Sport and Spectator @ The McNay, San Antonio

Sport and Spectator

The McNay, San Antonio

March 1 — July 27, 2025

Hank Willis Thomas

Perseverance, 2017 

Fiberglass, chameleon auto, paint finish

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York 

© Hank Willis Thomas

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Basketball Bloom (USA Outdoor), 2024 

Basketballs and shoestrings 

Courtesy of the artist and Pentimenti, Philadelphia 

© Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Brian Jungen 

Horse Mask (Cher), 2016 

Nike Air Jordans 

Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York 

© Brian Jungen

Betsy Odom

Softball Glove, 2008

Tooled leather, and shearling

Courtesy of the artist

© Betsy Odom

Basketballs, footballs, tennis rackets, hockey sticks, jerseys, punching bags and other sports gear and paraphernalia become art in “Sport and Spectator,” on view at the McNay Art Museum. The exhibition celebrates American sports culture and confronts its complex intersection with race, gender and class. “Sport and Spectator” includes approximately 40 sculptures, textiles, screenprints and sports-themed installations by contemporary artists Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp, Jeffrey Gibson, Raul Rene Gonzalez, Sophie Inard, Brian Jungen, Justin Korver, Esmaa Mohamoud, Betsy Odom, Hank Willis Thomas, and Tyrrell Winston. Each work offers a recognizable element of sports while inviting viewers to consider athletics’ role in shaping society.

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Basketball Bloom (Breakaway Outdoor), 2024

Basketballs and shoestrings 

Courtesy of the artist and Pentimenti, Philadelphia. 

© Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Brandon Donahue-Shipp, who aspired to a career in professional basketball, uses his artistic practice to explore social and cultural realities in Black and Brown communities. Deflated basketballs and footballs become sculptural floral arrangements that symbolize the unfulfilled dreams of Black and Brown boys who also dreamed of careers in professional sports. “Coach’s Playbook,” is a screenprint that juxtaposes a basketball diagram with the floorplans of a courtroom. Strategic plays marked in red and blue cover the image and comment on the relationship between Black and Brown communities and the American legal system.

Hank Willis Thomas

Changeup, 2019 

Mirrored stainless steel

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York 

© Hank Willis Thomas

Multiple works by Hank Willis Thomas highlight the potential for sports to both uplift Black communities and exploit the bodies of Black athletes. Resembling abstract modern sculpture, the metallic shapes in “Perseverance” depict an athlete’s bent limbs in dynamic motion. Presenting an anonymous player in the form of a public monument, Thomas’ sculpture acknowledges the power of sports to both unite and divide. The artist finishes the sculpture with shiny auto paint to comment on the sport’s reliance on international players, many who are of African descent.

Esmaa Mohamoud transforms jerseys to bodices to address gender in sports in her “One of the Boys” series. By pairing each jersey with a floor-length skirt made of silk and velvet, the artist presents a sports-themed ballgown that challenges the propensity for male athletes to be hyper-masculine while women remain underrepresented in sports. Growing up as the only girl with four brothers, she was a self-described tomboy. When her mom insisted that she wear a dress, she once wore a jersey over it.

Sophie Inard 

First base en rose, 2023 

Vintage hockey helmet with cotton yarn

Courtesy of the artist 

© Sophie Inard

Sophie Inard blankets common sports equipment with intricate patterns, bringing together the fast-paced, harsh sports world and the slower, delicate, calculated practice of crochet. She uses the “granny square” pattern reminiscent of a time that preceded modern-day technology to cover golf clubs, baseball bats, motorcycle helmets, rugby balls, boxing gloves, skateboards and other equipment. Wrapping sports equipment in soft yarn communicates the idea that opposites can coexist.

Jeffrey Gibson adorns Everlast punching bags with glass beads to pay homage to traditional Native American craft traditions while offering social and political commentary. His works also include references to artists and musicians through titles and words that appear on the works such as “The Love You Give Is the Love You Get,” inspired by lyrics from The Beatles’ “The End.” “Sharecropper” honors his grandparents, who persevered through poverty. Each work also celebrates boxing’s power to release tension and stress.

“‘Sport and Spectator’ explores the artistic alchemy of manipulating the materiality and meaning of sports paraphernalia,” said exhibition co-curator René Paul Barilleaux. “The contemporary artists featured are committed to incorporating sports equipment into their artistic practice, and this exhibition is unique in that numerous exhibitions have been organized around the theme of sports culture, but seemingly not specific to sports equipment and gear,” added co-curator Lauren Thompson.

