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ACCENT: Exhibit looks contemporary 

ACCENT/from J1

ward’s positive outlook in a positive light. 
First, the new museum of art Director Paul Piazza has stated a commitment to contemporary art. 

“What? Are you kidding?” he said when asked about that commitment. “It reflects what’s going on in our society. I’m well aware of the need for understanding of contemporary art. It’s an area in which we want to continue to develop, especially in the collecting aspect.”

Edwards has made some important connections in the last three years that have allowed the museum to acquire some new works of art and invigorate a neglected contemporary art collection. 

“I have tapped some new funding sources, but still, we’re not talking major amounts of money,” he said. 

Several of these new additions to the collection will be unveiled in “A Sense of Place: Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Texas Art,” opening Saturday at the museum with a reception featuring music by the Lone Star Swingbillies from 2-5 p.m. 

Edwards said he will focus on Texas artists in building the collection. It makes sense. While the museum collection features works by big-name American artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Richard Diebenkorn and George Segal, these artists’ works have become very pricy. 

“The market has gone haywire,” Edwards said. “And I can’t afford to spend half a million dollars on a single painting. 

“The other part of it is, I think we need to be watering our own garden, so to speak. I was always embarrassed that we didn’t have a Mel Casas or a Cesar Martinez in our 

[[image - painting]]
GREAT OUTDOORS: “Dry Octotillos” by Dennis Blagg is included in the exhibit “A Sense of Art” at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Place: Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Texas 

collection, and these are major Texas artists and major Hispanic artist. So I got some. 

“And there was a horrible gap in terms of women artists. So I’ve started to try and remedy that by acquiring a Susan Whyne (Austin), a Deborah Maverick Kelley (San Antonio), a Gael Stack (Houston), a Lynn Randolph (Houston), and so forth."

The "Sense of Place" exhibit features about 20 paintings - mostly very large scale - bu such Texas artists as Vernon Fisher, who recently had a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Ed Blackburn, Randy Twaddle and Richard Thompson. Six are San Antonians: Casas, Martinez, Kelley, Gary Shafter, James Cobb and Larry Graeber.

Some works were purchased with the help of institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the McFarland Foundation and H-E-B. Others were gifts from private collectors such as San Antonio's Ralph Mendez and Houston's Bette Moody.

"We have to get the gifts, we have to get the acquisitions," Edwards said. "I think now that there is a stated commitment to contemporary art, that sends a signal. What you want to happen is to have collectors come in and say, 'Wow! I really like what your doing. I've got a so-and-so. Are you interested?'"

"For me , this show is sort of a wish fulfilled. It set the direction we want to go with the collection. We've had a little of this and a little of that, but we didn't have a focus. I really believe in what's happening here in the state, and the museum needs to pay attention."

Perhaps the most important aspect of the museum's "stated commitment to contemporary art" is the Cowden Gallery.

In order to accommodate the colossal "Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries" in April, the back building is being renovated - to the tune of $600,000-plus. Once earmarked for the folk art collection, the 7,200 square foot space will be devoted to contemporary art when "Splendors" leaves in August. 

The Cowden Gallery is a big airy rectangle, with 20-foot ceilings and exposed steel beams and air venting. The floor is concrete. Minimal. Plenty of room for monumental sculpture and installation. Sort of resembles a slicker version of the Blue Star space. 

Having a separate, large warehouse-type space devoted to contemporary art opens up a lot of possibilities. "There will always be something different going on in the space," assures Edwards. He is already planning the October opening exhibit, titled Appropriations: Image and Object in Contemporary Texas Art," which will feature well-known and unknown Texas artists, including several San Antonians, and a special video section. Physically and financially - with a budget exceeding $100,000 - it is the most ambitious project Edwards has embarked upon at the museum.

"What I like about the space is its flexibility," he said. "We can have 

[[image - painting]]
SCHOOL DAZE: Cesar A. Martinez's "Bato Con High School Jacket" is on exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

big touring shows, filling the entire space and the great lobby, or put up temporary walls and use one-third of the space for a small show and two-thirds for the permanent collection. We'll turn it over to the guest curators. And it will allow me to use the collection in different ways."

Other exhibits in the oven are "Dragging the River," a collaboration between San Marcos Expressionist Mark Todd and Canadian Precisionist Derek Besant for the summer of 1992, and "Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation," the touring exhibit organized by the Wight Museum in Los Angeles, for 1993.

And Edwards is already talking with antiquities curator Gerry Scott about an exhibit juxtaposing ancient and contemporary classicism. And another, "logical" show would be to work with Witte Museum Senior Curator Cecelia Steinfeldt on a touring exhibit of Texas landscapes, from the early Texas painters through the Onderdonks and including contemporary works like the recently acquired Jim Woodson Painting "'O' Monument."

The museum of art, which turns 10 years old this year, has grown by leaps and bounds in the areas of Latin American folk art, Western antiquities and Oriental art - to national prominence, in fact, in folk art and antiquities.

But it is taking what many consider its first baby steps in contemporary art. What took so long? And, if it continues to travel along this road, what will, what should, its role be?

"A museum's role is to pay attention to the present," Edwards said. "I see the whole contemporary art scene as a series of moving targets. You want to arrest something for a moment. And with collections, you can capture it for much longer and in many more configurations. But in terms of going out and trying to have the hottest new show or upstaging the more cutting edge spaces, I don't know that's our role."