One of the coolest free places to explore in South San Antonio is Chris Park. The park was built by the Linda Pace Foundation. Heir to the Pace Picante Sauce empire, Linda built it in memorial to son Chris Goldsbury.
From an article by Elda Silva for mySA.com, on July 4, 2007. “Artpace founder Linda Pace, who helped introduce San Antonio artists to the world and brought the world of contemporary art to San Antonio, died Monday. Arguably the most generous art patron in the city’s history and a respected artist in her own right, Pace died from complications of breast cancer. She was 62.
An heir to the Pace Foods company founded by her late father, David Pace, she had been treated for cancer at the Salem Oncology Centre in Houston. Last week, she returned to San Antonio and was under hospice care at her apartment on Camp Street.
Pace founded Artpace in 1995 in an old Hudson car dealership downtown on Main Avenue. It is now known as perhaps the country’s premier international artist residency program. National, international and local artists are selected by well-known curators to create projects at Artpace three times a year.
Because of Artpace, acclaimed artists such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Isaac Julien and Christian Marclay have made new works in San Antonio, and local artists such as Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Jesse Amado and Dario Robleto, to name a few, have gained wider recognition.”
I’m including a few photos here, but to get the real feel for the park, visit it’s own website and see the montage and the map. Chrispark website.