“Sport and Spectator” is organized for the McNay Art Museum by René Paul Barilleaux, head of curatorial affairs, and Lauren Thompson, curator of exhibitions. 

McNay Art Museum

Tobin Exhibition Galleries

6000 N New Braunfels Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Michael Tracy @ The McNay, San Antonio - Survey Exhibition "Michael Tracy: The Elegy of Distance"

Michael Tracy: The Elegy of Distance 

The McNay, San Antonio 

March 1 — July 27, 2025 

Michael Tracy 

Flower Sacrifice, 1988 

Gilded wood, swords, brass milagros, silk, and fresh flowers

Courtesy of Michael Tracy Foundation

Many never-before-seen paintings, sculptures and mixed-media objects anchor an exhibition that does what artist MICHAEL TRACY did for his six-decade career: challenge us to think deeply about those things we hold dear.

More than 50 objects welcome visitors in Michael Tracy: The Elegy of Distance. The works promote critical thinking, empathy, thoughtful exchange and healing as viewers consider faith, ritual, immigration and the environment. An original soundscape by musical composer Omar Zubair will complement the presentation.

“Although the artist withdrew from the museum and gallery ecosystem for years, the issues his work addresses have become increasingly urgent,” said René Paul Barilleaux, the McNay’s head of curatorial affairs. “The McNay’s exhibition will bring attention to this significant American artist’s work, introducing a new generation to him.”

Spanning nearly floor to ceiling, large canvases coated in thick paint, discarded supplies, sand and other materials evoke the desert landscape around Tracy’s studios in San Ygnacio, a small Texas border town along the Rio Grande. Seven paintings from his series “Speaking with the Dead” (2013-2015) ooze with varying shades of charcoal and black acrylic that are thickly layered on the canvas to communicate the relationship between decay and preservation. The heavy texturing suggests the works want to escape the canvases that hold them as they implore the viewer to commune.

Michael Tracy’s works blur the lines between international and metaphysical borders. “Cruz de la Paz Sagrada VII” (1980), a bracketed cross that stands more than 70 inches tall, is composed of heart-shaped Milagros, hair, swords, rosaries, spikes and scissors. The sculpture is a poignant juxtaposition of sacred and secular. Viewers can also see studies for the “Golmuhar” series (2005-2010) and finished acrylic paintings that reflect the yellow, orange and chartreuse blooms on the trees native to India. Michael Tracy routinely made semi-annual trips there to make jewelry.

“Para los olvidados (For the forgotten ones, 1989),” reportedly induced gasps from the audience when the pyramid-shaped work, stuffed with fragrant white flowers and covered with human hair, was first exhibited in Mexico City. The work is believed to pay homage to the unnamed heroes in the Aztec wars.

“In the decades since his last significant solo exhibitions, which garnered national attention, society has evolved its thoughts around issues like climate change, religion and traditional beauty standards. Michael Tracy’s exhibition at the McNay will allow visitors to revisit his work with fresh perspectives framed by societal evolution that reflects an increased awareness of the urgency of the issues addressed in his work,” said René Paul Barilleaux.

Programming for scholars and community members draws parallels between Tracy’s work and modern-day concerns about the environment, religion, border policy, immigration and societal definitions of beauty. A free poster-size publication includes images of artworks in the exhibition and a reflection on the artist by Christopher Rincón, president of the Michael Tracy Foundation and director of the River Pierce Foundation.

“Given San Antonio’s diversity and its proximity to the U.S./Mexico border, the McNay has the opportunity to present an impactful exhibition to a large audience acutely affected by issues represented within it,” said Matthew McLendon, Ph.D., the McNay’s director and CEO. “An exhibition of Michael Tracy’s work at this precise moment, so close to his passing, is especially poignant as it will serve to honor his lifelong dedication to his artistic practice and reinforce his critical contributions to social justice and the visual arts, squarely placing him as one of the leading American artists known to grapple with these issues and help us, the viewers, understand, process and confront them in an informed and thoughtful way.”

Michael Tracy, an Ohio native, earned a bachelor’s degree in literature and art at St. Edward’s University (Austin, Texas), studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and earned a master’s degree in studio art from The University of Texas at Austin. In 1978, he established his studio in San Ygnacio and turned more of his attention to the Texas town as his national and international fame waned. Despite his creative success, San Ygnacio’s population of less than 1,000 people did not fully embrace the artist. Many of the residents were descendants of the area’s original settlers and were off-put by some of Tracy’s gestures, including “The River Pierce: Sacrifice II,” a 1990 Good Friday ritual burning of Tracy’s “Cruz: La Pasión” (1982-87), a cross-like object. Approximately 200 people joined Michael Tracy for the processional inspired by the city’s annual Via Dolorosa.

