Image credit: Photo by Francisco Cortes

Artpace Artist-in-Residence Tala Madani is featured in the January/February issue of frieze. The magazine visited Madani at her Los Angeles studio, where she spoke about her painting and animation.

The native Texas rocks were taken from a stoneyard in Boerne and sprayed with concrete dye by the International Artist-in-Residence, whose exhibition opens next week. To view the final installation in all its glory, you’ll have to attend the Public Opening on Thursday, November 15, which will include an Artists’ Dialogue moderated by guest curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Director and Chief Curator at the Aspen Art Museum. Artists Dor Guez and Sarah Sudhoff will also debut their residency projects.

Image credit: Forklift generously provided by Crown Equipment Corporation. Photos by Wendi Kimura

David Benjamin Sherry displays his understanding of color in our freshly acquired publications, It’s Time and Quantum Light. Both books are available for viewing in the Artpace Archive and Research Library. (Come by during our public hours, 12-5pm Wednesday through Sunday, or make an appointment by calling 210.212.4900.)

Quantum Light, published last year, includes a thorough Q&A with our International Artist-in-Residence, in conjunction with over 40 pieces ranging from 2007 to the date of publication. It’s Time, published in 2009, includes 60 of Sherry’s original images. Check out the books before Thursday, November 15, when the resident artist will introduce new work at our Public Opening, with an Artists’ Dialogue moderated by guest curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Director and Chief Curator at the Aspen Art Museum.

-Roxy Eguia, Artpace Archive Intern

Our Studio staff is hard at work, executing the installation of International Artist-in-Residence Dor Guez’s work in his Artpace exhibition space, which will feature photography and video.

The resident artist projects will be unveiled on Thursday, November 15, debuting new works from Guez, David Benjamin Sherry, and Sarah Sudhoff. The Public Opening will include an Artists’ Dialogue moderated by guest curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Director and Chief Curator at the Aspen Art Museum.

Guez currently has work on view at The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Boston. On Saturday, November 3, he will discuss Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean at Artpace, with an introduction by Dr. Gannit Ankori, Professor of Fine Arts at the Brandeis, as well as co-curator of 100 Steps and editor of the 100 Steps catalogue. The artist talk will be followed by a book signing.

Image credit: Photos by Dor Guez

Art Talk & Book Launch
Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean
Saturday, November 3, 3-5pm
Artpace Student Studio
Free and open to the public 

Dor Guez, our current international International Artist-in-Residence, is a Jerusalem-born artist who lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel. A lecturer in the History and Theory Department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, he is also a researcher affiliated with Tel Aviv University. In 2009, Guez established the Christian Palestinian Archive, which forms the basis of much of his work and is the first archive devoted to this minority across the Middle East.

In late September, just before he began his Artpace residency in San Antonio, he opened Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean at The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Boston—a solo exhibition of photography and video installations, and the Middle Eastern artist’s first major museum exhibition in the United States. He will give a lecture on Tuesday, October 30 at The Rose, coinciding with the release of an illustrated catalogue of 100 Steps, published by The New England Press.

On Saturday, November 3, Guez will discuss his work at Artpace, with an introduction by Dr. Gannit Ankori, Professor of Fine Arts at the Brandeis, as well as co-curator of 100 Steps and editor of the 100 Steps catalogue. The artist talk will be followed by a book signing.

Image credit: Dor Guez, Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean, 2012. Installation view. Photo by Charles Mayer

Artpace International Artist-in-Residence David Benjamin Sherry is considering bringing the subject of his photos to the gallery. Using the image of an object and showing the real object—in this case a boulder from a San Antonio quarry—he is showing his process and breaks down notions of the picture plane, handing the viewer a new reality.

Image credit: Photo by Riley Robinson

International Artist-in-Residence Sarah Sudhoff is dying to get into a crematorium. (No? C’mon it’s October. Get in the spirit.) The photographer keeps hitting dead ends as she tries to gain access to a crematory facility for her Artpace project. “I’m drowning in red tape,” she explains. (No seriously. She said that.)

Illness and mortality are regular themes in Sudhoff’s projects, which include Hysteria (2008), Repository (2005-06), and At the Hour of Our Death (2010-ongoing), revealing and often very personal works that are as compelling as they are uncomfortable or—at times, to some—even repulsive. While she doesn’t want to disclose what she is working on during her Artpace residency, she does need an in to a crematorium. If you are reading this and you work at, own, or have some connection to a crematory facility, please contact Sudhoff at sarahsudhoff@gmail.com.

