Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art Symposium

Gain deeper insights into the ambitious exhibition Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art in a day-long symposium with C. Ondine Chavoya, David Evans Frantz, Joey Terrill, Alex Klein, and scholars from The University of Texas, Laura G. Gutiérrez, Ramón Rivera-Servera, Ann Cvetkovich.

In this first museum retrospective centered on the life of work of artist Teddy Sandoval (1949–1995), the exhibition features rarely presented work by Sandoval along with an intergenerational grouping of twenty-five queer, Latinx, and Latin American artists who share similar graphic sensibilities, approaches to media, or thematic interests with Sandoval.

With our proximity to The University of Texas at Austin, curator C. Ondine Chavoya and fellow UT faculty Laura G. Gutiérrez and Ramón Rivera-Servera will speak on their research relevant to past and present Chicanx artists and their work. The conversation will be moderated by Ann Cvetkovich.

Thereafter, exhibition curators David Evans Frantz, C. Ondine Chavoya, and exhibiting artist Joey Terrill, will be joined by The Contemporary Austin's Head Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Alex Klein to discuss the curatorial process behind Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art.

Reserve your tickets!
General Admission $10
Students and Educators $5
Members Free

Symposium schedule

12P Museum opens to the public
1–2:15P Panel Conversation with C. Ondine Chavoya and scholars from the University of Texas Laura G. Gutiérrez, Ramón Rivera-Servera, Ann Cvetkovich
3–4:30P Panel Conversation with exhibition curators C. Ondine Chavoya, David Evans Frantz, exhibiting artist Joey Terrill, moderated by Alex Klein
5P Program ends
6P Museum closes to the public

About the panelists

C. Ondine Chavoya holds the John D. Murchison Regents Professorship in Art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he was Professor of Art History and Latina/o Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous texts on Chicanx art, media, and performance, and is a leading figure in the field of Latinx art history and visual culture. His curatorial projects have addressed issues of collaboration, experimentation, and archival practices in contemporary art. Chavoya co-organized Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987 with Rita Gonzalez in 2011 and Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. with David Evans Frantz in 2017.

Ann Cvetkovich is Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and Professor Emeritus in the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation at Carleton University. She was previously the Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of English and inaugural director of LGBTQ Studies at the University of Texas at Austin She is the author of Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism (Rutgers, 1992); An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Duke, 2003); and Depression: A Public Feeling (Duke, 2012).

David Evans Frantz is a curator based in Los Angeles. He is Executive Director of the Claire Falkenstein Foundation and Curator-at-Large at the Palm Springs Art Museum, where he oversees the Q+ Art initiative on LGBTQ art history. His curatorial projects include Millie Wilson: The Museum of Lesbian Dreams at the Krannert Art Museum (2024), and Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., co-curated with C. Ondine Chavoya for ONE Archives at the USC Libraries and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2017; toured by ICI, 2018–22). Frantz is co-editor with Christina Linden and Chris E. Vargas of Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects (Hirmer, 2023), a project of the Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art (MOTHA).

Laura G. Gutiérrez is Associate Professor of Latinx and Mexican Performance and Visual Studies in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Community Engagement and Public Practice in the College of Fine Arts. Part of her portfolio is overseeing student-centered initiatives. She has received support from the Getty Research Institute and from UT’s Provost Author’s Fellows program for the book she is currently completing, Binding Intimacies in Contemporary Queer Latinx Performance and Visual Art. She is the author of Performing Mexicanidad: Vendidas y Cabareteras on the Transnational Stage, winner of a Modern Languages Association book award, and has published catalog essays, journal essays, book chapters, and reviews on performance, visual arts, film, and video art. As Artistic Director of OUTsider (Austin, TX), Gutiérrez programs the organization’s annual festival.

Ramón H. Rivera-Servera is Dean and Effie and Marie Cain Regents Chair in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. He is author and/or editor of numerous books on Latinx, Latin American, and Afrodiasporic performance andco-editor of the Triangulations book series at the University of Michigan Press, which publishes original scholarship on queer performance. He directs two Mellon Foundation supported programs: the Puerto Rican Arts Initiative—a developmental curatorial and research platform focused on contemporary performance in Puerto Rico and it’s Diaspora—and the High Impacts Scholars from Latin America fellowship for scholars, artists, and journalists developing groundbreaking work about the region. He is a board member of the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture, the largest funding and advocacy organization devoted to the support and promotion of Latinx arts in the United States. In 2024, Rivera-Servera was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Joey Terrill is a formative figure in the Los Angeles Chicano art movement and AIDS cultural activism. Born in 1955, he has been painting and making art since the 1970s., Terrill has always explored the intersection of Chicano and gay male identity (where they overlap and where they clash) as a strategy for much of his art production. A native Angeleno, he attended Immaculate Heart College and lists influences as diverse as Pop Art, Corita Kent, David Hockney, Mexican retablos, and 20th-century painters ranging from Romaine Brooks to Frida Kahlo. His works from the 1970s and 80s are considered pioneering examples of a queer and Latinx sensibility. He embarked on artistic collaborations with his circle of friends that included Teddy Sandoval, Jack Vargas and others focusing on creating a Maricon identity. He has been living with HIV since 1980 and has worked in HIV advocacy for over 30 years while continuing to make art. In 2021 he retired as Director of Global Advocacy and Partnerships for AIDS Healthcare Foundation where he was part of a team overseeing 5 global bureaus covering 44 countries and 1.4 million people in care for HIV.

This program is supported by the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.