“The McNay has a long tradition of elevating lesser-known, marginalized artists working outside of the mainstream art world,” René Paul Barilleaux said. “In Michael Tracy’s case, the McNay recognized him both at the beginning of his career and, perhaps more importantly, now at the end of his career when the mercurial winds of the art world have shifted away from the once lauded artist.”

Fifty-three years ago, McNay Art Museum mounted Michael Tracy’s first-ever museum exhibition, “Seven Gold Paintings,” at what was then the Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute.

Surveying approximately two decades of Tracy’s career, “The Elegy of Distance” debuts many objects from the artist’s personal holdings alongside artworks on loan from other collections. The exhibition is organized by René Paul Barilleaux in collaboration with Christopher Rincón.

McNay Art Museum

6000 N New Braunfels Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Einar and Jamex de la Torre @ McNay Art Museum, San Antonio — "de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility" Exhibition

Einar and Jamex de la Torre

de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio

March 1 — September 15, 2024

Einar de la Torre and Jamex de la Torre 

Photograph by Josue Castro

Einar and Jamex de la Torre  

“Colonial Atmosphere,” 2002 

Mixed media installation, 130” x 460” x 450”. 

Installation view of “Collidoscope: de la Torre Brother Retro-Perspective” 

at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of Riverside Art Museum 

(June 18, 2022 - Jan. 22, 2023) 

Photo by Philipp Rittermann

Courtesy of the artists & Koplin Del Rio Gallery

Collaborating brothers Einar and Jamex de la Torre make their San Antonio solo exhibition debut with “de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility,” on view at the McNay Art Museum. The mixed media works on display will feature the brothers’ signature style that combines blown glass sculpture, lenticular prints, video, installation and other materials and techniques in unexpected ways.

“Concepts of identity are really important in our work,” said Einar de la Torre. “We are questioning what it means to be American and what it means to be Mexican and hopefully opening doors to the complexities of the immigrant experience and contradicting bicultural identities.”

The de la Torre brothers live and work on both sides of the border in the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California, Mexico and San Diego, California. A shared interest in blown glass sparked their partnership and the two have been creating together since the 1990s. Their baroque sensibility incorporates vivid color, layered textures and intricate details. The duo takes an additive approach to their art across genres, often exploring ideas about life and the afterlife and merging cultural symbols in amusing ways to envision potential futures for humankind. The exhibition will include existing and new works representing a multifaceted view of life with a sense of playful irony.

“Much like the de la Torre brothers’ lenticular works, which change depending on one’s viewpoint, we hope this exhibition resonates with the unique perspectives of the San Antonio community,” said Matthew McLendon, director and CEO of the McNay. “The McNay is committed to reflecting local identity and increasing the visibility of diverse artists through our exhibition programming.”

The presentation at the McNay will be organized into four thematic sections. The introductory gallery acquaints visitors with artworks in mediums the brothers are most known for — handblown glass sculptures and lenticular photographs — including several sculptures created especially for the exhibition.

Incorporating furniture, wallpaper, dishware and other functional objects, the next space will surround guests in an immersive domestic setting. The centerpiece of the room will be a fantastical banquet table spanning over 20 feet and featuring vibrant multimedia installations both on and underneath the structure.

Large-scale lenticular photographs dominate the third gallery. The works are seemingly in conflict on opposing walls while a giant floor projection reveals an animated view of Mexico City in real time.

The final gallery experience will be anchored by an installation featuring a lunar lander in the shape of a massive stone Olmec head, merging symbols of the ancient past with ideas of future humanity.

“‘de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility’ will be transhistorical, as is much of the de la Torre brothers’ work,” said René Paul Barilleaux, exhibition co-curator and McNay’s head of curatorial affairs. “Einar and Jamex will also incorporate objects from the McNay’s collection into the exhibition, expanding appreciation for the creative intersections of traditional decorative art with Mexican vernacular art and pre-Columbian and ancient American imagery.”

“de la Torre Brothers: Upward Mobility” is organized by the McNay Art Museum and co-curated by René Paul Barilleaux, head of curatorial affairs, and Lauren Thompson, curator of exhibitions, with assistance from Mia Lopez, curator of Latinx art.

