Big Medium is pleased to announce the 51 participating artists and five museum partners of the 2021 Texas Biennial: A New Landscape, A Possible Horizon, co-organized by curators and artistic directors Ryan N. Dennis and Evan Garza. For the seventh iteration of the Biennial and for the first time in its history, the project will be distributed across five Texas museums, featuring exhibitions, programs, and works of public art in San Antonio and Houston from September 1, 2021, through January 31, 2022.
In addition to artists living and working in Texas, the Biennial curators have broadened the scope of the project to include “Texpats,” i.e. Texas natives and artists with deep connections to the Lone Star State working in any part of the world. In another first, the 2021 Texas Biennial will also feature international artists for whom Texas and its history are subject matter.
The curators selected artists from more than 850 considerations over the last 18 months. Both Garza and Dennis performed hundreds of studio visits––in person before the pandemic and exclusively through virtual means since March 2020. Shortly after their appointment to curate the Texas Biennial, both Dennis and Garza moved with their respective partners and families out of Texas––Dennis to Jackson, Mississippi, and Garza to Washington, D.C.––immediately followed by the coronavirus pandemic and a year in lockdown. Separated from each other, their Big Medium team in Texas, and artists across the country by thousands of miles, Dennis and Garza organized the 2021 Texas Biennial via Zoom, FaceTime, email, phone, and text with the aid of curatorial and production assistant, Rigoberto Luna, in San Antonio and the support of Coka Treviño, Shea Little, and Big Medium in Austin.
