More Images from Luminaria

glass rounds, ever-changing internal color

seen at the entrance of hemisfair park

Several people asked many artists were present at Luminaria.  I honestly do not know.

I will share what is posted on the Luminaria website, which I read with interest:

Artistic Vision

OUR VISION

Luminaria:  Arts come to light

San Antonio has been shaped by the elements: the earth, abundant water, clean air, and light which changes as the seasons come and go.  Artists move through this world seeking new forms of expression. In 1968, we opened our city to the world by hosting HemisFair ‘68, a world’s fair which celebrated The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas and changed the city forever, inviting guests from all over the world to come here and experience our unique culture, a blending of people, ideas, art, and architecture.

Luminaria 2011 is a child of Hemisfair ‘68, a glimpse of light and how it intersects and interacts with art in San Antonio.  Luminaria 2011 seeks to reignite that moment in time, by reimagining HemisFair as a canvas for enlightened, innovative, and interactive contemporary artwork from all artistic disciplines. It honors the past as it celebrates the future.  It weaves its way through the light, air, earth, wind, and water, illuminating the hidden secrets of a park in the heart of a modern  city.

Luminaria 2011 is a shared gift between artists and art lovers.  We dance through the light and the shadow.  We push creativity as far as it can go.  We present new art which astonishes, delights, opens eyes, and initiates ideas.  We offer flowing paths of light which delivers you through the corridors of artisticexpression.

Join us on this incredible journey of discovery.  Embrace the night and the light of Luminaria 2011, the intersection of art, and inspiration   

Curated zones:

To help guide our journey, we have asked four curator groups to design specific zones.  They have devised the following experiences:

Kathy Armstrong, Director of Exhibitions, Southwest School of Art

My focus is to fill the corridors of the park with artists revealing the materials, process, and soul of art. Through intimate interaction with artists and as viewers of spectacle, audiences will experience a revelation of their creative spirits. 

Cindy and Ray Palmer, owners of Highwire Gallery

Our desire is to discover artists to portray light in all its many forms: pure, reflective, ambient and  refractive. To witness particles of waves in motion – nature’s illusion –  to be shaped by the artists in ways that infiltrate the natural environment. To explore the shadow side of light and stretch imagination through holographic fantasy and enchantment.  And, to kinetically engage viewers into shaping light themselves.

Greg Hinojosa, Theater-OLLU and April Atkinson, Visual Art-OLLU

Illuminating our Past and Embracing our Future

Our corridor will bridge the traditional and organic carpas and contemporary uses of light in the context of artmaking in the 21^st century.  The carpa, or traveling tent show played a critical role in the migrant experience.  As migrant families traveled from South Texas to California and the Mid-west, family circuses would follow, exhilirating them with daring acts of bravery, satirizing their brutal working conditions, and thus helping to create a shared sense of identity through resilience.  San Antonio was home to many carpa troupes, most notably, Carpa Garcia and Carpa Monsivais.

Chuck Ramirez and Chris Sauter, San Antonio Visual Artists

Instillation, Infiltration, Infestation

We will select artists whose work insinuates itself into the world, simultaneously reacting to and transforming its site.

Perhaps the most stunning visual of the evening came at the very end:

hundred of floating Chinese lanterns took to the air,

floating around and sometimes bumping into the

hemisfair tower:

lighting the last lantern!

just before release.

It was magical!