[SA] Art will permeate River Walk expansion

[Dom"n"Converse]

By Dan R. Goddard - Special to the Express-News, San Antonio Express-News, 29 March 2009
http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertai...expansion.html

For many people, the River Walk means noisy nightlife, people-watching and Tex-Mex food.

Very soon, it's likely to evoke a different set of images, including an enchanted grotto and a school of giant, illuminated sunfish swimming under Interstate 35.

Those public art projects, by San Antonio concrete artist Carlos CortÈs and Donald Lipski of Philadelphia, are among 11 commissioned by the San Antonio River Foundation for the Museum Reach expansion of the River Walk, which will be unveiled May 30.

Eight artists are working on the projects in, on and around the eight bridges that cross the San Antonio River as part of the 1.5-mile extension from Municipal Auditorium past the San Antonio Museum of Art and to the Pearl Brewery. Once this stretch of the multimillion-dollar San Antonio River Improvements Project is completed, visitors will be able to walk or ride barges from downtown and see one of the most ambitious outdoor contemporary art installations in the country.

"I'm excited to see the city so enthusiastic about public art," said David Rubin, SAMA's contemporary curator. "Three of the artists working on projects — Lipski along with San Antonio artists Rolando Briseño and Stuart Allen — are in the museum's permanent collection. There's a growing awareness of San Antonio as an art center, and these public art projects show that the city supports its artists. The improvements to SAMA's riverfront are going to transform the way the public sees the museum."

Kim Abernethy, river foundation director, said the privately funded foundation has tried to follow the suggestions Seattle artist Lorna Jordan outlined in her 2006 study, "Currents and Eddies."

"I think all these projects are a good fit for the river," Abernethy said. "We had the opportunity to do something truly unique, and I think the public is going to like what we've done."

CortÈs' $3.5 million fairy-tale grotto is taking shape on a bend of the river near the museum, close to the intersection of Camden and Newell streets. River Walk visitors can take a romantic stroll behind a waterfall as they walk through the cavelike formation.

In his first public art project in the United States, Martin Richman of London is hanging hundreds of prismatic strips — or "light chimes," which turn light into patches of sparkling color — on the Lexington Street Bridge, the gateway to the Museum Reach.

"The colors will change from purple to yellow," Richman said. "I'll also be using LED lights to illuminate the strips at night. There should be hundreds of these strips swirling around, creating a kind of low-tech light show. I'm trying to make a place out of what is really a nondescript and rather hostile space. I look forward to hearing some child strolling along the river say, 'Look at that, Dad!' "

While Richman's project is intended to be seen only from the river, Lipski's sunfish will be one of most visible public art projects in the city, a pop art alternative to the high modernism of Sebastian's "Torch of Friendship" downtown. The giant fish are likely to have the same kind of populist appeal as Bob Wade's giant boots at North Star Mall.

"Originally, I was thinking goldfish, but these particular sunfish only grow in the San Antonio River," Lipski said. "I spent some time exploring the river and discovered that lots of people like to fish here. The fish will be lit from within so it'll be easy to see them at night. We're planning to suspend about two dozen beneath the freeway using cables, but it will look like they are swimming in the air. You should be able to see them from (U.S.) 281."

Lipski's other projects in Texas include a giant star covered with cowboy hats for the Fort Worth Convention Center and a proposed fountain of overflowing bathtubs for a waterworks museum in Houston.

Perhaps the most unusual project is San Francisco artist Bill Fontana's sound installation planned for the Jones Avenue Bridge near SAMA.

"This will be Fontana's first piece in Texas, and his only other permanent piece is in San Francisco," said Mike Addkison, project manager. "He's much influenced by John Cage, and his work isn't visual at all. But it should be interesting to listen to. He'll use sequenced speakers under the bridge that will emit a blend of recorded and live broadcasts gathered from multiple locations along the river. You'll hear running water, birds and other sounds of the river; he wants to wash people with sound."

In addition to CortÈs, four San Antonio artists have been commissioned for projects. A couple are being held up by city regulations of sidewalks and bridge railings, which means that Briseño and George Schroeder may not have their bridges finished by May 30, Addkison said.

Briseño hopes to incorporate canopies and shaded areas as part of his San Antonio-inspired designs for bridges at McCullough Avenue and Brooklyn and Ninth streets. Schroeder, known for his abstract welded metal sculpture, is working on railings for bridges at Camden and Newell streets inspired by the movement and form of the river as well as native plants.

Both Allen and Mark Schlesinger are expected to have their projects completed. Allen, who created the sailcloth installation in SAMA's Great Hall, said his design for the underpasses at McCullough and Brooklyn will be more colorful and active than his usual minimalist approach. Panels suspended beneath the underpasses will create shifting blocks of color sampled from the sky, water, plants and landscape, causing flickering, optical experiences.

"I'm comfortable with work that is very sedate," Allen said. "Each panel will be unique, and we'll have them suspended between the concrete pillars, creating a shifting perspective. The colors will be extracted from the landscape."

Schlesinger, who moved to San Antonio from New York, has been experimenting with a new type of colored glow-in-the-dark concrete. Using the underside of the old concrete bridge as a canvas, he plans to create a modernistic design with raised stripes of green, blue and yellow.

"This is a really wonderful opportunity for a painter," Schlesinger said. "It's actually quite a nice space; the bridge has a beautiful structure. I'm trying to create a piece based on what the site has to offer."

In addition to these commissioned pieces, two other works of public art have been added to the river expansion. A Work Projects Administration-era mural originally commissioned by famed San Antonio Mayor Maury Maverick for his family's kitchen has been restored at Dunis Studio in Bulverde and will be installed on a river wall below the El Tropicano Hotel.

Depicting a bustling Mexican village, the tile mural is by Ethel Wilson Harris, who had a private tile business called Mexican Arts and Crafts in the 1930s and supervised the arts-and-crafts division of the WPA from 1939 to 1941. The mural has been preserved by Susan Frost, author of "Colors on Clay: Tiles of the San Jose Workshops."

Soaring slabs of granite by Rockport sculptor Jes˙s Moroles are set to be installed on the southern tip of SAMA's riverfront property, across from the VFW Hall.

Bill Atwell commissioned the piece as a gift to the city, but he died before the project was completed. His son, Bill Atwell Jr., followed through, although the family decided to donate the sculpture to the river foundation and SAMA. Moroles, who has been featured in Art in the Garden at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, also designed the circular, pyramidal granite fountain in SAMA's Luby Courtyard.

http://media.mysanantonio.com/docume...GraphicWEB.pdf

[Boquillas]

Public art always gets a big from me. Good stuff.