2015 International Artist-in-Residence Program
Artpace, San Antonio, Texas
Guest Curator, Summer 2015
Residencies
18 May – 20 July 2015
Exhibition
16 July - 13 September 2015
Artists
Fatma Bucak
London, UK / Istanbul, Turkey
Wafaa Bilal
New York, New York
Gabriel Martinez
Houston, Texas
Three times a year, Artpace invites a guest curator to choose three artists to live and create art in San Antonio for two months. Each residency cycle includes one international, one national, and one Texas-based artist. Each resident receives a studio space, honoraria, production money, and the support of a full-time staff. The artworks created are exhibited for two months at Artpace and go on to appear in private and public collections worldwide. All art made during the residency belongs to the artist. The mission of the program is to provide artists with unparalleled resources that allow them to experiment with new ideas, take provocative risks, and realize innovative and ambitious new artworks.
While in residence, the artists are encouraged to share their ideas and become involved with the San Antonio and Texas art communities. Public programs such as the Community Welcome potlucks and Artists’ Dialogues serve to connect audiences with Artpace resident artists. Artpace’s physical and online archives provide permanent access to residency documentation and scholarship. The projects also live on in scholarly essays authored by the program’s renowned guest curators, which offer a critical overview of the artwork made and shown at Artpace.
Artpace: International Artist-in-Residence from Artpace San Antonio on Vimeo.
FATMA BUCAK
Born in Iskenderun, Turkey, Fatma Bucak works in performance, photography and video media to address tensions in gender, geography, and religion. Bucak has staged performances that reference mythology, archetypes, and tormented self-representations. In 2013, Bucak won the 13th illy Present Future Prize, and was a finalist for the Catlin Art Prize, both showcasing the most exciting and dynamic emerging artists. Bucak earned her BA from the Albertina Academy of Fine Art, Turin, and her MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art, London.
WAFAA BILAL
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal, an Associate Arts Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, is known internationally for his online performance-based and interactive works, which provoke dialogue about international politics and internal dynamics. Previous projects reference surveillance, the mundane, and the things we leave behind. In Bilal’s 2007 project, Domestic Tension, which addressed the Iraq war, the artist spent a month in a Chicago gallery with a paintball gun, live streaming the space on the internet and inviting online participants to activate the gun’s aim to shoot at him in real time. Bilal graduated from the University of New Mexico and obtained an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2008 City Lights published “Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun,” about Bilal’s life and the Domestic Tension project.
GABRIEL MARTINEZ
Houston-based artist Gabriel Martinez creates art experiences beyond the traditional gallery setting, hinting at social and political undercurrents. Martinez has intervened in public spaces, suggesting alternate uses and interpretations for empty lots or bus stops without seating. By installing signage or benches where there previously were none, perceptions change through participation in the altered landscape. Martinez is a 2012 CORE Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as an artist in residence at Project Row Houses. He received his MFA from Columbia University.