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 modern queer was invented by Tennessee Williams. Brando in blue jeans, sneakers, white T-shirt and leather jacket. When you saw that, you knew they were available.”
—Derek Jarman (b. 1942)
“The flattering, if arbitrary, label, First Lady of the Theatre, takes its toll. The demands are great, not only in energy but eventually in dramatic focus. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a star to occupy an inch of space without bursting seams, cramping everyone else’s style and unbalancing a play. No matter how self-effacing a famous player may be, he makes an entrance as a casual neighbor and the audience interest shifts to the house next door.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)
“... contemporary black women felt they were asked to choose between a black movement that primarily served the interests of black male patriarchs and a women’s movement which primarily served the interests of racist white women.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“But the nature of our civilized minds is so detached from the senses, even in the vulgar, by abstractions corresponding to all the abstract terms our languages abound in, and so refined by the art of writing, and as it were spiritualized by the use of numbers, because even the vulgar know how to count and reckon, that it is naturally beyond our power to form the vast image of this mistress called “Sympathetic Nature.””
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“The question of whether it’s God’s green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)