There are too many excellent art happenings going down this month to even begin to enumerate in these few pages. But, for starters, here's just a sampling of all the arty awesomeness that we are excited about this year. For a full schedule of events visit contemporaryartmonth.com.
CAM Kickoff and Miss CAM Antonio Crowing • With booze provided by Blue Moon and zany art dignitaries and rebels aplenty, CAM will once again celebrate its opening at Blue Star Contemporary. The party, which will also mark the opening of three Blue Star exhibits, is a great moment to network, clear your mind, and begin preparations for an art binge of San Anto proportions. Miss CAM Antonio will also be crowned at this event, which will be followed by the CAM Dance Happening Fundraiser ($10 entry donation), a pop-up art installation and after party hosted at Brick from 9 p.m.-midnight. Free, 6-9pm Thu, Mar. 3, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, 116 Blue Star, (210) 227-6960, bluestarart.org.
"Going on Going" • Recent Blue Star Berlin resident, multimedia artist and Southwest School of Art instructor Justin Boyd eschews the typical boundaries of an exhibit in his CAM offering. Inspired by a recent jaunt to Berlin, during which he captured a multitude of disparate sounds, musical and otherwise, Boyd has created a truly unique, immersive multimedia and sculptural installation that will transform Blue Star's interior and exterior. Boyd's "Going on Going" opens in tandem with "Do It & Do It" (a meta-artistic, never-ending and participatory exhibit dreamed up by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier) and "Blue Star Ice Company" (a multi-artist installation that meditates on the relationship between society and water). Free, 6-9pm Thu, Mar. 3, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, 116 Blue Star, (210) 227-6960, bluestarart.org. Through May 8.
CAMx: "Mock Pavilion" • This year's CAMx exhibit, hosted by Sala Diaz, is heavy. Literally. The 2,600 pounds of material, designed and crafted for the "Mock Pavilion" exhibit by Stephanie Kantor — including 1,600 hand-painted tiles, 36 ceramic vessels, tapestries and custom wallpapers — made the long journey from her home base at Black Cube in Denver to San Antonio by way of a huge shipping container. Kantor, selected by Cortney Stell of Black Cube as this year's CAMx artist, created her installation with Sala Diaz's repurposed environs and ethic in mind. Additionally, "the idea to engage the structure of the pavilion came from a recent trip to Istanbul, Turkey," she told the Current last week. Drawing on a visit to Topkapi Palace, "one of the most beautifully tiled architectural spaces in the world," she decided "to combine the site of the pavilion with museum period rooms and the interior of a home as collection." The resulting indoor/outdoor installation is a multicultural (and magical) transformation of the space that sees the artist "focus[ing] on a few cultures per room and [thinking of it] as a tableau." Free, 6-10pm Sat, Mar. 5, Sala Diaz, 517 Stieren St., (972) 900-0047, saladiazart.org. Through March 31.
32nd Annual Student Art Exhibition • In its 32nd consecutive year, the UTSA Student Art Exhibition is a juried competition with works by undergraduate and graduate students. Boasting a wide spectrum of themes and just about every medium you could imagine, from tried and true brush, pen and pencil work, to cutting-edge adventures in digital video and photography, the exhibit is a fine chance to see how university art students in San Antonio are shaping, and being shaped by, the creative process. This year's competition will be judged by artist and Texas State University art professor Joey Fauerso. Free, 6-8pm Wed, Mar. 23, UTSA Main Gallery, One UTSA Circle, (210) 458-4391, art.utsa.edu. Through April 15.
"East Meets West" • "East Meets West" will cap off a month of African arts and culture events around town organized by the Olaju Art Group, whose mission is the promotion of African culture through the visual arts. Conceived in response to "a lack of access to authentic, contemporary African arts in San Antonio," this exhibit will showcase contemporary art from Kenya and Nigeria (East and West Africa, respectively) in an effort to engender a balanced approach to understanding cultural distinctions on the African continent. Free, 11:30am-12:30pm Thu, Mar. 31, Palo Alto College, Project Space Gallery, 1400 W. Villaret Blvd., fromwestafrica.org.