The brothers recently completed a separate site-specific installation at the McNay, “de la Torre Brothers: Latin Exoskeleton.” The work transformed the AT&T Lobby through a combination of tromps l’oeil wallpaper and lenticular images.

McNAY ART MUSEUM

6000 North New Braunfels Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Matthew McLendon: Director of the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Matthew McLendon: 

Director of the McNay Art Museum, 

San Antonio, Texas

Matthew McLendon

Photo Credit: Daniel Perales

McLendon to Lead the First Modern Art Museum in Texas Beginning February 13, 2023

The McNay Art Museum’s Board of Trustees has confirmed the appointment of Matthew McLendon, PhD, to serve as the museum’s fourth director in its 68-year history. McLendon comes to the McNay from The Fralin Museum of Art at The University of Virginia (UVA), where he served as the J. Sanford Miller Family Director and Chief Curator since 2017.

“Matthew’s dynamic experience as an art historian, museum director and curator will strengthen the McNay Art Museum’s position as a global destination for modern and contemporary art,” said Don Frost, President of the Board of Trustees. “We are confident that his expertise and strong commitment to civic engagement will advance the Museum’s vision of becoming a place of belonging for our diverse community.”

An energetic and influential leader, McLendon is widely recognized for his emphasis on community engagement and education, advocacy of cross-disciplinary programming and amplifying underrepresented and marginalized voices in the museum setting. At The Fralin, McLendon focused on invigorating the museum within the University and its wider constituencies. Museum attendance and major support increased and diversified dramatically during his tenure, along with the launch of new public programs, including Greenbrier Global Artists, an after-school program serving the children of asylum seekers.

“Under Matthew’s leadership, the Fralin Museum of Art has made tremendous strides in facilitating important conversations through the Museum’s collection and exhibitions,” said UVA Vice Provost for the Arts, Jody Kielbasa. “As director and chief curator, Matthew was devoted to sharing inclusive stories in the galleries, expanding the collection, bolstering audience engagement and garnering national media attention for the institution. His work and collaborative spirit left an indelible mark on the Fralin Museum of Art, the University of Virginia and our community of Charlottesville, and will benefit the Museum’s visitors and the UVA community for many years to come.”

Nationally-recognized exhibitions during McLendon’s tenure include a multi-sensory installation by Vanessa German, sometimes.we.cannot.be.with.our.bodies.; Unexpected O’Keeffe: The Virginia Watercolors and Later Paintings, an exhibition focusing on the critical yet little-known period that Georgia O’Keeffe spent as a student at UVA; and Skyscraper Gothic, investigating the European foundations of the fundamentally American skyscraper and its place in early 20th century material culture.

The Fralin also expanded its Native American collections under McLendon’s leadership, acquiring works by contemporary Native American artists including Wendy Red Star, Cara Romero, Rick Bartow and others. Earlier this year, the Museum was awarded a $250,000 American Art Program Responsive Grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support new research and interpretation of the Native American collection through engagement with Native scholars, artists and knowledge holders.

As an advocate for emerging and mid-career artists in the museum setting, McLendon has worked with a host of significant voices in contemporary art in both thematic and solo exhibitions, among them: Vanessa German, R. Luke DuBois, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Beth Lipman, Sofía Maldonado-Suárez, Nick Cave, Sanford Biggers, Toni Dove, Mickalene Thomas, Zimoun, Anne Patterson, Emily Noelle Lambert, Aurora Robson, Jill Sigman, Mac Premo, Daniel Rozin, Alyce Santoro, Gajin Fujita, and more.

“The McNay Art Museum’s commitment to integrity, innovation, excellence and equity aligns with the work that has anchored my career,” said McLendon. “It is an honor to follow Richard Aste, and I eagerly anticipate furthering the institution’s mission to provide transformational experiences to the San Antonio community through a growing collection and thought-provoking exhibitions.”

McLendon will assume leadership duties at the McNay on February 13, 2023. Last summer, current director Richard Aste announced his plan to move to California in early 2023. Aste will remain in his role through February 10, 2023, ensuring a seamless transition in leadership for the Museum.

A Search Committee appointed by the McNay Board of Trustees–and led by Committee Co-Chairs Amy Stieren and Darryl Byrd–identified McLendon as the ideal candidate to serve as the next McNay Director.

