The Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum (Blue Star Contemporary) is the acting contemporary art museum of San Antonio, Texas, USA. Known simply as Blue Star, it was established as a grassroots response to the cancellation of a contemporary arts exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art in 1985. The effort established a vibrant venue for the exhibition of contemporary art in San Antonio. The center is housed in an adapted 1920's era warehouse facility located on the banks of the San Antonio River, at the southern fringe of Downtown San Antonio.
The organization was originally operated by artists and volunteers yet was formally organized with a professional director and staff in 1988. It is now run by director Bill FitzGibbons. Today the center is a primary destination for new art in South Texas and the center has over 20 exhibitions annually, having showcased artists including Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ryan McGinness, Zane Lewis, Mike Bidlo, Oliver Herring, Chuck Ramirez, Sky Patterson, Julia Landois, John Mata, Kimberly Aubuchon, Vincent Valdez, Alex Rubio, Thomas Cummins, Linda Pace, Ed Saavedra, James Surls, Larry Leisner, Dayna De Hoyos, Jason Willome, Ron Binks, Justin Parr, Chris Sauter, Richie Budd, and Dario Robleto. In 2006, George Yepes had a show opening that was attended by film directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.
Blue Star is a catalyst for the revitalization of the South Alamo neighborhoods that surround the facility. The Blue Star Complex and has been redeveloped as an arts-oriented mixed-use development that includes loft/studio apartments, galleries, retail, performance spaces, artists' work spaces, and design offices. Like many other cities, San Antonio has First Friday art openings where Blue Star essentially acts as the hub of the downtown art walk on the first Friday of every month. In addition, Blue Star is credited with the City of San Antonio's establishment of Contemporary Art Month held annually in July at over 70 venues throughout the city.
Famous quotes containing the words blue, star, contemporary, art and/or center:
“The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)
“Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)