Gateway sculpture installed at UTSA Downtown Campus
(June 18, 2003)--The sculpture "Labyrinth Gateway" designed by artist Lewis de Soto was recently installed at the UTSA Downtown Campus on the corner of Durango Boulevard and South Pecos-La Trinidad Street.
The sculpture is a suspended, metal labyrinth surrounded by trellises planted with flowering jasmine. During daylight the labyrinth casts a shadow on the sidewalk.
The project incorporates quotations from renowned poet Tomas Rivera on surrounding benches and the walkway. The Tomas Rivera Center for Student Success is named after the poet who also was a UTSA administrator in the 1970s.
Pictured are views of the sculpture and Rivera quotes.
"The 'Labyrinth Gateway' project commemorates one of the main metaphors of literature and life as noted by Tomas Rivera," said Lewis de Soto. "The labyrinth serves as a path to self-discovery in which eventually the center is found. This center, as Rivera sees it, can be found through the education of the self and the attainment of self-knowledge that connects the individual with one's true identity, society and culture."
A professor of art at San Francisco State University, de Soto is well known for creating poetic and complex environments using a variety of means. The artist often uses his interest in combining Western European, Buddhist and Native American philosophies to provoke participatory rather than passive viewing of his works.
As with the "Labyrinth Gateway," some of his installations are responses to a particular place, creating relationships around perceptual phenomena, history or social meaning specific to the site.
De Soto has created numerous public art projects as an individual artist and design team member including works for the San Francisco Municipal Courthouse; San Francisco International Airport; Skyharbor International Airport, Phoenix; Sand Point Naval Station, Seattle; and the Sony Corporation Regional Headquarters, San Jose, Calif.
He has presented solo exhibitions and installation projects at the Bill Maynes Gallery, New York; the List Visual Art Center, MIT; the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; ArtPace/A Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio; Des Moines Art Center and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.
For more information, contact Connie Lowe, UTSA associate professor of art and art history, at (210) 458-4389.
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© The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2003