“Matthew stood out from numerous, highly-qualified candidates as someone with a unique combination of business acumen, arts expertise, infectious positive energy and a true love for the integral role art museums play in the communities they serve,” said Darryl Byrd, McNay Board Member and Co-Chair of the Search Committee.

“We are thrilled to welcome Matthew and his innovative ‘leader as facilitator’ approach to the McNay and its talented staff as we collectively build upon the Museum’s legacy of excellence together,” said Amy Stieren, McNay Vice President and Co-Chair of the Search Committee.

ABOUT MATTHEW McLENDON, PhD

Before going to The Fralin, McLendon was recruited in 2010 by The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, as curator of modern and contemporary art and charged with reviving its dormant Modern and Contemporary program. In a museum then best known for its European paintings, McLendon undertook a series of high-profile exhibitions featuring rarely-seen works from The Ringling permanent collection. In 2011, Joseph’s Coat, a Skyspace by artist James Turrell, was opened under McLendon’s leadership and his original exhibitions began building larger regional and national audiences.

McLendon inaugurated and co-directed the Art of Our Time initiative, focused on living visual and performing artists. This cross-disciplinary programming series helped lead the way in The Ringling setting new records in attendance, membership, and support. Other high profile major exhibitions included the first museum survey of artist, composer, and performer R. Luke DuBois and an examination of living artists working with found objects (in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp) in Re:Purposed. McLendon concluded his time at The Ringling with the first museum survey of interactive cinema and live-mix performance pioneer Toni Dove. Major gifts to the permanent collection in support of the Modern and Contemporary program included substantial additions to The Ringling’s holdings; a new collecting emphasis on studio glass with major collection gifts; and two permanent additions to exhibition space, the Kotler-Coville Glass Pavilion and the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Gallery of Contemporary Art.

His books and publications include: Toni Dove: Embodied Machines (Scala); EMIT: What the Bringback Brought (Ringling/Murphy); Re:Purposed (Scala); R. Luke DuBois—Now (Scala); Dana Hargrove: Inhabit (Bridgette Mayer Gallery, contributing writer); Back to the Futurists: The Avant Garde and Its Legacy (Manchester University Press, contributing writer); Jill Sigman: Ten Huts (Wesleyan University Press, contributing writer), among others.

McLendon previously served in curatorial and educational positions at the Rollins Museum of Art and Tate Britain, London. He has served as teaching faculty for graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Virginia, Florida State University, New College of Florida, and Rollins College, in addition to frequent guest lectures, interviews and media appearances. He earned his MA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London. He earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Music and Art History at Florida State University, with magna cum laude honors. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Association of Art Museum Directors, American Alliance of Museums, and College Art Association among other professional organizations.

McNay Art Museum

6000 N New Braunfels Ave., San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Claude Monet Masterpiece @ McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Monet and Whistler in London

McNay Art Museum, San Antonio

Through January 23, 2022

Claude Monet

Charing Cross Bridge, brouillard, 1902

Oil on canvas

Collection of Art Gallery of Ontario

Gift of Ethel and Milton Harris, 1990 

Photograph © AGO

Bodies of water have long captured the imaginations of artists, particularly Claude Monet, who often explored the magical effects of light and atmosphere on water at different times of day. The McNay’s exhibition, Monet and Whistler in London, features rarely seen artworks from nine artists in the McNay Collection in conversation with a Claude Monet masterpiece reflecting the River Thames in England. 

On loan from the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Claude Monet’s Charing Cross Bridge, brouillard (1902) shows one of the major bridges over the 215-mile-long river and the Houses of Parliament in the distance. The artist accentuates the effect of fog as it diffuses sunlight into a soft, golden glow. Other artists were similarly fascinated with the unique atmospheric qualities of the Thames, including American expatriate artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler. His lithograph Early Morning on view in the exhibition shows how the famous London fog creates a symphony of subtle gray tonalities.

Additional artworks include James Tissot’s Les Deux Amis (Two Friends), which depicts one man bidding farewell to another at the dock’s edge—a scene inspired by the excitement and adventure of travel. Winslow Homer’s Perils of the Sea highlights the dangers of the deep as women anxiously await their husbands with a roiling sea in the background. Additional artists focus on waterways as important arteries of commerce and industry, like Joseph Pennell’s Sunset, from Williamsburg Bridge or Otto Kuhler’s The Valley of Work.

Monet and Whistler in London presents many of these artworks for the first time in years, including John Marin’s studies of the Brooklyn Bridge. This exhibition also includes a contemporary woodcut by Yvonne Jacquette. Jacquette’s Midtown Composite focuses primarily on the skyscrapers of Manhattan, but also reveals a tiny sliver of the East River.

