anne wallace

Destino San Antonio
Artist and Guest Curator
4000 sf Exhibition about late 19th century San Antonio
Briscoe Museum of Western Art
2018-19

The word destino has several meanings. The most common English translation is destination: the end of a journey. But it also means fate, destiny.

In 2014, the Briscoe acquired 562 stereoviews and cabinet cards of San Antonio which they wanted to highlight in an exhibition. I took this collection as a point of departure for exploring the identity of the city in the late 19th century, as it has been revealed, hidden, or erased. One of the most striking aspects of the images is the diversity of people in them. Although these are historic photos, this is not a scholarly exhibition. My goal as Artist and Guest Curator was to take the photographic record and augment it with commentary and poetic or provocative juxtapositions (my own and those of scholars and the artists who performed during the run of the exhibition) which suggest possible interpretations and counter the notion of 'photo as truth.'

See Glasstire’s Best of 2019

“The museum commissioned San Antonio artist Anne Wallace to curate the exhibition, and Destino reflects her practice of engaging the American West to examine ‘issues of representation, authenticity and myth.’ ....In another deft curatorial move, a selection of 25 Destino images are projected in a wall-size slide show that moves through 19th-century San Antonio so hypnotically that one almost feels he or she can step into the picture and saunter through its landscape.“

Gene Fowler, Glasstire
‘A Traveler’s Curiosity’ and Historic Images of San Antonio
December 31, 2018

One of my first thoughts was a House of Cards built of stereoviews; that idea morphed into an interactive "Futuring" cityscape for visitors' drawings and comments.

These are the names of indigenous tribes and bands affiliated with San Antonio's history which I engraved on antique building limestones, a material similar to that of the Spanish Colonial Missions. (See link below for Ramon Vasquez, Executive Director, American Indians in Texas-Spanish Colonial Missions, interview about the Mission Pueblos and their contemporary descendants) 

Links to my interviews with scholars
John Phillip Santos, on “Family Album”  
Norma Elia Cantú, on “Family Album”
Ramon Vasquez, on “Living and Touring”
Jackie Dale Tointigh on Apache POWs at Fort Sam Houston
Everett Fly, “Who Was the ‘Plaza Dude?’”
Claudia Guerra, on Military Plaza
Bruce Shackelford, on Military Plaza