Sudhoff’s newest project, Maternity Ward (2011-2012), opens at Gallery Nord this Saturday, October 6 from 5-8pm. Governing Bodies, an invitational exhibition curated by Kathy Armstrong, features artists whose works address the controversy of women’s health care in Texas, including Linda Arredondo, Phyllis Evans, Ana Laura de la Garza, Julia Barbosa Landois, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Jillian Pallone, Katie Pell, Catherine Winkler Rayroud, Hadar Sobol, Mary Mikel Stump, and Sudhoff, with performances by Marisela Barrera, Anna de Luna, Laurie Dietrich, and Mellissa Marlowe. Governing Bodies is on view through October 27.

Sudhoff holds an MFA in Photography from Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, and a Bachelor’s in Journalism from The University of Texas at Austin. She is a co-founder of the Austin Center for Photography. Sudhoff and fellow residents Dor Guez (Tel Aviv, Israel) and David Benjamin Sherry (Los Angeles, California) were selected for the third and final International Artists-in-Residence program of 2012 by guest curator Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Director and Chief Curator of the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado. Their exhibitions at Artpace open on Thursday, November 15.

Image credit: Sarah Sudhoff, Nursery, Yorktown Hospital, 2011 (original measures 30 x 24 inches)

Artpace International Artists-in-Residence
Community Potluck Dinner

Our new International Artists-in-Residence will be moving into their artist flats and settling into their studio spaces at Artpace soon. Help us extend a great big ol’ Texas welcome to Dor Guez (Tel Aviv, Israel), David Benjamin Sherry (Los Angeles, California), and Sarah Sudhoff (San Antonio, Texas) this Thursday at our Community Potluck Dinner. And because it’s finally fall, we’re responding to the cool weather (hey, 84 degrees practically begs for a sweater here in SA) with warm, spicy fare. We’ll provide the best chili in the city (including a vegetarian option), if you’ll help by complementing the menu. Bring YOUR favorite breads, sides, or dessert to share on this casual evening of food, friends, and the future, as we talk to the new residents about their upcoming projects at Artpace. Artist presentations begin at 7pm.

We like to give our residents the royal treatment, which is why their Texas-style comfort food will be provided by none other than the chili queens from The Institute of Chili (we really encourage you to Google “chili queens” for some fascinating local culinary lore), although HRH (and owner) (and painter) Ana Fernandez sends her regrets. She will be taking a break from The Institute of Chili to attend her exhibition opening at The Institute of Texan Cultures. Curated by Arturo Infante Almeida (curator for the University of Texas at San Antonio art collection), the solo show is part of The Texas Contemporary Artists Series, which showcases the talents of some of the Lone Star state’s premier artists. “The work of Ana Fernandez explores the epic histories buried in every neighborhood,” says Almeida. “Her most recent work unearths the stories found in the joyous bits and mundane pieces of life in San Antonio.” The exhibition also marks a departure for Fernandez, who is known for her large-scale oil paintings, but will present several small-scale pieces—including a portrait of The Institute of Chili truck.

So what are we saying here: There are two very cool events occurring at approximately the same time on the same evening in San Antonio. We encourage you to attend… both. It’s a win-win, really. Art and chili.

Image credit: Ana Fernandez, The Chili Queens, 2012. Work in progress. Photo courtesy of the artist

Fresh Art International’s Fresh Talk: Conversations About Creativity in the 21st Century series features a conversation with Artpace International Artist-in-Residence guest curator Sarah Lewis, who selected our current exhibiting artists Leslie Hewitt (New York, New York), Jacco Olivier (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), and Mike Osborne (Austin, Texas). You can listen to the episode here for some interesting insights into Lewis’s selection process and our International Artist-in-Residency program.

“I’m very appreciative of artists who have a strong affirmative platform on which their work stands and that is hard won through deep investigation,” says Lewis. “In this day and age, it’s easy to sort of critique your way into a position, negate your way into position, position yourself against things. And, I find, that you can do that. There’s a discourse that will support that. But there is longevity, I think, and endurance and power and an affirmative platform that’s based on a truly probing and meditative approach that the artists whom I’ve carried into this Artpace residency—Jacco Olivier, Mike Osborne, and Leslie Hewitt—all embody.”

Image credit: Guest curator Sarah Lewis at our International Artist-in-Residence Dialogue in San Antonio in July 2012. Photo by Xelina Flores-Chasnoff