.theideafund.org for more details.

—Hannah Sherlock, Artpace Development Intern

Join The Idea Fund at Artpace at 6pm on Thursday, September 13 for a Round 5 information session.

The Idea Fund grants $4,000 awards to 10 artist-centered projects that exemplify unconventional, interventionist, conceptual, entrepreneurial, participatory, or guerilla artistic practices.

Applications will be accepted from Texas-based artists, artist collectives, and/or curators who create and showcase new work involving the public via process, production, or presentation. Proposals are evaluated on artistic strength; overall vision; capacity to realize the proposed project; accessibility to the public; and demonstration of community support and commitment to serving a local constituency. The Round 5 deadline is October 19, 2012.

Round 5 jurors include Dean Daderko (Curator at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), Ayanna Jolivet McCloud (past Idea Fund recipient), Christina Rees (Curator at The Art Galleries at TCU), and Carol Stakena (Executive Director at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions).

The information session at Artpace is free and open to the public. You can also visit www.theideafund.org for more details.