"Obstacle"

With the 2015 group show “Back from Berlin” (featuring works by Vincent Valdez, Cathy Cunningham-Little, Ricky Armendariz and Karen Mahaffy) and Thomas Cummins’ current solo show “Broken Lens,” Blue Star Contemporary has offered local art scenesters a glimpse of its Berlin residency, a three-month program that awards San Antonio artists with studio and living space at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. A pleasant surprise to come of the partnership, BSC has started to “build on this exchange and welcome KB resident artists to San Antonio.” First seen last winter in Norwegian artist Bodil Furu’s video project Landscapes by the Book, the cross-cultural collaboration continues this month with Swedish artist Patrik Elgström’s “Obstacle,” a photographic exhibition hosted by Trinity’s Noemi Neidorff Art Gallery. Informed by Elgström’s walks through Berlin, the series takes architectural details out of context to present them as “obstacles” that nod somewhat abstractly to the city’s complex history.