Monet and Whistler in London is organized for the McNay Art Museum by Lyle W. Williams, Curator of Prints and Drawings, Curator of Modern Art.

McNay Art Museum

6000 N New Braufels Avenue, San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Robert Indiana: A Legacy of Love @ The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio

Robert Indiana: A Legacy of Love

The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio

October 15, 2020 - January 24, 2021

Robert Indiana: A Legacy of Love honors the life, art, and resounding legacy of the late Pop icon through more than 75 paintings, prints, sculptures, costume designs, and digital artworks. A self-proclaimed “painter of signs,” Robert Indiana shaped a highly original body of work that explores American identity; his own personal history; and the power of abstraction, symbolism, and language.

Surveying Indiana’s art in conversation with works by his contemporaries and successors, this exhibition examines the innovative foreground of text and symbol within visual art during the postwar era. With artworks that at once call on the viewer to “see” and to “read,” Robert Indiana pioneered a triumphant union of text and image that remains undeniably relevant today.

“Some of the most iconic artworks in this exhibition speak to the human emotions that unite us all, often through a single word, like love and hope,” said Richard Aste, McNay Director and CEO. “The art of the late Robert Indiana, and that of today’s artists who lean into his legacy of love, will uplift our community and offer hope and inspiration to every San Antonian in these challenging times.”

Known as one of the leaders of the Pop art movement of the 1960s, Indiana’s prolific career extends well beyond this period. The artist created paintings, prints, and sculptures characterized by clean lines and saturated color until his passing in 2018. Robert Indiana: A Legacy of Love invites you to explore the artist’s multidecade career, from his iconic LOVE compositions to his larger-than-life painting style.

“Character counts, photo captions, and text messages fill our daily lives now more than ever,” said René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs. “In his unique approach to image-making, Indiana’s art really anticipated the global digital moment we’re experiencing today with short, direct, text-based bursts of communication.”

From Pop artists including Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, to contemporary artists including Mel Bochner, Deborah Kass, Glenn Ligon, Stephanie Patton, and Jack Pierson, this exhibition presents examples ranging from 1963 to the present in conversation with shared themes in Indiana’s artwork. Of particular interest are examples by artists with ties to San Antonio, including Jesse Amado, Alejandro Diaz, Chuck Ramirez, Ethel Shipton, and Gary Sweeney. Robert Indiana’s lasting impact on the history of contemporary art remains profound, as his images take on new meanings in the present day.

The exhibition is organized into five “chapters” exploring the artist’s impactful combination of text and image through different lenses: Icons, Pop Art, Robert Indiana and Marsden Hartley, Performance, and A Legacy of Language. The works of art on view are drawn primarily from the strong Indiana representation in the McNay’s Collection, due primarily to the friendship between the artist and San Antonio collector and McNay patron Robert L.B. Tobin. Select loans from the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas Austin, Ruiz-Healy Art, and various private collections are also included throughout each section.

A first for the McNay, this exhibition features a major commission of six digital artworks to live both online and in the galleries. Created by Brooklyn-based poet, designer, and artist Annika Hansteen-Izora, the text-based images speak to the power of language, hope, community care, and the role of art in our current digital age. Visitors will also enjoy the extension of the exhibition throughout the McNay’s 26-acre grounds, with outdoor sculptures by Robert Indiana, Alejandro Martín, and Gary Sweeney, each investigating language in visual art.

Robert Indiana: A Legacy of Love is organized for the McNay Art Museum by René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs, and Alexis T. Meldrum, 2019–2020 Semmes Foundation Intern in Museum Studies, with Lauren Thompson, Assistant Curator, and Edward Hayes, Exhibitions Senior Manager/Registrar.

McNAY ART MUSEUM

6000 N New Braunfels Ave., San Antonio, TX 78209

www.mcnayart.org

Something to Say: The McNay Presents 100 Years of African American Art, San Antonio, Texas

Something to Say: The McNay Presents 100 Years of African American Art
The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas
February 8 - May 6, 2018

Charles Alston

Girl in a Red Dress, 1934 

Oil on canvas 

The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Foundation for the Arts 

Pioneering collectors Harriet and Harmon Kelley paved the way for the collection of African American art by museums and private individuals across San Antonio, Texas, and the United States. Something to Say: The McNay Presents 100 Years of African American Art illustrates the Kelley Collection’s impact on our cultural landscape by juxtaposing works from their renowned holdings with loans from the burgeoning collections of African American art of Guillermo Nicolas and Jim Foster, John and Freda Facey, and the McNay Art Museum. Something to Say is the first survey of modern and contemporary African American art to be presented at the McNay.

