We’re happy to announce the institution of the Glasstire Texas Artwork Writing Awards, and to call Ruben C. Cordova and Robert Craig Bunch because the prize’s inaugural recipients.
Glasstire has based this award to acknowledge distinctive artwork writing in Texas. As Glasstire’s Writer, Brandon Zech, says, “Whereas organizations throughout Texas acknowledge the artists, philanthropists, curators, and collectors who’re important to our state’s artwork scene, nobody is highlighting the writers and the writing which might be the lifeblood of our artwork group. As Texas’ artwork journal of document, we need to step up, thank, and highlight the writers who’re making an affect right here.”
The award is by nomination solely. To determine the winners, Glasstire reached out to a statewide number of arts professionals who shared the items of writing and writers who made an affect on them within the final calendar 12 months. Glasstire then decided based mostly on their suggestions.
This 12 months, Glasstire is giving one award for distinctive Texas artwork writing that appeared in Glasstire in 2024, and one award for writing revealed elsewhere in 2024. The scope of this second award is purposefully broad to incorporate writing that appeared in nationwide and worldwide newspapers, tutorial writings, books, and in different numerous retailers and types.
San Antonio-based historian, author, and artist Ruben C. Cordova is the recipient of the 2024 Texas Artwork Writing Award for Writing on Glasstire. Mr. Cordova has contributed to Glasstire since 2018, and is understood for his long-form essays, opinions, and different articles that oftentimes mix analysis with visible and significant evaluation of his topics. Mr. Cordova wrote 10 items for Glasstire in 2024, together with new iterations of his yearly sequence analyzing Catrina imagery and visible depictions of Apollo and Daphne. Further articles embrace the much-discussed “Debunking Alamo Myths” and “Is it Time for San Antonio’s Fiesta to Secede from San Jacinto? Part II.”
Mr. Cordova informed Glasstire, “It was an honor to obtain the Glasstire writing award, and I’ve deeply loved writing for the publication for a number of years. Glasstire has given me the chance to deal with an especially wide selection of matters, usually at appreciable size, with quite a few pictures. As all the time, I hope my writing can be of worth to college students and academics, this present day, and sooner or later as properly.”
Ruben C. Cordova and Robert Craig Bunch
Robert Craig Bunch, the San Antonio-based writer and artist, is the second recipient of Glasstire’s 2024 Texas Artwork Writing Award, for his new ebook The Art of Dreams, Visions, Other Worlds: Interviews with Texas Artists. Printed by Texas A&M College Press in December 2024 and that includes 60 interviews with artists as far ranging as Wayne Gilbert, Angelbert Metoyer, Juan de Dios Mora, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, Julie Pace, Hiromi Stringer, and Albert Alvarez, the ebook is a crucial doc of Texas’ artwork scene wherein artists, in their very own phrases, give insights into their apply. That is Mr. Bunch’s second ebook; his first publication, The Artwork of Discovered Objects: Interviews with Texas Artists, was revealed by Texas A&M College Press in 2017.
Mr. Bunch informed Glasstire, “My two books of interviews with Texas artists owe their origins to the Texas artists who’ve impressed me, my curiosity about their artistic journeys, and my conviction that they should be higher recognized in and much past Texas. I’m usually as amazed at their phrases as I’m at their artwork. The title themes of The Artwork of Goals, Visions, Different Worlds originate in my lifelong fascination with goals.”
A ebook signing for The Artwork of Goals, Visions, Different Worlds is occurring on Saturday, Might 17, from 2-4 p.m. at Hooks-Epstein Galleries in Houston, along with the gallery’s present exhibitions.
About Robert Craig Bunch
Robert Craig Bunch is a local of Houston and has lived in San Antonio since 2011. He spent 20 years as a librarian in colleges throughout Houston and Coldspring, and later on the McNay Artwork Museum in San Antonio, the place he retired in 2018. His opinions, articles, and interviews have appeared in Booklist, Artlies, People Artwork, The Artwork E-book, Kyoto Journal, Glasstire, and different periodicals. His books from Texas A&M College Press embrace The Artwork of Discovered Objects: Interviews with Texas Artists (2016) and The Artwork of Goals, Visions, Different Worlds: Interviews with Texas Artists (2024). He’s additionally an artist and has self-published two books of his Life Journal collages.
About Ruben C. Cordova
Ruben C. Cordova is an artwork historian with a BA from Brown College and a PhD from UC Berkeley. He has taught at 5 universities and has revealed greater than 80 articles and opinions. He obtained a Rabkin Basis journey grant to assist articles for Glasstire about Henry Clay Frick and the brand new Frick Assortment galleries, and in regards to the new Rockefeller galleries on the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork. Mr. Cordova has written or contributed to greater than 20 catalogs and books, together with Con Safo, the primary ebook on a Chicano artwork group, revealed by the UCLA Chicano Research Analysis Middle Press. His Rolando Briseño retrospective catalog (revealed by Centro de Artes in San Antonio) and an essay within the Latinx Reader (UC Press) had been just lately revealed, and his essay in Sixties Surreal (revealed by Yale College Press and the Whitney Museum of American Artwork) will seem later this 12 months.
Mr. Cordova has curated or co-curated 34 exhibitions, together with a number of main retrospectives of artists Jesse Treviño, Mel Casas, and Ángel Rodríguez-Díaz. He has additionally organized survey exhibitions, together with The Different Facet of the Alamo: Artwork Towards the Fantasy and The Day of the Lifeless in Artwork. As an artist, Mr. Cordova has participated in 46 exhibitions, together with 4 solo shows, the final of which was Besos de la Muerte (Kisses of Dying) at Centro de Artes in San Antonio.
About Glasstire
Glasstire is an internet publication that covers visible artwork in Texas. Its mission is to broaden the dialog about artwork within the state. It has been in steady operation since January 2001. It’s a nonprofit 501(c)(3) publication, supported partially by grants from The Houston Endowment, The Brown Basis, Inc., the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts, the Better Houston Group Basis, the Metropolis of Houston via Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Fee for the Arts. Glasstire’s identify is an homage to Robert Rauschenberg’s sculptures of tires solid in glass. The artworks evoke touring nice distances, at nice pace, with nice readability.
