**Please join us for an opportunity to meet and interview the artist, Aaron Curry, on Thursday (August 8) at 2 p.m. in the McNay Art Museum lobby (6000 N. New Braunfels, 78209).**

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VIBRANT EXHIBITION FROM SAN ANTONIO-NATIVE, AARON CURRY,

TAKES OVER MCNAY ART MUSEUM LOBBY THROUGH SUMMER 2020

HEADROOM Nods to Modern Art and Science Fiction with New Fluorescent Sculpture, Painting, and Surface Coverings

San Antonio, TX (August 6, 2019) – The McNay Art Museum’s AT&T Lobby will experience a vibrant transformation beginning August 8, 2019 with the opening of a new exhibition, HEADROOM, by San Antonio-native Aaron Curry. The artist grew up visiting the McNay, and has lived and worked in Los Angeles for over a decade. In this homecoming exhibition, HEADROOM is Curry’s first-ever presentation in San Antonio. He is the eighth artist to present work in the AT&T Lobby in the last 10 years.

HEADROOM consists of newly created surface coverings, a painting, and two sculptures selected specifically to activate the Museum’s lobby window area and surrounding walls. The repeated design pattern references the early days of image digitization as seen in video games and through copy machines. The work also nods to modern art and science fiction, which have been constant sources of inspiration throughout Curry’s career.

“From the moment visitors step foot into the McNay, they are immersed in Aaron Curry’s world of visual theatre and experience his sense of whimsy,” said René Paul Barilleaux, McNay Head of Curatorial Affairs and curator of HEADROOM. “The playfulness of Curry’s lobby installation belies its foundation in classic modern painting and sculpture. His artworks both pay homage to and reinvent abstract painting and sculpture.”

Trained as a painter, Curry became interested in what he describes as “this idea of trying to pull something out into the real world,” which ultimately led him to making sculpture. He regards his sculptures as paintings, composing them out of an assortment of flat, whimsical shapes cut from plywood, cardboard, or aluminum. These forms reference Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Chicago Imagists, cartoons, and the modernist works of Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, and Pablo Picasso, all of whom are represented in the McNay’s collection.

Aaron Curry’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at The Bass, Miami Beach; CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Lincoln Center, New York; and Rubell Family Collection, Miami. He is represented in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, among others.

HEADROOM is organized for the McNay Art Museum by René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs.

Lead funding is generously provided by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Exhibition Endowment and the Ewing Halsell Foundation.

About the McNay Art Museum

The McNay Art Museum engages a diverse community in the discovery and enjoyment of the visual arts. Built in the 1920s by artist and educator Marion Koogler McNay, the Spanish Colonial Revival residence became the site of Texas’s first museum of modern art when it opened in 1954.

Today, 200,000 visitors a year enjoy works by modern masters including Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Hopper, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The 23 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds include sculptures by Robert Indiana, Luis A. Jiménez Jr., George Rickey, Joel Shapiro, and Kiki Smith. The 45,000 square-foot Jane & Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions, designed by internationally renowned French architect Jean-Paul Viguier, features three significant exhibitions annually.

For almost 65 years, the McNay has enchanted visitors with its art, architecture, and ambiance. The museum offers rich and varied exhibitions as well as rotating displays in the Main Collection Galleries from the 20,000 works in the collection; more than 45,000 adults, teachers, students, and families take advantage of a variety of education programs and innovative educational resources.