Lorraine O'Grady is an American artist, writer, translator, and critic. Working in conceptual art and performance art that integrates photo and video installation, she explores the cultural construction of identity – particularly that of Black female subjectivity – as shaped by the experience of diaspora and hybridity. O'Grady studied at Wellesley College and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop before becoming an artist at age forty-five. Regarding the purpose of art, O'Grady said in 2016: "I think art’s first goal is to remind us that we are human, whatever that is. I suppose the politics in my art could be to remind us that we are all human."
Kelly Richardson is a Canadian artist working with digital technologies to create hyper-real landscapes. She is currently a professor at the Department of Visual Arts of the University of Victoria.
The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Located at 685 Mission St. and occupying the first three floors of the St. Regis Museum Tower in the Yerba Buena Arts District, MoAD is a nonprofit organization as well as a Smithsonian Affiliate. Prior to 2014, MoAD educated visitors on the history, culture, and art of the African diaspora through permanent and rotating exhibitions. After a six-month refurbishment in 2014 to expand the gallery spaces, the museum reopened and transitioned into presenting exclusively fine arts exhibitions. MoAD does not have a permanent collection and instead works directly with artists or independent curators when developing exhibitions.
César Augusto Martínez is an artist, prominent in the field of Chicano art. While studying at what was then called Texas A&I College, he became involved in the Chicano movement for civil rights. He subsequently befriended several of its leaders.
The culture of San Antonio reflects the history and culture of one of the state's oldest and largest cities straddling the regional and cultural divide between South and Central Texas. Historically, San Antonio culture comes from a blend of Central Texas and South Texas (Southwestern) culture. Founded as a Spanish outpost and the first civil settlement in Texas, San Antonio is heavily influenced by Mexican American culture due to Texas formerly being part of Mexico and, previously, the Spanish Empire. The city also has significant German, Anglo, and African American cultural influences. San Antonio offers a host of cultural institutions, events, restaurants and nightlife in South Texas for both residents and visitors alike.
Dario Robleto is an American transdisciplinary artist, researcher, writer, and teacher. His research-driven practice results in intricately handcrafted objects that reflect his exploration of music, popular culture, science, war, and American history.
Franco Mondini-Ruiz is an American artist who lives and works in San Antonio, Texas and New York, New York. He is of Mexican and Italian descent. According to art critic Roberta Smith, his work "questions notions of preciousness and art-market exclusivity while delivering a fizzy visual pleasure". Mondini-Ruiz takes a variety of approaches to creating art, working in installation, performance, painting, sculpture, and short stories.
Architecture in the American city of San Antonio, Texas comes from a wide variety of sources, but many of the city's buildings mostly reflect Texas' Spanish and Mexican roots; with some influence from French builders, among others. Relatively rapid economic growth since the mid twentieth century has led to a fairly wide variety of contemporary architectural buildings.
Daniel Joseph Martinez is a Los Angeles–based contemporary artist.
Matthew Joseph Williams Drutt is an American curator and writer who specializes in modern and contemporary art and design. Based in New York, he has owned and operated his independent consulting practice Drutt Creative Arts Management (DCAM) since 2013l. He is currently working with the Lee Ufan Foundation in Arles on an exhibition of non-objective art foor Fall 2024. More recently, he worked with the Nationalmuseum Stockholm on an exhibition and publication of modern and contemporary American crafts gifted from artists and collectors in the United States to the museum, originally organized by his mother, Helen Drutt. He has worked more recently with the Eckbo Foundation in Oslo on the first major monograph of Thorwald Hellesen published in English and Norwegian in by Arnoldsche Art Publishers. He is currently also developing several other titles with the publisher. Formerly, he worked with the Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland (2013–2016) and the State Hermitage Museum in Russia (2013–2014), consulting on exhibitions, publications, and collections. He continues to serve as an Advisory Curator to the Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel. In 2006, the French Government awarded him the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2003, his exhibition Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism won Best Monographic Exhibition Organized Nationally from the International Association of Art Critics.
E.V. Day is an American, New York-based installation artist and sculptor. Day's work explores themes of feminism and sexuality, while employing various suspension techniques and reflecting upon popular culture.
Mel Ziegler is an American visual artist and educator, whose artistic practice includes community art, integrated arts, and public art. Ziegler lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is the chair of the department of art at Vanderbilt University.
Amada Cruz is the director and CEO of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She was director of the Seattle Art Museum until October 2023 and was The Sybil Harrington Director & Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Art Museum from February 2015 through mid 2019. Cruz has been embroiled in several controversies over the course of her career, including alleged discrimination of unhoused individuals at the Seattle Art Museum, allegedly creating a hostile work environment at the Phoenix Art Museum, and terminating the employment of an Asian American museum curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Joan Bankemper is an American artist living and working in New York City. Her early 'social practice' or site specific garden/art installations blurred the boundaries of art and life. Bankemper is a 'situationist' and her ceramics are artifacts of a situation. In a 1994 review by Roberta Smith of The New York Times, Smith wrote "Bankemper is a veteran creator of idiosyncratic gardens, often portable. She is especially adept at recycling broken crockery and flowerpots into fantastical planters that are homages to Gaudi and Simon Rodia."
Milica Tomić also known as Milica Tomic, is a Serbian-born contemporary artist and educator. Her artistic practice is research-based and includes working in the mediums of photography, video, installation art and discursive, educational art, performance, and socio-political engagement. She serves as the Chair of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Graz University of Technology in Austria. She has lived in Berlin, Belgrade, and Graz.
Devon Dikeou is an American artist, publisher, and art collector. Dikeou’s practice investigates the "in-between" — subtle interactions between artist, art object, viewer, space, and context.
Adriana Corral is an American artist born in El Paso, Texas, who focuses on installation, performance, and sculpture. Her artwork often emphasizes themes of memory, contemporary human rights violations, and under-examined historical narratives. Corral completed her B.F.A. at the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008 and her M.F.A. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2013. Her work has been exhibited at the Betty Moody Gallery, Houston, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas, Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas, the McNay Art Museum, and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. She has received a series of awards recognizing her work including The Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, The MacDowell Colony Grant, and The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Grant.
Linda Pace was an American artist, food magnate, heiress, and philanthropist who founded Artpace. She was born to parents who owned Pace Foods and took over the company with her husband Christopher “Kit” Goldsbury, before selling it to Kit after divorcing him.
Ruby City is a contemporary art center in San Antonio, Texas.
Ruth Leonela Buentello is an American Chicana Artist. In 2019, she was named as a participant in the Joan Mitchell Foundation residency program. In 2017, she was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors. She was the third Efroymson Emerging Artist in Residence sponsored by the University of Michigan.
