WANAFOTO: the McNay

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03/03/25

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

Brandon J. Donahue-Shipp

Basketball Bloom (USA Outdoor), 2024

Basketballs and shoestrings

Courtesy of the artist and Pentimenti, Philadelphia

Brian Jungen

Horse Mask (Cher), 2016

Nike Air Jordans

Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York

Betsy Odom

Softball Glove, 2008

Tooled leather, and shearling

Courtesy of the artist

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 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

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 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

01/03/25

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

09/02/18

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

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

Titus Kaphar

Letters Never Read, 2017

Oil and tar on canvas

Collection of Guillermo Nicolas and Jim Foster.

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