Emvergeoning

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Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman.

Brooklyn’s Stars Like Fleas (featuring SA-town homeboy Ryan Sawyer on drums and lead beard) play a PopRally event at MOMA on June 8, 2009 – shot and edited by Austin Rhodes.

[hattips to albert flores & cosmo inserra for the first and ryan sawyer for the second.]

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Well, after a good deal of rain, some unexpected cold, and a little bit of worry, Luminaria 2009 turned out to be a really nice night in San Antonio.  Aside from my experience with the overbearing police force (who wanted to tackle me for riding my bike down an empty LONG stretch of closed off road) I found this Luminaria to be much better organized and more satisfying to take part in.  I carried my camera and photographed the projects I was able to come into personal contact with.  Heres a selection of those photos, with my garbled commentary.

Laura Varela & Vaago Weiland collaborated on the Alamo this year.  Vaago (from Mönchengladbach, Germany) said, in doing research on the Alamo, he kept coming across these photos with tents in the surrounding area.  He was determined to surround the old Mission with 200 tents, however, upon closer inspection of the site was only able to squeeze in 54.  Lauras video projection played alongside Vaagos sculpture, within the top of the Alamo.

Hyperbubble was the only real music I stood still and watched an entire set from.  Not for lack of interesting options, but more in awe of the reaction of the crowd to their music.  I heard more than several proclamations of “WHAT IS THIS?” and “THIS is the best band EVER!!” loudly from behind.  I couldn’t have been happier.

My own piece (shamelessplug) was projected onto this old building(I was told it might have been called the Turner Magika Theatre?) facing out into the Hemisphere park, I showed the current version of my “Portrait of the Artist as a City,” a project I took up as a result of receiving a grant from the Artist Foundation.  The video is made up of a constantly shifting set of over 9000 still photos, and encompasses more little parts of my life than I can begin to explain before losing your attention.

This year, the real showstopper for me was Ansen Seales 100 ft photograph of the San Antonio River.  Contained inside the San Antonio Convention Center, It set the tone for the more conventional “walled,” section of the show.  After talking to Ansen for a few minutes I was able to extract from him that this image was composed of 86,400 individual “slitscans,” made by his own homebuilt digital camera, and weighed in at a whopping 1.2 gigs for the file itself…and I thought trying to get my computer to juggle 9000 still photos at one time was tricky.

This fantastic ghost image of a dancer is local artist/instructor Rebecca Dietz.  She was one of the roving performance artists, and a recent FL!GHT Gallery featured artist.  I nearly missed her moving by me, and was glad I noticed who it was at the last minute.

John Mata, part of Leslie Raymonds New Media program at UTSA, built a cardboard room and filled it with books and media discussing…New Media.

Judith Cottrell & Gary Smith built this human like glowing form, and scared children for the duration of the night.  I enjoyed watching.

Holly & Bryson Brooks decided it was best to be “Married with Paintings.” So they walked in at 6 on the dot, started working inside their makeshift studio(replete with audience the entire time), and by the time I rolled around with my camera, they were already at this point within each of their portraits of the other.

Back out on Alamo Street, Ethel Shipton had filled these two store front windows with her characteristic puffed objects, this time being birdhouses.

Kelly O’Connor was just a few windows down.  My camera was having trouble not blowing out the detail in this one.

I stumbled upon this projection by Victor Pagona & his wife Sarah Susan, an artist I’ve heard of for years, but never met in San Antonio.

Sadly, I could only get this much of the smaller Leigh Anne Lester window displays without the detail of the sculptures being blown out by the harsh jewelry store lighting.  These window displays will be available for all to see for the next month along Alamo Street.

I stumbled over this Michele Monseau projection right across the street from the Alamo, hidden on a side wall.

These patterns & lights can give you a general idea of what everything else looked like, that was not affected in some way by an individual artist or group of artists.

These two large scale Thomas Cummins Lightboxes, while difficult to do justice with a photograph, were mindblowingly detailed in person.

