ART MATTERS
Chuck Ramirez Christmas trees light up new San Antonio exhibit
A detail of Christmas Trees in all its maximalist glory.
We’d never bah humbug the Christmas season, but the barrage of Hallmark movies and Black Friday sales doesn’t give everyone the warm fuzzies. For those looking for holiday magic outside of HomeGoods, a new exhibit by late San Antonio artist Chuck Ramirez might do the trick.
Christmas Trees, opening Thursday, October 29 at Ruby City’s auxiliary Studio gallery (111 Camp St.), features just that — an array of joyfully gaudy tannenbaums festooned with baubles, boas, beads, and artificial plants. Artist and patron Linda Pace, who founded the Southtown arts center, commissioned the works in 2005 after seeing similar trees installed in the windows of Artpace.
According to Ruby City, Pace gave Ramirez one directive: more is more. It was perhaps an easy challenge for the conceptual artists whose work often deconstructed the visual clutter of everyday objects.
“Historically, the divide between decoration and fine art has been vast, with the latter considered more culturally (and financially) valuable,” wrote Ruby City for a previous showing. “Ramirez, however, recognized that an object could continually shift between these two camps.”
Although Ramirez was best known for his photography of common consumer goods like piñatas, candy trays and leftover party plates, his installations followed the same theme. A former H-E-B art director, he spent his career recasting the commercial detritus as windows onto the people who consumed it, probing ideas of identity, mortality, and consumerism along the way.
That inclination made him one of the foremost interpreters of San Antonio culture. Objects like breakfast tacos and Bill Miller Bar-B-Q cups became tokens of shared identity that no Elf on the Shelf can manage.
Those interested in Ramirez’s work can also find it this month at Centro de Arte’s Mercado/ Material exhibit. Christmas Trees will be shown through January 10, 2027.
