Outdoor Art

The River Walk's Floating Art Corridor

Public art installations along the River Walk Museum Reach, open as of May 2009, feature local, national and international artists. Each is unique, most are linked to a bridge or overpass and include waterfall, audio and kinetic elements.

At the Lexington Street Bridge, British artist Martin Richman has designed an installation of reflective, suspended elements that dance in the breeze, scattering flashes of color. This dazzling artwork creates a portal of light announcing the Museum Reach’s entrance and exit.

When are railings dynamic art? When San Antonio artist Rolando Briseno re-designs them on three bridges at McCullough Avenue, Brooklyn Avenue and Ninth Sreet. The railings and arbor forms also shade pedestrians and encourage them to linger by the river.

As visitors pass beneath two bridges – at McCullough and Brooklyn – groups of shimmering steel-mesh panels change colors, as if by magic, on both sides of the river. Playing with our perception of color and light as we move, the massive installation reflects Stuart Allen’s conceptual creativity, combined with smart engineering and a feel for architecture. Allen has made San Antonio his home after living in Mexico and California.

Now based in San Antonio, New York painter Mark Schlesinger uses the concrete of the Ninth Street underpass and bridge as his canvas for experimenting with space and perception. His vibrant art creates a complete environment under the bridge that enthralls viewers with texture, form and color.

Sequenced speakers under the Jones Avenue Bridge create a flowing, changing river of sound near the San Antonio Museum of Art. Sound artist Bill Fontana blends recorded and live broadcasts from multiple locations along the river to engage the auditory senses of passersby with his “sound sculptures.”

Native plants and animals embellish the handrails on the Camden and Newell bridges, which frame the new grotto area on the river below. San Antonio sculptor George Schroeder has fashioned these intricately forged artworks from steel.

A school of larger-than-life fiberglass fish swim suspended above the river and below the Interstate 35 overpass adjacent to Camden Street. Philadelphia artist Donald Lipski created these whimsical, surreal sculptures, among the most visible public art in the city.

When visitors reach the turnaround point at the Pearl Brewery complex, they’ll see an enormous, realistic tree at street level by Carlos Cortes, a San Antonio artist who specializes in faux bois, the art of making concrete look like wood. Down on the river, Cortes has also created a grotto with a lovely waterfall visitors can stroll behind. He is the third generation of a family famed for this unique type of art.

Art in the Park

Today Brackenridge Park blooms not only with bright flowers, but also fine art, thanks to Public Art San Antonio. Visitors are discovering these new creations as they explore the park:
 Forged metal gates by local sculptor George Schroeder, welcoming visitors at the newly renovated entrance at Broadway and Avenue B.

• “Glorieta,” a bronze sculpture placed where two park trails intersect. Slices cut from one of the park’s fallen pecan trees provide a base for the piece by local artist Anne Wallace.
• At three trailheads, fired clay sculptures atop stacked stone pedestals. Local artist Susan Budge designed each piece with a theme related to Brackenridge Park or its founder, George Brackenridge.
• At the new parking garage in the park near the Witte Museum, San Antonio artist Cakky Brawley has covered the brushed aluminum on the top two stories of the elevator shaft with images that evoke water and vegetation. LED lights make the sculpture glow at night.