Another fine example of the general lighting scheme found that night.  Its almost like that time I had to shoot photos at a certain laser light show..

Jenny Browne gave away 4 shopping cartloads and a truck bed full of books, for FREE, as her piece.  It was awesome to see people swarming the truck and carts, trying to get at free books, while Jenny sat on the roof watching & laughing.

..and finally to end the weekend, Tom Otterness made an appearance with his newly unveiled(in our locale at least) public art piece, “Makin Hay’,” mentioned a few weeks back here at Emvergeoning.  Some things I’m sorry to say I don’t have good photos of, the first being the EXCELLENT Contemporary Art Month installation by Randy Wallace in the basement of the old Beauty College building on Travis Street.  I shot many photos of it, but none of them quite did it justice.  I was also sad to miss crazy Mel Feldman and his cultural arts Kaleidoscope.  Somehow 1000 artists all in one place on one night is just a LITTLE hard to keep track of.

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A few photos of Manny Castillo’s casket being painted by his friends and colleagues in the local art community:

See also: San Antonio Express-News blog post with a number of murals facilitated by Castillo’s San Anto Cultural Arts; the Express-News obit; the San Antonio Current’s just before his death.

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Heres a short visual account of the opening affair at Artpace last Thursday night.  Richie Budd’s pounding geriatric light show mixed with Taryn Simon’s noise-sensitive Cuttlefish made for an interesting experience..

(Lu Chunsheng’s work, also opened that night, is not pictured).

 

 

(follow the link for more photos and video of Richie Budd sculpture in action)

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From Franco Mondini-Ruiz’s lavish Dia de los Muertos party at his westside wonderland estate, a cake for Mr Danny Geisler:

[Cross-posted at Scattered Work]

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Go check out the road to the parking lots at the ol’ San Antonio International Airport.  San Antonio local, Gary Sweeney has interjected some good humor into a portion of the drive. I managed to catch him there, hard hat and all..

These are just a few of the signs he placed in the drive space, keep an eye out the next time you go for a spin around the SA Airport to catch the rest.

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Emvergeoning’s exclusive footage from the 2008 Pushcart Derby:

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Everything got screwed up. Emvergeoning’s calendar editor forgot to post Ms. Southtown, San Antonio’s artsiest drag beauty pageant, to our events listing; last night, when Ms. Southtown was happening, our trusty photographer was out working for The Man; and our amateur backup paparazzo filled up the camera memory right before the trophy was handed to the winner. I guess that’s why we don’t get the big bucks, and why I’m typing this from a cardboard box in an alleyway off Houston St. But here it is: Ms. Southtown in photos.

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The crowds in Alamo Plaza (photo by Justin Parr)

Houston Street (photo by Justin Parr)

Chuck Ramirez in front of Bill FitzGibbons‘ Alamo installation holding a Parr mylar sculpture (photo by Justin Parr)

The Mixing Chamber (Stuart Allen / Potter-Belmar Labs) at SAMA (photo by David S. Rubin)

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(The community gives him a saucy welcome.)

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I took part in San Antonios semi-regular Bike Gang Summit the other night for Halloween. During the process of riding through spooky parts of the city, we stopped at a cemetary on the East Side. It quickly degenerated into a game of Wheres Waldo..take a look (Waldo makes an appearance in each of these images).

To see images from the entire night go here.

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Why does this picture remind me of walking around Lora Reynolds Gallery in the construction-condo zone of downtown Austin? A recent lecture by Conrad Bakker proved once again that despite its location, Lora Reynolds always exhibits unusual and intriguing artists.
In other news, behold the best zombie portraiture ever taken by one prolific Jillian McDonald. She makes me love America, oh wait, she’s Canadian. Seems like an apropos photo for the Katrina anniversary. Which reminds me, check out the latest New Yorker cover with a brilliant new work by silhouette connoisseur Kara Walker.

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Everybody has their own story about who won this year, Please post yours in the comments below.