William Henry Johnson 

Ice Cream Stand, ca. 1939 – 42 

Gouache, ink, and pencil on paper. 

The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Foundation for the Arts

Bob Thompson 

Untitled, 1960-61 

Oil on canvas 

The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Foundation for the Arts 

© Estate of Bob Thompson; Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY

Drawn primarily from the ground-breaking collection assembled by Harriet and Harmon Kelley over nearly three decades, Something to Say presents more than 50 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and photographs by a wide range of 20th- and 21st-century artists. Featuring masterpieces by such iconic figures as Charles Alston, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Horace Pippin, and Charles White, the exhibition and its related programs allow visitors to reflect upon a broad range of African American experiences, and examines the ways different African American artists have expressed personal, political, and racial identity over approximately 100 years. The exhibition empowers the visitor to appreciate multiple perspectives through various artistic expressions. Something to Say therefore exemplifies the McNay’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and social consciousness as well as artistic excellence.

Stanley Whitney 

Untitled, 2014 

Gouache on paper

Collection of the McNay Art Museum 

© Stanley Whitney; Courtesy of the artist and the McNay Art Museum 

Titus Kaphar 

Letters Never Read, 2017 

Oil and tar on canvas 

Collection of Guillermo Nicolas and Jim Foster. 

© Titus Kaphar. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Throughout the development and planning of Something to Say, the McNay has sought the insights and perspectives of many community members. The exhibition’s Community Committee includes Harriet Kelley, Guillermo Nicolas, Freda Facey, and Veronique LeMelle; additional partners across San Antonio help further inform the exhibition and promote reflection, dialogue, and creativity within the larger community.

The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX
www.mcnayart.org

Robert Indiana: Beyond Love, The Withney & McNay Art Museum

Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE 
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Through January 5, 2014
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, February 5 - May 25, 2014

The Whitney Museum of American Art presents the first major American museum retrospective devoted to the work of ROBERT INDIANA. Organized by Whitney curator Barbara Haskell, the exhibition focuses on the powerful body of work created by Indiana over the past five decades, exploring his bold use of language, his continual questioning and dissection of American identity, and the multiple layers of personal history embedded in his art. The exhibition, Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, is on view in the Whitney’s fourth-floor Emily Fisher Landau Galleries through January 5, 2014. Following its Whitney presentation, the exhibition travels to San Antonio, Texas, to the McNay Art Museum, where it will be seen from February 5 to May 25, 2014.

Known the world over for his iconic LOVE, ROBERT INDIANA (b. 1928) early on embraced a vocabulary of highway signs and roadside entertainments, combining words with images to create art that was dazzlingly bold and visually kinetic. In the early 1960s, he was central to the emergence of Pop art, along with Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol. Like these contemporaries, he shared a desire to both critique and celebrate post-war American culture. Using a populist, quintessentially American style, he addressed in his work many of the fundamental issues facing humanity, including love, death, sin, forgiveness, and racial injustice.

Joining simple declarative words with bold, hard-edge graphics allowed Indiana to embed multiple layers of autobiographical and cultural references into his art. Although visually dazzling on the surface, his imagery has a psychologically disquieting subtext; it draws on the myths, history, art, and literature of the United States to raise questions about American identity and American values. “Indiana’s exploration of identity, racial injustice, and the illusion and disillusion of love give emotional poignancy and symbolic complexity to our ever-evolving understanding of the ambiguities of American democracy and the plight of the individual in the modern world,” says curator Barbara Haskell.

The success of LOVE eclipsed to a great extent the range and breadth of Indiana’s work. Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE remedies this by placing well known works such as EAT/DIE (1962), Exploding Numbers (1964-66), and LOVE (1965) alongside more than seventy-five other works, from early pieces the artist made in 1955 to his Ninth American Dream (2001), the last piece in a series that has consumed him throughout his career. Also included are:

-- Indiana’s painted vertical wood sculptures, (called herms by the artist after anthropomorphic stone pillars in ancient Greece);

-- his abstract geometric paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s;

-- his entire politically-charged Confederacy series, pinpointing sites of violent crimes

against African Americans and civil rights workers;

-- Indiana’s rarely seen papier-collé collages of costumes that he designed for the Bicentennial production of Virgil Thomson’s and Gertrude Stein’s operatic collaboration The Mother of Us All;

-- Indiana’s series of paintings using texts drawn from the American writers Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow;

-- paintings inspired by twentieth-century American masterworks by artists such as Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth, and Marsden Hartley.

