Blue Star Contemporary

Blue Star Contemporary, a non-profit, non-collectiong contemporary art institution that has utilized multiple names since its inception, changed its name to Contemporary at Blue Star in 2022. It is situated in a former warehouse that is part of a complex of former warehouses located in San Antonio, Texas, known as the Blue Star Art Complex. It is currently observing its 40th anniversary of staging exhibitions in the same building, which is divided into four galleries. The organization was established by a group of artists in 1986 after three local art galleries closed and the director of the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) fired its contemporary art curator and cancelled an exhibition of 25 local artists that was to be called “San Antonio Contemporary.” According to ArtNexus, Blue Star's establishment "arose from the need to provide a platform for the work and ideas of local contemporary artists." Local artists worked with local businessmen to raise $40,000 to bring the art space to fruition. The first Blue Star Exhibition featuring the work of 27 local contemporary artists in the former Blue Star Ice and Cold Storage warehouse. This first exhibition, which, according to the San Antonio Express-News, had "modest" expectations, drew over three thousand visitors. In 2019, Glasstire referred to Blue Star as "an incubator for contemporary art," noting that it hosted "more than 20

Aquarium data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).