Since 1995, Artpace has hosted numerous artists who consider identity and personality within complex social structures. The exhibition Self presents a selection of video artworks by alumni artists from Artpace’s International Artist-in-Residence program, each exploring the complex notion of selfhood or self. This has been a consistent and ongoing area of interest for artists in the International Artist-in-Residence program and worthy revisiting some of the key videos of artists who are content to produce artworks about identity.
Alex Bag, who participated as an Artist-in-Residence in the fall of 1997, directs the video camera inward toward herself to challenge the traditional concept that artists must create a self-portrait and instead creates a constructed identity or avatar. By transforming her appearance with different hair, makeup, and costuming, Bag becomes a character whose authenticity remains ambiguous; her performance blurs the line between the real Alex Bag and a fabricated persona. For her 1997 Artpace exhibition, Bag purchased a Dodge van and, working alongside Artpace preparators, converted its interior to evoke a 1970s automotive-period icon, providing a comfortable and immersive space for viewing her multiple video works. Notably, the classic Dodge Tradesman conversion van was equipped with a fully functional video system and could be driven and parked anywhere, adding another layer to the experience of her art.
Anne Wallace, Artist-in-Residence during the fall of 2004, documents and responds to the concept of the frontera, the border or threshold, which serves as a potent metaphor for defining identity. In her work Danc- ing the Ruins, Wallace films a series of couples practicing dance within the privacy of a living room, dancing on the tiled floor where a house once stood, complete with a threshold of an absent door. This video triptych presents scenes from urban life in both Wallace’s home city of San Antonio and during a 2017 residency in Berlin, both cities with histories marked by complicated borders. Through rich metaphors, such as a resort in ruins, a train wreck, and migrants break dancing, Wallace contemplates how these liminal spaces shape and describe the self.
“The dance floor becomes a contact point, a border. I don’t ask your name, country, immigration status, or story. I look into your eyes and put my hand on your shoulder. You don’t know my life. You put your hand on my waist and lead me across the floor.” – Anne Wallace
Kang Seung Lee, Artist-in-Residence at Artpace in 2017, mounted the exhibition Body of Memory at the Alexander Gray Associates, which featured the video Skin. This work focuses on the fifty-year career of dancer Meg Harper, offering an honest and poignant portrait of the dancer’s journey through aging marked by a vitality of self. In her own words, Harper describes the self as “a breathing repository of movement, memory, sensation, where timelines unfurl and personal and collective histories collide.” She demonstrates strength not only through her choreographed dance but also through her confidence in allowing her body to reveal its true self. Seung Lee’s striking cinematography captures the dancer’s grace and dedication to her craft while exposing the inevitable part of life.
Paul Pfeiffer, spring of 2003 Artist-in-Residence, approaches the concept of self by removing nearly all elements except the individual in his work Untitled (Guard). Pfeiffer’s video centers on a deputy sheriff assigned to guard the courtside of a San Antonio Spurs basketball game at the then-SBC Center. Constricted by copyright of the NBA, players in uniform could not be filmed. As a result, the video captures only the deputy’s presence; a straight-faced figure who, by agreeing not to participate in the spectacle of sport, faces the crowd instead. This deliberate detachment transforms the uniformed deputy into part of the arena’s infrastructure, erasing personal identity and removing any overt reference to the self.
The exhibition revisits four artists from Artpace’s extensive history, highlighting a few of the past residents whose artwork describes something that is present in everyone. These artworks show the vast diversity of exploring the motif of Self by accepting the nature of oneself or nurturing a constructed self.
Riley Robinson
Curator and Executive Director, Artpace San Antonio