By early 1960, the artist, known by then as Robert Indiana (having changed his name from Robert Clark in 1958), had begun to apply elementary words onto his vertical wooden sculptures or herms, using found stencils that had been employed in earlier times to affix trademarks and labels to commercial freight. The use of straightforward, everyday words allowed Indiana to work on multiple levels, creating works which were, on one hand, immediately understandable and direct and, on the other, akin to conceptually multilayered verbal-visual puzzles. “Indiana’s marriage of language and hard-edge abstraction was audacious,” says Haskell. “It was one thing to insinuate words into an overall composition or depict them with painterly brushstrokes, but to present them without mediation, in the style of advertisements, was unprecedented.”

Robert Indiana was thrust into the spotlight of the New York art world when Alfred Barr, director of the Museum of Modern Art, purchased American Dream 1 in 1961, before Pop art had coalesced as a movement. Two years later, Indiana’s status as one of the major artists of his generation was solidified by Dorothy Miller’s inclusion of his work in her exhibition of rising talents, Americans 1963. By the time Indiana was commissioned by Philip Johnson to make a work for the New York State Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair, he was considered one of the leading Pop artists of the day.

LOVE, with its stacked letters and tilted “O,” is Robert Indiana’s best-known but also his most controversial work. In taking a commonplace word and transforming it into a powerfully resonant art object onto which viewers could project their own spiritual, erotic, and personal experiences and associations, Indiana created one of the most famous images in 20th century art. LOVE appeared at the height of the countercultural revolution and instantly became a talisman of sexual freedom, with massive numbers of commercial products bearing the image produced without the artist’s permission. Over time, the plethora of objects bearing the LOVE logo, and Indiana’s almost exclusive identification with the image, muted recognition of the complexities and range of his art. 

A reassessment of Indiana’s career has been underway for several years. With this reevaluation has come recognition of the poignancy and complexity of Indiana’s work and its status as a precedent for the contemporary text-based art of younger artists such as Jenny Holzer, Mel Bochner, Glenn Ligon, Christopher Wool, and Barbara Kruger. Presenting the full sweep of Indiana’s work, this exhibition provides audiences with the opportunity to revisit the work of an artist central to the narrative of the 1960s as well as to contemporary practice.

ROBERT INDIANA: SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana, in 1928, Robert Indiana was raised by adoptive parents who struggled financially during the Depression. Aesthetically precocious, his talent was remarked upon as early as the first grade. At Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, he worked in the style of American artists such as Reginald Marsh, Charles Sheeler, and Edward Hopper. After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in order to be able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill, under which he studied at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute from 1949 to 1953. He moved to New York in the fall of 1954 and, after meeting Ellsworth Kelly, settled in Coenties Slip, at the southern tip of Manhattan, where he was closely associated with artists such as Agnes Martin, Lenore Tawney, Ann Wilson, Jack Youngerman, and Kelly himself. It was during this period, in 1958, that Indiana traded his surname – Clark– for a name that acknowledged his archetypically Midwestern American roots. Following his emergence in the 1960’s as one of the leading Pop artists of his day, Indiana left New York in 1978 for the island of Vinalhaven, Maine, where he lives and works to this day.

ROBERT INDIANA: BEYOND LOVE: CATALOGUE

In conjunction with Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, the Whitney and Yale University Press are publishing a fully-illustrated catalogue by Barbara Haskell. In addition to a chronology, exhibition history, and bibliography, the book includes essays by McNay Art Museum chief curator Rene Paul Barilleaux and independent scholar Sasha Nicholas, as well as the transcript of roundtable discussions on Indiana’s art by Thomas Crow, Robert Storr, John Wilmerding, Robert Pincus-Witten, Allison Unruh, Susan Elizabeth Ryan and Bill Katz. The catalogue also contains an appendix of statements, interviews, and writings by Robert Indiana.

Major support for Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE is provided by Morgan Art Foundation. Generous support is provided by Shirley and William Lehman, The Lunder Foundation, and the Robert B. Mayer Family. Additional support is provided by The Gage Fund, Inc., Virginia and Herbert Lust, the Overbrook Foundation, and Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel. 

Whitney Museum of American Art

www.whitney.org