The Contemporary Austin

The Contemporary Austin, known locally as The Contemporary, is the primary contemporary art museum in Austin, Texas. Operating across two locations and maintaining an art school, the institution presents contemporary art through exhibitions, commissions, education, and its collection. The museum occupies a significant position in Texas cultural life as the successor to a century-old organizational lineage, uniting two historic venues under a single contemporary mission.

The Contemporary Austin traces its origins to 1911, when the Texas Fine Arts Association (TFAA) was formed. The organization's early history involved two parallel developments: the Laguna Gloria Art Museum and the Jones Center for Contemporary Art, which later became Arthouse at the Jones Center. In 1961, the institution that would become the Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) was formally established, though its collections reach back further to a 1916 land bequest from Clara Driscoll. AMOA operated for 50 years before merging in November 2011 with Arthouse at the Jones Center, reuniting the two primary organizations that had constituted the TFAA. This merger created AMOA-Arthouse, which was subsequently transformed into The Contemporary Austin, a new entity with a distinctive vision to unite the museum's two major venues under a single contemporary art mission. The Crit Group, a competitive professional development program for Travis County artists led by curator mentors including Sterling Allen, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Andy Campbell, and Andrea Mellard, was hosted by the museum but was reevaluated during COVID and not reinstated despite a 2021 retrospective exhibition, Crit Group Reunion.

The Contemporary Austin reflects the full spectrum of contemporary art through its programming and holdings. The museum organizes between four and six contemporary art exhibitions annually. Its collection activities are supported by exhibition programs, commissions, and educational initiatives that extend across both of its physical sites. The institution's scope encompasses temporary exhibitions as well as long-term and permanent installations, with particular emphasis on contemporary sculpture and art installations at its outdoor venue.

The museum's signature holdings are distributed across its two sites. At Laguna Gloria, visitors encounter temporary, long-term, and permanent contemporary sculpture and art installations within the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park. The Jones Center on Congress Avenue serves as the primary venue for changing exhibitions. The Crit Group program, though discontinued, constituted a significant investment in local artistic production, with alumni including Adrian Aguilera, Emma Hadzi Antich, Annie Arnold, Amy Bench, Christa Blackwood, Ted Carey, Sandy Carson, Veronica Ceci, Christina Coleman, Jonas Criscoe, Bug Davidson, Rakhee Jain Desai, Lydia Garcia, Christine Garvey, Ron Geibel, Rebecca Rothfus Harrell, Roberto Jackson Harrington, Jenn Hassin, Sarah Hill, Katy Horan, Madeline Irvine, Calder Kamin, Masumi Kataoka, Lauren Klotzman, Josef Kristofoletti, Dameon Lester, Betelhem Makonnen, Rebecca Marino, Paloma Mayorga, R. Eric McMaster, Deborah Mersky, Virginia Lee Montgomery, Olivia Martin Moore, Michael Muelhaupt, Manik Raj Nakra, Teruko Nimura, Dawn Okoro, Steve Parker, Everest Pipkin, Sean Ripple, Alexandra Robinson, Saul Jerome E. San Juan, Amy Scofield, Amber Shields, Rachel Wolfson Smith, Pat Snow, Matthew Steinke, Michael Stephen, Sherwin Tibayan, Glenn Twiggs, Sara Vanderbeek, Cheyenne Weaver, and Jenn Wilson.

The Contemporary Austin operates two distinct venues. The Jones Center on Congress Avenue was designed by architects Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis and originally contained 5,100 square feet of exhibition space, along with a community room and rooftop deck for events and educational programming. A 2015 announcement revealed plans for renovation and expansion that would increase total exhibition space to more than 7,000 square feet and add a permanent 21-foot-high canopy to the rooftop space. Laguna Gloria, the museum's original home, occupies the former Clara Driscoll estate on 14 acres overlooking Lake Austin. The site, once owned by Stephen F. Austin, has been declared a national treasure and is listed on city, state, and national registers of historic places. The restored 1916 Italianate-style Driscoll Villa, designed by San Antonio architect Harvey L. Page, stands at the center of the property, which also includes the Gatehouse Gallery and the sculpture park. Clara Driscoll and her husband Hal Sevier purchased the property in 1914 because it recalled Lake Como in Italy, where they had honeymooned; they named it partly after her family's Duval County ranch, La Gloria. The Art School at Laguna Gloria, one of the largest museum-affiliated schools in the nation, operates year-round classes for adults and children with enrollment of just under 5,000 students and scholarships for approximately 50 students annually.

The Contemporary Austin maintains two locations in Austin, Texas: the Jones Center on Congress Avenue and the Laguna Gloria site on the former Driscoll estate. Laguna Gloria offers visitors access to the historic Driscoll Villa, the Gatehouse Gallery, and the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park with its contemporary sculpture and art installations. The Art School at Laguna Gloria provides year-round instruction and serves roughly 10,000 students annually through docent-led school tours, many from Title 1 schools. The museum is accessible through its website at http://thecontemporaryaustin.org/.