All of these photos (and bunches more with labels) are located here.

click on the link below for more action!

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Our Favorite San Antonio Art-rock icons Buttercup recently celebrated the release of an ep called “Captains of Industry.”

The show was a rousing bit of fun, following up with an amazing backmassage from a man wearing a t-shirt that said “300 lbs of poetry.”  (Thank you Richard!)

Check out a mass of arty-rocky photos on this here fancy flickr doo-dad .

Heres a sneak preview :

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The Museo Alameda Smithsonian Affiliated museum of Latin American Art opened its doors to the (ritzy) public this past Thursday, with a $250 dollar a head gala.  Heres a few highlights from the opening.  go Here for the entire story.

(the king of party, Karlos with a K)

(this is what happens when you over-photograph david zamoras casas)

(yes, thats our own Ben “Jammin” Judson right there)

It sure was fun.  Check out my Flickr page for more.

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Just a quick note to point out two Flickr accounts with some photos of note: our own Justin Parr has been going on a Flickr binge, posting everything from Barcelona street art to Tacoland’s final moments.

Meanwhile fellow blogger Salvador Castillo has been documenting central Texas art events including the Texas Biennial and First Friday.

These accounts will be worth keeping an eye on…

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A group of satisfied Bike Gangers looks on at the renegade video projection stumbled on in “Tacoland Park,” this last Saturday Night. The Bike gang stopped by the SWC Club, Tacoland Park, The Cherry street Bridge, Brackenridge Golf Course, Pine Street stretch, above Sunken Gardens, Ghost Train Field, and La Tuna to name a few. (some of these place names are local lore and quite unofficial) . A collection of photos outlining the entire evening in its entirety can be found here.

Shouting at an oncoming train on the Cherry Street Bridge

Legend has it that when the moon is jussssst right you can still see the trains turning on imaginary tracks out here, emptying herds to slaughter at the union stockyards.

the Lebowski Rollers + many more can be seen here.

If you were one of the many who took part, Thank you!

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Its a ghastly place. The floor is smudged with a thousand chocolate hearts, trampled on by high dollar pointed shoe-weapons. The glasses are all asunder, glowing behind them is a thousand LED lights, like tiny stars in the walls, a disco light on the ceiling and pink “fluff,” or “tool,” everywhere. The “tool,” has been heaved around like a massive giant stirred a martini with his finger, while the smattered chocolates just make you think of the fecal fetishes I jokingly hear about every so often in these funny art circles. Strange. It started out innocent enough. Clean, full bottles of tequila, stained pink, sat lined up in rows on the inside of the limo. Boxes and boxes of chocolates lie calmly awaiting consumption by the precious glittering hordes of fans, friends, followers, and skeptics. I worked on the inside. Not inside Lisa Ortiz’s Galeria Ortiz, where the Franco Mondini-Ruiz Love Stories was about to take place, but inside of the limo that Franco hired to party your pants off if you bought a painting from him. Included with this was the opportunity to go inside the limo and have your polaroid taken with Franco. Being the dedicated shooter, I think I saw everything. Here is what I can show you. The others might get me maimed, shot, murdered, or even “ruin my career,” in San Antonio. I joke, and you laugh, but dont even think these photos below are going to blow your mind. Here they are, by request from anonymous fans abroad (really? ..thats what ben tells me.) ; photos from the inside..

(I’ll tell you as much as I can about each image if you hover your mouse over them..)

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..i couldn’t resist.

When John asked me to take some photos for the last show at unit B gallery,I had a blast, but I went a little overboard. Heres a documentation of nearly everybody who attended the show..up close.

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Second Saturday was outlandish fun. We went to Tamalada land at Marias Cafe on Nogalitos in San Antonio. This was our second year to go to this awesome event..and we all got full stomachs and lessons on the art of the tamale.

images go in this order : tamales, andy benavides, tamales, chris tracy, franco mondini-ruiz, ray gun, maria.

all images copyright Justin Parr 2006.

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