The dramatic wall painting, more than 25-feet high and 98-feet wide, is the first large-scale public installation funded by the Linda Pace Foundation. “Adam” embraces and fulfills the foundation’s mission for the community to experience contemporary art in nontraditional settings.
A dedication ceremony for Adam is scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, December 14 at Main Plaza. The event will celebrate the Linda Pace Foundation’s contribution of contemporary art to the urban landscape as a means to engage and enliven the community.
Herrera scouted San Antonio earlier this year looking for the ideal setting for “Adam.” He settled on Main Plaza, a vibrant cultural hub for musicians, poets, artists, farmers markets and family activities.
“This installation advances San Antonio’s growing reputation as a cultural center for innovation and creativity,” said Maura Reilly, executive director of the Linda Pace Foundation. “We are honored that Arturo tailored this design specifically for us. Having a public art display by an artist of his caliber positions Adam as one of the city’s newest attractions. ‘Adam’ will inspire local residents, tourists, and also bring art aficionados to our city.”
Herrera first came to San Antonio in 2000 as an Artpace artist in residence and forged an endearing friendship with founder Linda Pace. Herrera was heartened when the foundation expressed interest in ‘Adam,’ originally created for a two-artist show at Berlin, as part of Germany’s Künstlerhaus Bethanien residency program.
“The inspiration for the wall painting Adam was about movement, the dynamism of abstraction, and a soaring energetic field, like Spring, when everything awakens,” Herrera said. “The title ‘Adam’ brings several images to mind — an earthbound beginning, the first individual human, humankind. It is a powerful and yet open-ended title that can convey multiple readings to the audience. The color red that I chose for ‘Adam’ was intentional, as red is the color associated with heat, power, physical energy and celebration. Coincidently, red was Linda Pace‘s favorite color, both for its physical and spiritual qualities.”
Adam will be produced with the assistance of Burkett Waterproofing, engineering support from Danysh & Associates and painting installation by Noam Laich. The mural and installation process has been approved by Frost Bank, Historic Design, and Public Art San Antonio.
The installation will remain prominently displayed on the side of the Frost Bank Parking Garage at the northwest corner of Commerce Street and Main Avenue for three years, through December 2016.
About the Artist:
Arturo Herrera was born in 1959 in Caracas, Venezuela. He received his BFA from the University of Tulsa in 1982 and his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1992. He lives and works in Berlin. Arturo Herrera has developed a multilayered body of work that includes collages, sculptures, photographs, cut felt pieces and wall works. Herrera uses a fragmented language – whose lingering references range from popular culture to art history – to decontextualize inherent narratives without eradicating the coded referentiality of the image. The resulting works shift in between the explicit and the implicit. A pliability of meaning is played out through the ambiguity of figurative and abstract forms. These forms do not enforce a specific message. Instead, they address the fragmentation and recomposition of mass-culture elements to explore the impact of the adulterated language of abstraction into the collective gaze.
Herrera’s solo and project-based exhibitions have been held at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; daadgalerie, Berlin; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Americas Society Art Gallery, NY; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Switzerland; Art Gallery of Ontario; ICA Philadelphia; The UCLA Hammer Museum, Museum of Modern Art, NY; and The Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, ArtPace San Antonio, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the DAAD, Berlin.
About the Linda Pace Foundation:
The Linda Pace Foundation is committed to the charitable vision of its founder. Guided by the donor’s conviction that contemporary art is essential to a dynamic society, the Linda Pace Foundation fosters the creation, presentation, and understanding of innovative expression through contemporary art. Grants support the operation of Artpace, CHRISpark, the public exhibition of Pace’s contemporary art collection, and the work of contemporary artists.
# # #
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
