Picture Perfect
Texas art museum hits high note with new Selena photography exhibit
A small retrospective is sure to make big headlines when it debuts at San Antonio's McNay Art Museum later this month. On January 15, Selena Forever/Siempre Selena, an installation of five large-scale photographs by photographer John Dyer, opens for a six-month run.
The photographs were taken of the late Tejano star in 1992 and again in 1995 while Dyer was on assignment for Más Magazine and Texas Monthly, respectively. Though taken just a few years apart, the pictures are meant to illustrate Selena Quintanilla-Pérez's rise from an up-and-coming singer to a bona fide superstar whose life was cut short just a few months after Dyer photographed her for the final time in 1995.
According to a release, the first shoot for Más took place at Dyer's photo studio. "The publication was interested in profiling the young Texas singer who was starting to make a name for herself, winning the Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist nine years running," explains a release.
In 1995, the pair worked together again for a spread in Texas Monthly, this time meeting at San Antonio's iconic Majestic Theatre for the shoot. As the release notes, Selena was murdered just a few months later at the age of 23, before the Texas Monthly article was published.
Selena Forever/Siempre Selena, curated by Kate Carey, will be on display in the museum's Octagon beginning January 15 through July 5. The exhibit appears alongside the upcoming "Fashion Nirvana: Runway to Everyday," the McNay's first-ever large-scale fashion and video art exhibition. That show "celebrates designers, models, celebrities, photographers, and video artists who made the 90s an iconic decade."
Entry to Selena Forever/Siempre Selena and "Fashion Nirvana: Runway to Everyday" are included with the price of general admission.
