SAN ANTONIO, TX.-The Linda Pace Foundation announces two major initiatives in keeping with its mission to support the work of contemporary artists, particularly those that have held residencies at Artpace, the contemporary art foundation with a residency and exhibition program, featuring cutting edge international art, founded by the late philanthropist Linda Pace.
The Linda Pace Foundation has commissioned renowned contemporary artist Jesse Amado to create a major art work for the San Antonio Central Library, San Antonio, Texas, where the Foundation is based. The artwork will be installed in 2010 in the main reception area on the ground level.
Amado is a native of San Antonio. In 1995, when philanthropist Linda Pace founded Artpace, an international artist residency program located in a former automobile showroom just down the street from the downtown library, Amado was one of the first three residents. Since then, his conceptually driven sculpture often investigations of text, repetition and communication has been exhibited at the McNay Museum of Art in San Antonio, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, and many galleries.
“During her lifetime, Linda supported contemporary artists in many endeavors. She believed that contemporary art belongs everywhere – in homes, galleries and museums but also in parks and in libraries,” said Rick Moore, president and executive director of the Linda Pace Foundation. “The Foundation is grateful that Amado, who helped launch Artpace as one of its first residents, has agreed to produce work in Linda’s memory for the downtown library.”
The central library currently exhibits many works of art, including glass artist Dale Chihuly’s 21-foot-tall “Fiesta Tower,” a mural by San Antonio artist Jesse Trevino, and the recent acquisition of a Fernando Botero sculpture.
"This commission by the Linda Pace Foundation perfectly combines visual arts with literary arts," said Guillermo Nicholas, the former president of the San Antonio Public Library Foundation. "For future San Antonians to be able to view Amado's artwork, while checking out books in the downtown library, is a great gift to the city. Linda Pace was San Antonio's most generous and innovative patron of contemporary art. This commission keeps her patronage alive and on prominent public view."
In addition to the Amado commission, the Linda Pace Foundation announces the debut of artist Edgar Arceneaux’s performance piece Old Man Hill, from the Linda Pace Foundation collection. The April 16, 2009 (7 p.m.) performance will be in celebration of the late Linda Pace’s birthday, and will be held at the now defunct Mission Drive-In Theater, located on Roosevelt Avenue on the San Antonio’s South Side. The work will be shown only once and not screened again. Arceneaux was an Artpace resident in 2006. Linda Pace purchased Old Man Hill that same year.
Old Man Hill is Arceneaux’s attempt to address the magnitude of the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Sarajevo. He filmed the video among the architectural remnants and ruins of Sarajevo. As he walked through the city, he thought of his grandfather, who had a Bosnian name. The artist never knew his grandfather; indeed, no one in his family, including Arceneaux’s own father, ever met him and knew no details of his life. When Arceneaux’s father was 51, he learned his father’s nickname – Old Man Hill. “Old Man Hill is a memorial to that which cannot be represented,” said Arceneaux. “It reveals meaning to us as it disappears from our perception.”
For its debut, the eight-minute film will be projected onto the screen of the Mission Drive-In Theater, which has fallen into disuse. Arceneaux will release metallic balloons into the nighttime sky, which will spell out the name Old Man Hill translated into Bosnian. Artists, collectors, and the general public are invited to attend this free, public event.
