This month brings a wealth of artistic wonders to Alamo City’s galleries, museums, and gardens. Art enthusiasts and the curious can ponder ecological issues through the art of Margaret Craig, cozy up to human microbes at the Witte, welcome international artists-in-residence at Artpace, view Afrocentric sculptures and rare photographs, take in an array of mouthwatering desserts (albeit on canvas), and delight in seasonal light installations at the botanical gardens. Whatever artistic creations tickle your fancy, there’s lots to celebrate in San Antonio’s art scene this month.
Palo Alto College – Gallery 100
“Margaret Craig: Bleached Reef and Other Devolutions.”
Now through December 2.
Margaret Craig’s work is a contemplation of the ways humanity affects the plants and animals around us, and how we may be affected by them, a concept she approaches from both a biology background and from artistic printmaking methodologies. Her current work references pollution of all kinds, including trash, plastics, and atmospheric pollutants that threaten the land and oceans. “My work is a meditation on the great extinction and what will come after, how nature will use this abundant resource to evolve new life forms,” she says. “It is a little incongruous, creating beautiful creatures out of trash and giving viewers a way to contemplate the ecological issues.”
San Antonio Botanical Gardens
“Lightscape.”
November 19 through January 2, 2022.
San Antonio’s newest holiday event, “Lightscape,” is making its Texas debut. Guests will be enchanted by magical light displays set along a beautifully illuminated 1-mile path winding through the botanical gardens. These captivating illuminations aim to dazzle the senses and will include installations unique to Texas created by local and international artists.
The Carver Cultural Community Center Gallery
“Artist and Collector: Anthony C. Edwards.”
Now through December 21.
“Artist and Collector” offers the public a rare opportunity to view artist Anthony C. Edwards’ own folk, contemporary, digital, and stained-glass works alongside curated pieces from his personal Afrocentric art collection, including three Jonas Perkins sculptures and rare photographs by E.O. Goldbeck. Being defined as an artist is still difficult for the self-taught Edwards — more than three decades after he began painting at age 41 — even though his work has been sold in galleries, resides in the San Antonio Museum of Art’s permanent collection, and was included in the Harriet and Harmon Kelley Collection of African American Art exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute. Here’s your chance to make your own estimation of his work.
The McNay Art Museum
“Wayne Thiebaud 100: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings.”
Now through April 10, 2022.
Steeped in memories both personal and cultural, the art of Wayne Thiebaud is comfortingly familiar and evokes reflection on our own experiences with the people, places, and foods we love. Thiebaud is best known for his tantalizing paintings of desserts and has long been associated with the pop art movement. “Wayne Thiebaud 100: Paintings, Prints, and Drawings” celebrates the artist’s 100th birthday through 100 works representing his achievements in all media through an array of subjects.
The Witte Museum
“The Secret World Inside You.”
Now through January 16, 2022.
Our bodies are home to many trillions of microbes living in and on us, including bacteria, fungi, and other organisms collectively called the human microbiome. “The Secret World Inside You” explores the rapidly evolving science that reveals the complexities of the human microbiome, reshaping our ideas about human health and offering new perspectives on bacteria, viruses, and other microbes that call our bodies home. Organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the exhibit uses larger-than-life models, interactive displays, videos, art installations, and live presentations to take visitors on a journey of the microbiome and introduce them to special characters like puppets Gram-Positive and Gram-Negative bacteria, as well as Major Microbe.
Artpace
Fall 2021 International Artist-in-Residence Program.
November 18 through January 9, 2022.
This year’s artist-in-residence exhibition welcomes artists Shana Hoehn, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, and Dan Herschlein. Texas native Hoehn is an artist working with sculpture, video, and photo-adjacent processes. Her artwork is a personal and historical inquiry into the aesthetics that allegorize the femme form. Ramírez-Figueroa is from Guatemala City and uses performance, sound, drawing, and sculpture to explore themes of loss, displacement, and cultural resistance. New Yorker Herschlein works in sculpture, drawing, and performance, using images of the body and horror tropes to explore the human desire for comfort and emotional understanding. At once unsettling and surprisingly tender, Herschlein’s work evokes alienation, aloneness, and fear as a means to achieve deeper self-reflection.
“Lightscape,” makes its Texas debut at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens.
