Remembering family and the Alamo

New exhibitions at San Antonio’s Artpace examine histories both public and personal

BY MARCO AQUINO

Artpace’s summer programming brings together three artists, all filmmakers, whose works explore widely divergent themes and employ different media.

The contemporary art space and residency program is presenting two exhibitions. Angela Guerra Walley’s “We Are Quilted Together” installation is on display in its Main Space, while “2 for 99¢,” a joint exhibition by filmmakers Jim Mendiola and Rubén Ortiz-Torres, occupies the Hudson Showroom.

Walley considers her own family’s lineage of female creators in the works she creates, while Mendiola and Ortiz-Torres use their medium to examine the city’s public icons and urban legends.

On first glance, Walley’s work appears to be nothing more than a clothing line on which dangle multiple nondescript garments. Unusual, considering Walley is primarily recognized as a documentary filmmaker known for biographies of artists including Vincent Valdez and the late Chuck Ramirez.

However, upon closer inspection, what first appears to be a common fixture in many backyards is a uniquely intricate assemblage of personal items and history.

Walley, recipient of a San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture 2022 Individual Artist Grant, described her artistic process during a press preview at Artpace. She lost her father at the end of 2018 but said it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that she was ready to move “towards the light.”

“I was ready to start thinking about all of the love, all of the comfort that brings you out of your lowest point of grief,” Walley explained. “For me, that was all of the memories not only of my father but of his mother, [whom] he was very close to. I found myself thinking a lot about my grandmother.”

A History of Quilting

Aside from caring for large families, her grandmother and mother shared sewing skills, according to Walley.

That connection is on display in the piece “We Are Quilted Together,” which features a series of “quilted dresses” that hang from a clothesline supported by two rusted metal poles. Walley gathered items from her own wardrobe to create the new quilted works. She called the process a cathartic experience.

“Tearing things apart at the seams and reconstructing them into something new is just a really satisfying experience,” she said.

The metal poles from which the dresses hang were also cut from her grandmother’s yard. Walley’s installation draws on a history of quilt making in the United States in which women were the driving force. At the same time, it pays homage to her own familial history of women creators. The quilted dresses represent the various aspects of Walley’s artistic practice as a filmmaker, poet, musician and visual artist.

collaborated in 2001.

The exhibition revisits a 3D video installation created during Mendiola’s and Ortiz-Torres’ residency more than two decades ago. The work showcases the Alamo, with a particular focus on the site’s multifaceted use as a holy shrine, tourist site, museum and archeological site.

Another example of aging technology is The Mapping of the Mascot Genome, a collaborative series of digitally manipulated videos depicting Ballapeño and Puffy Taco — the official and unofficial mascots of the San Antonio Missions, the city’s minor league baseball team. The images appear slightly blurred, revealing the outdated software used to create the videos.

Remembering the Alamo

In “2 for 99¢,” Mendiola and Ortiz-Torres present work created over the past decades, beginning when both were named Artpace Artists in Residence in 2001.

“We

Although much of Walley’s prior work — specifically her film or musical creations — existed as digital files, she noted that “slowly coming around to object-making and installation-making definitely felt right.”

Beyond that, the exhibit investigates the globalization of popular culture and the manner in which they city’s history is continuously repackaged and resold.

“As much as technology has changed over the years, the [things that remain] consistent are the conversations around the Alamo and about who owns history,” Mendiola said.

The title of the show humorously references their pairing for the project while riffing on the Alamo City’s deep appreciation of cheap and delicious breakfast tacos.

In the Taco House series, Ortiz-Torres depicts offers a set of photos depicting taquerias across the city. The photos include all the hallmarks of taco house culture, from brightly colored buildings and religious iconography to promotional text splashed across front windows and tight parking spaces.

Ortiz-Torres created the series to be featured in Mendiola’s 2003 film Speeder Kills.

“2 for 99¢” also reveals just how much technology has changed since Mendiola and Ortiz-Torres first

Mendiola referenced a recent controversy over nearby tavern Moses Rose’s Hideout, which could be seized by the city using eminent domain in order to build the new Alamo Visitor Center and Museum.

The exhibit also features the artists’ 2013 Fiesta Medal, which commemorates heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne’s arrest 41 years ago for urinating on the Alamo Cenotaph.

Through representations of baseball, heavy metal and breakfast tacos, Mendiola and Ortiz-Torres encapsulate the city’s cultural traditions and icons while contributing to a conversation about its evolving image and cultural history.