Faith, pain and danger: See the art of late Texan Michael Tracy in San Antonio

Yahoo

06-05-2025

SAN ANTONIO — Has there ever been another Texas artist like the recently deceased Michael Tracy?
The sculptor, painter and maker of rare objects — as well as sometime magus who oversaw fantastically staged rituals — lived his life as an expansive art project, especially since 1978, when he established sprawling studios and residences in tiny San Ygnasio, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
"He was big, much bigger than life," says retired graphic artist Lorne Loganbill, who got to know and admire Tracy during the 1990s. "His art was big, his opinions were big, his passions were big. His studios and living spaces were full of sights, sounds and smells that were overpowering, earthy and exciting. Art, religious iconography and crumbling relics of different cultures accented his panels, canvases, bronzes and over-sized mesquite furniture, and created a warm and welcoming environment — with an edge of danger."
We'll get back to that "edge of danger" soon.
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Now admirers and detractors, veterans and rookies alike can experience a slice of Tracy's visions through "Michael Tracy: The Elegy of Distance," a right-sized exhibit at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio through July 17.
Originally from Ohio, Michael Tracy earned degrees from St. Edward's University and the University of Texas at Austin. In 1978, he set up sprawling studios in San Ygnacio, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border. This is Tracy at the Zaragosa Dominguez Studio, Jan. 21, 2015.
What will we see at the McNay Museum?
The McNay — a former residence that sites atop a gorgeously landscaped hillside that has been expanded during the past decades to include modern galleries and other amenities — is the natural venue for this show, in part because the museum was the first to give Tracy an exhibit in 1971.
In addition, while Tracy's former home base in San Ygnacio lies 200 miles south in Zapata County, San Antonio is a natural cultural gateway to South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.
Michael Tracy's expansive work draws from ancient traditions, especially Catholic iconography. In the foreground at the McNay Art Museum is "Resurrection" (1980-2000).
This is by no means a comprehensive retrospective. Many of the pieces installed in the six galleries at the McNay date from this century. You will not stumble on any photographic or video evidence of his startling performances, for instance, or see any of his truly monumental work, which could encompass the entire village of San Ygnacio.
Instead, "The Elegy of Distance" satisfies a hunger for his densely saturated art in confined, but not crowded spaces. If you access the McNay through the main lobby and walk past the "Sport and Spectator" exhibit, you are faced with a choice of entries. Each preliminary room — one introduced in Spanish, the other in English — instantly confronts the viewer with sensory overload in the form of multiple paintings grouped in series.
The first thing one notices are the colors. Lots of colors that, in a knee-jerk way, might remind one of India, Mexico — or maybe a counterculture festival in the 1960s. Look a little closer to see the vast topographies of accumulated acrylic paint on wood panels. One can't help wondering how Tracy manipulated the paint so that it resembles sculptural clay. It might take a few seconds to focus on the faint images of objects and symbols hidden in the mounds of paint.
Take the time.
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The next three rooms are devoted mostly to Tracy's sculpture, some of which has been mixed with other elements for muscular, aggregated works of art. Here the artist's Catholic iconography is not subtle. Altars, hearts, medals, relics and architectural remnants pile up, often pierced by knives, spikes, scissors or swords.
Rarely overstated, Tracy weaves in references to border policies, forced labor, social justice or environmental disaster.
This is our invitation to the artist's "danger zone": A type of faith that is obsessed with death, pain, blood, sacrifice, guilt, fear, decay, martyrdom and bodily harm. At the same time, one absorbs the baroque beauty of it all, the layers upon layers of feeling and visions materialized. He once wrote: 'To carve an aesthetic out of realization of pain, suffering and death — can one live doing that?'
The final room functions like a devotional chapel. The lighting is low and the walls are dark. Directional lighting picks out paintings and sculpture, but also two benches hewn from mesquite and backed by the instantly recognizable Tracy grillwork.
Spend time here. Echoes of Houston's Rothko Chapel are unavoidable. But while the viewer is invited to contemplate the unseen infinite within Mark Rothko's finely graded fields of color, one is more likely to peer deeply into Tracy's images to engage actively with the religious symbolism. Tracy has absorbed an immediate, heavy, visceral form of Catholicism, or in some cases, Hinduism or Indigenous spiritual traditions.
Intense, electric colors saturate Michael Tracy's paintings, informed in part by his travels in South Asia and Latin America. Although the thickly encrusted paintings look entirely abstract from a distance, they contain ghostly images of real objects and religious symbols.
Who was artist Michael Tracy?
Although Tracy was discovered and rediscovered by art commentators from the East and West Coasts, this artistic "maximalist," as Glasstire digital magazine aptly called him in a tribute article, remained for much of his career a Texas phenomenon.
A native of Ohio, Tracy earned his first college degree at St. Edward's University in Austin. After study back in Ohio at the Cleveland Institute of Art, he picked up his MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Residences in Galveston and other charismatic spots — as well as travels to South Asia and Latin America — seemed to lead indirectly to his studio, home and party life in San Ygnacio, a town of 500 or so souls on the Rio Grande.
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Although he devoted much of his later life to preserving the historical fabric of that town, while bringing artists from around the world to work there, not all locals liked him, especially when masses of his admirers gathered to take part in rituals such as "The River Pierce: Sacrifice II" in 1990, which included nude participants covered in mud, or the ritual burning of the artist's cross-like "Cruz: La Pasión" (1982-1987).
Tracy soaked it all up, missing almost nothing about his stretch of the border.
'Living on the 'northern' edge of the Rio Grande, on what officially is the edge of Latin America has had immeasurable impact on my life and work," Tracy wrote. "I have had a front-row seat in the ongoing drama of two distinct cultures hemorrhaging into each other; the physical migration itself, the cultural nullity, the sociological angst and despair, and the legal miasma. The monstrous political cynicism has infected my soul and heart, and probably my body.'
For those who have followed Tracy's career — which faded in the 21st century, I'm not sure why — you will be delighted to know that the McNay team, led by curator René Paul Barilleaux, has assembled many pieces that have never before have been exhibited in public, displayed side-by-side with older works.
Part of me, of course, longs to see a more comprehensive exhibit, that the visitor could absorb bit by bit over the course of months. That might happen in the future with help from the Michael Tracy Foundation — and the related River Pierce Foundation — both directed by Christopher Rincón. On the other hand, I'm grateful for the highly selective show at the McNay, which is just about the right size to absorb such overwhelming art on a pleasant spring afternoon.
"Although the artist withdrew from the museum and gallery ecosystem for years, the issues his work addresses have become increasingly urgent," Barilleaux says. "The McNay's exhibition will bring attention to this significant American artist's work, introducing a new generation to him."
Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at [e-mail]. Sign up for the free weekly digital newsletter, "Think, Texas," at statesman.com/newsletters.
One room in the Michael Tracy exhibit at the McNay Art Museum combines the Texas artist's paintings, sculpture and furniture, which one can use for contemplation.
'Michael Tracy: The Elegy of Distance'
When: Through July 27
Where: McNay Art Museum, 6000 North New Braunfels Ave., San Antonio
Tickets: Up to $20 (multiple discounts available)
Info: mcnayart.org/
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texan Michael Tracy's legacy lives on at McNay Museum in San Antonio