Press Release: David Avalos

05.15.95

ArtPace Announces the Opening of

New Works: 95.3

Three Artists' Installations from The International Artist-In-Residence Program

New Works: 95.3, the latest in an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring works by
artists participating in The Pace Roberts Foundation for Contemporary Art's International
Artist-in-Residence Program, opened to the public Friday, July 7, 1995. New Works:
95.3 includes works created in San Antonio by Antony Gormley, London, England;
David Avalos, National City, CA; and David Zamora Casas, San Antonio.

Antony Gormley is renowned throughout the world for the disquieting sculptural
objects and installations he has completed for situations as diverse as the 1991 Spoleto
Festival in Charleston, SC, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and a newly finished
permanent commission at the Arctic Circle. 95.3 presents a sequence of twelve drawings
Gormley created by applying various organic materials onto handmade etching paper
while in residence at ArtPace in December 1994/January 1995.

David Avalos, one of a group of artists that represented the U.S. at the 1992 Istanbul
Bienali, is acclaimed for his provocative collaborations in the public realm, with a
changing cast of like-minded, socially aware visual and performing artists based in
southern California. Avalos' latest solo installation employs found objects, sculptural
objects made at ArtPace, text and other materials, in a multi-dimensional meditation on
the relationship between personal and political commitment.

David Zamora Casas is one of San Antonio's best known media, visual, and
performance artists. Fresh from a successful presentation at Jumpstart Theater, he has
premiered a new series of mixed media paintings with accompanying text and audio tape
that comment powerfully on the effects of the continuing AIDS epidemic. After the
exhibition closes, Zamora Casas will travel to London as a participant in The Pace
Roberts Foundation's London Studio Program.

These artists were selected for participation in The International Artist-In-Residence
Program in 1994, when The Pace Roberts Foundation convened a panel of arts
professionals to choose international, U.S., and San Antonio based artists for the 1995-
1996 residencies. Panel members included Richard Koshalek, Director of the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Mary Beebe, Director of the Stuart Collection, the
University of California, San Diego; Anthony Jones, Rector and Vice-Provost, the Royal
College of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Benito Huerta, Independent
Critic and Artist, Houston; and Dianne Vanderlip, Curator of 20th Century Art, Denver
Art Museum. The panel considered nearly three hundred artists from thirty-nine countries
and the United States who were nominated by over one hundred seventy-five
contemporary curators, collectors, and other art professionals worldwide. They chose
twenty-one artists who have been invited by The Foundation to participate in the
International Artist-In-Residence Program over the next two years.

The Pace Roberts Foundation for Contemporary Art was established by San Antonio
native, Linda Pace Roberts, in 1993 to serve as an advocate of contemporary art and as a
catalyst for the creation of significant art projects. The Foundation seeks to expose the
San Antonio community to diverse media and trends in contemporary art. 'Our goal is to
become a research facility in the visual arts,' says Pace Roberts. 'We want to encourage
individual experimentation and exploration, while helping to promote dialogue about
contemporary art in San Antonio.'

ArtPace, which has housed The International Artist-In-Residence program since
January 1995, is a 15,000 square foot facility in downtown San Antonio, Texas. Located
at 445 North Main Avenue, ArtPace was renovated by the San Antonio firm, Lake/Flato
Architects, Inc. The building contains Foundation offices, three large art
studio/exhibition spaces, two apartments, and extensive support facilities for visiting
artists. Programming for the space was formulated after consulting with leaders
throughout the art world, including representatives from the Capp Street project, San
Francisco, and the Dia Center for the Arts, New York.

New Works: 95.3 will remain on view through August 6, 1995. Exhibition hours are
from 12 to 5 Wednesday through Sunday.

DAVID AVALOS

Born in San Diego in 1947, David Avalos is a forceful societal observer and provocateur
who employs confrontational gesture, poetic metaphor, philosophical inquiry, public
interaction, and a variety of more standard art-making skills -- video, sculpture,
photography, etc. -- in the creation of potent performances/installations/public art works.
Long involved in the Chicano art movement, he has been student, peer, and mentor to
three generations of artists/activists dedicated to social justice and the preservation and
evolution of their cultural traditions. In his solo work as an artist, his ongoing
collaborations with other artists, and in his role as a professor at California State
University, San Marcos, Avalos extends the research and scholarship of contemporary
inter-disciplinary discourse. He has been encouraged in that effort by the receipt of
numerous grants and awards, including two national Endowment for the Arts Artist
Fellowships, two Inter-Arts New Forms grants, and support from the California Arts
Council and San Diego County. Avalos' work has been showcased in seven solo
exhibitions, as well as numerous group shows throughout the U.S. and in Mexico,
Venezuela, Canada, and France. His collaborative works with other artists have
addressed audiences in Turkey, England, Sweden, Spain, France, Mexico, and the U.S.,
engaging each local community in a discussion of identity, cultural tradition and change,
public/private codes of behavior, and other issues of global concern.

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org