Visual Art

Redefining Modern: McNay Director Rich Aste on Breaking Down Walls——Literally and Figuratively

Devon Britt-Darby·
Before joining San Antonio’s McNay Art Museum as its third director in September, Rich Aste was finishing work on the exhibition French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850-1950, which turned out to be his swansong as the Brooklyn Museum's managing curator, arts of the Americas and Europe, and curator of European art. French Moderns travels to the McNay from March 1 to June 7. Devon Britt-Darby sat down with Aste to discuss his plans for Texas's oldest modern art museum.
Editor's PicksSan AntonioVisual Art

Music and Printmaking Merge in Son Jarocho Style: Alec Dempster at MECA

casey gregory·
In the front hallway of the 6th Ward’s MECA building, you can scan a QR code and hear the creaky strains of an old violin from the Veracruz region of Mexico. Another digital scan of a jumbled-looking square produces a complex tapestry of rapidly overlapping strings known as El Siquisiri. The style of music is known as Son Jarocho, and it is a blend of “musical and dance tradition from the Sotavento, the southern regions of Mexico’s Veracruz state.”
Editor's PicksHoustonVisual Art

Leaving a Mark: PrintAustin Deconstructs Diverse Art Form in 4th Citywide Festival

Jeremy Hallock·
Austin is a capital of printmaking with many different components. Using several venues to host a deluge of events, PrintAustin ties all the components together. The month-long festival from Jan. 13-Feb. 18 at venues including Gallery Shoal Creek, FlatBed Press, and La Pena Gallery, draws a diverse crowd of art snobs, artists, hipsters, and novices. It’s printmaking on a huge scale.
AustinVisual Art

Fantastic Spaces: Where Will a Former Architect Take the DMA?

Devon Britt-Darby·
Given the centrality of immigration to the 2016 election and Texas’s status as a red state with an ascendant Latino population, this summer’s announcement that the Dallas Museum of Art had hired Agustín Arteaga, a museum director in Mexico City, and that he would be moving, with his husband, to the Lone Star State to run the Dallas Museum of Art, was bound to turn heads.
Dallas/Ft WorthEditor's PicksVisual Art