Category: Art of San Antonio

Road trip to art-walk in San Antonio

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Above: Looking northward to downtown from San Pedro Culture Park pathways

If you follow the ruta of San Pedro Creek, you are on a pilgrimage rooted in the past, destined for the future. As in some ancient legend, a city emerged out of these waters. A city bubbled forth out of this spring-fed stream, running from long before there was anyone here to witness it – or drink from it…. If this creek could speak, in whispers of song, or poetry, it might tell the story of the city that it birthed, brought to the light of history, its most extraordinary, and perhaps unexpected, progeny. Whispers of memories, echoes of song, rhythms of poesy, drumbeats and bugles, punctuated by cannonades – and long intervals of peace.”

“A Creek Tells Its Story: The Mythic Narrative of San Pedro Creek,” John Phillip Santos

Our rare quick trips to San Antonio tend to involve friends and family, so exploring the two miles of improvements along San Pedro Creek is taking a while. In December, we walked a small segment of the former degraded ditch that has been transformed into San Pedro Cultural Park.

Rather than repeat the background, here are links to my earlier blogs: first post, 2018; second post, 2024. Below, find images taken along a newer stretch.

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Postcard from Istanbul, Turkey: Tooting horn about restitution of artifacts

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Above: Stag rhyton, Milas, Turkey, 400 BCE, displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum

The elegant stag rhyton pictured above must have been quite a status symbol for its owner in ancient Turkey. Today’s value of the combination wine aerator and drinking vessel, $3.5 million, probably made it even more so for the billionaire American collector who acquired it without verifiable provenance.

For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe. His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers, and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection.”

Cyrus Vance, Jr., District Attorney of Manhattan, December 2021 Statement

Now it is part of a growing collection of repatriated stolen antiquities proudly showcased in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

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Postcard from San Antonio: Brothers share maximalist hospitality hints

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Above: A place setting of “Le Point de Bascule,” an installation by the de la Torre Brothers as part of their exhibition, “Upward Mobility,” at the McNay Art Museum

An appetizing invitation from the de la Torre Brothers you can’t refuse? First entering the McNay’s gallery containing their almost-all-media dinner-party installation, “Le Point de Bascule,” you feel as though the guests must have stepped away from the table for a smoke on the patio after a wildly fabulous meal. Taxidermy around the walls make it feel oddly at home in big-game-hunting Texas.

We’re repulsed by this opulence. But we’re also thinking: ‘God, I wish I’d been invited to this party.’”

Artist Einar de la Torre, interviwed by Patricia Escarcega for an article in The New York Times

Above: The dining room table in “Le Point de Bascule,” a multimedia art installation by the de la Torre Brothers

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