Arturo Herrera: Adam
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, and based between New York City and Berlin, Germany, Arturo Herrera made his first impression on the Alamo City as an Artpace resident in 2000 and was showcased earlier this year with a solo exhibition at the Linda Pace Foundation. Widely recognized for collages that cast a surreal haze over Disney iconography, Herrera works in a range of media including sculpture, painting and oddly compelling felt wall hangings with qualities some have likened to the drips and splatters of a Jackson Pollock. Similarly bold and graphic are Herrera’s wall paintings, one of which will adorn Frost Bank’s Parking Garage (viewable from Main Plaza) through 2016. Inspired by movement and “the dynamism of abstraction,” Herrera’s red-and-white Adam (the Linda Pace Foundation’s first large-scale public installation) weighs in at 2,500 square feet. Free, 7am-11pm daily, Main Plaza, 115 N Main, lindapacefoundation.org.
—Bryan Rindfuss
Tue 12/17 - Wed 12/18
2013 BFA Fall Exhibition
Boasting artstar alums like Dario Robleto and a faculty filled with contemporary artists such as Ken Little, Buster Graybill, Jayne Lawrence and Sarah Frantz, UTSA’s Department of Art and Art History cranks out solid visual artists at a dependable pace. In the past year alone, the Current highlighted MFA thesis exhibitions by a number of recent grads including Jamie Garrison, Lee Peterson, Jane Liang and Jimmy James Canales. On Wednesday, the university hosts a closing reception for a weeklong exhibition featuring more than 30 of its BFA candidates. Exploring an array of themes through painting, photography, sculpture and new media, the group show presents a mini crash course in emerging talent to watch for. Standout works range from Abigail Marquez’s acetone transfer Gracia Insólitas: Ex-voto Contémporaneo (above) to Rachael Acosta’s oil and pastel rendering Intrastellar (below). Free, 10am-4pm Tuesday-Wednesday (closing reception 2-4pm Wednesday), UTSA Art Gallery, Arts Building, Main Campus, One UTSA Circle, (210) 458-4011, art.utsa.edu. —BR
Tue 12/17 - Wed 12/18
"Eldzier Cortor: Master Printmaker"
While enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, West African art made a tremendous impact on Eldzier Cortor’s artistic sensibilities. Funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship, Cortor travelled to the West Indies in 1949 where he became interested in diaspora and its effects on West African culture. His work features elongated representations of women, which reveal his mastery of line and shape. For Cortor, who is now 97, the black woman “represents the black race” as well as “a feeling of eternity and a continuance of life.” This exhibit features works from Cortor’s print series “Jewels” and “Facets” as well as “L’Abbatoire” (“The Slaughterhouse”), a response to his years teaching art in Haiti. $5-$10 (free from 4-9pm on Tuesday), 10am-9pm Tuesday, 10am-5pm Wednesday, San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W Jones, (210) 978-8100, samuseum.org. –Ainsley Caffrey
Tue 12/17
OPEN: Downtown Pop Up Shops
An initiative of the Center City Development Office, the OPEN: Downtown Pop Up Shops are designed to connect art, retail and real estate while transforming vacant properties. At 140 E Houston (the Book Building): Priscilla Martinez Gamer presents jewelry from her line Joyarte (above), and Vinously Speaking and Fresh Urban Flowers collaborate on CANVAS, a wine gallery and art bar. At 311 E Houston (the Kress Building): Las Ofrendas (representing a variety of local artists and artisans) offers a curated marketplace and unique workshops. And at 231 E Houston: browse for books about the Alamo City from San Antonio History LLC and The Super Fantastic Happy Shop’s colorful selection of “awesome art and boutique furniture” from Zubiate Projects, Katie Pell and Bygoe Zubiate (below). In conjunction with Downtown Tuesday, free parking is available from 5pm-2am at city-operated parking garages, parking lots and parking meters. Free, 4-9pm Tuesday, 140, 311 & 231 E Houston. For details and updates, click here.
Tue 12/17
Robert Earl Keen
As greatest hits albums go, Robert Earl Keen’s 2003 compilation The Party Never Ends: Songs You Know From the Times You Can’t Remember beats his 2006 collection Best not just in title, but in song selection, with just a couple of notable exceptions. Two of the Houston native’s best-known songs, “The Road Goes on Forever” and “Merry Christmas From the Family,” appear on both collections, but Best opts for live recordings, even including Keen’s description of his first, anticlimactic meeting with Willie Nelson as a roundabout intro to the not-as-fun-as-its-ironic-refrain-suggests “Road,” proving Keen—inducted last year (along with Lyle Lovett and Townes Van Zandt) into the Texas Heritage Songwriters’ Hall of Fame—is a natural storyteller, even without musical accompaniment. His decidedly sillier Texas Christmas carol gets no introduction, but the verses describing relatives, getting drunk on homemade eggnog, blowing out the Christmas lights after hooking up their motorhome, etc., play as elaborated redneck jokes with more heart and better-drawn characters, and the song, like so many of Keen’s finest, was clearly written for beer-sloshing crowds to sing-shout along to. $27.50-$39.50 8pm, The Majestic Theatre, 224 E Houston, (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. —Jeremy Martin
