At a time when diversity in the arts is making international headlines, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center announced it will not host the CAM 2016 Perennial in March because it includes no Latino artists.

This would have been the fifth year that the Guadalupe provided the venue for the show highlighting San Antonio’s contemporary artists during Contemporary Art Month.

But with the Academy Awards coming under fire when all 20 acting nominations went to white actors for the second straight year, and with debate also raging on social media after pop star Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance evoked the black power movement and Black Lives Matter, diversity is a hot button issue.

Each year, the CAM board selects an outside curator to visit San Antonio artists’ studios and organize the show. This year, Laurie Britton Newell, an independent curator based in Denver, was tapped for that role. The artists Newell invited to take part in the show titled “Errant Domestic” are Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Marlys Dietrick, Emily Fleisher, Jasmyne Graybill, Jessica Halonen and Leigh Anne Lester — all female, and, according to the Guadalupe, none Hispanic.

“While the GCAC recognized the talents and merits of the artists in this year’s Perennial, we have determined that CAM is simply not a mission-fit at this junction,” said Executive Director Jerry Ruiz in a statement issued by the Latino arts organization. “The lack of diversity in this year’s group of artists, specifically the lack of representation of Latina artists in this year’s edition of the Perennial, has forced the organization to make this difficult decision after much deliberation and dialog with CAM’s leaders.”

Newell did not return a message Thursday seeking comment.

Chris Sauter, co-chair of the monthlong visual arts festival that takes place in March, said he was disappointed by Ruiz’s decision.

“CAM is committed to bringing exposure to local artists by bringing in curators from outside San Antonio. We put no parameters on them,” Sauter said. “We give them an extensive list of artists in San Antonio to choose from. We bring the curator to San Antonio. They do studio visits and come up with some sort of theme which to curate around.

“This year the curator came upon a theme that just so happened to be produced by artists that were only female, and there were no Latino artists in her inclusion,” Sauter said.

“She actually has been in contact with some Latino artists, but she chose not to include them because the work did not fit in the theme,” he added.

Diversity is not a new issue for the Guadalupe, which grew out of the Chicano movement.

“We would’ve liked to make it work, but somebody needs to stand up for Latino artists and artists of color, and if it’s not us, then who is going to do it?” Ruiz said. “I feel like this is a role we have to take on. It certainly will make people uncomfortable, but I think our role in the community is to say, ‘Hey, where are the artists of color? Where are the Latino, Chicano, native artists? Why aren’t they here?’”

Ruiz, who became the head of the Guadalupe last year in May, said he met with CAM leadership soon after taking the position to talk about “the importance of including Latino artists if we were going to host the show.”

“I thought it was clear from our conversation that inclusion had to be a value,” Ruiz said. “We didn’t say ‘There’s gotta be a certain number of Latino or Latina artists,’ but I think we did make an expectation clear (that) it has to make sense for us to host the show.”

According to the CAM website, the works included in the show “address subjects such as the subversion of domestic rituals, cultural and species hybridity, genetic modification and the natural versus the unnatural.”

Lester, whose work previously was featured in an exhibit at the Guadalupe, said CAM did its due diligence by providing the curator with a diverse list of artists from which to choose.

“You can’t tell a curator (what to do),” she said. “You’re inviting them on their professional qualities and trust that they’re going to to put together a good show away from ‘these are the politics.’ And hopefully she did that. It just unfortunately didn’t jibe with what the Guadalupe feels like they need to be seen in their space.”

Ruiz said the selection of the show’s artists caught him by surprise, as the CAM board announced the artists before sharing the list with the Guadalupe.

“We said, ‘Hey, wait a second. There are no Latinas,’ and then the conversation became, ‘Well, do we add a Latino artist or two to the show?’” Ruiz said. “Well at that point it’s too late. The cat is out of the bag, and then it looks like tokenism.”

The Guadalupe has hosted the Perennial since CAM launched the exhibit in 2012. The four previous shows all featured work by Latino and Latina artists.

Kristin Gamez was one of the artists featured in last year’s Perennial, “Move Me,” curated by Amy Mackie from New Orleans.

“(The) Guadalupe is a significant cultural arts space that is (essential) to the Latinx community, who have been historically marginalized and absent in U.S. arts,” Gamez wrote in an email. Latinx is a gender neutral term for Latino. “So yes, remove an event where there is no Latinx representation. That feels good because, Guadalupe is acknowledging our historical treatment and you know what, it’s not right.”

The issue of inclusion in art is the topic of the moment is San Antonio, where residents had a very mixed reaction to the unveiling of a $1 million public art piece in the Convention Center’s expansion. The artist is based in London, and social media was rife with comments wondering why a San Antonio artist wasn’t commissioned.

Currently CAM is looking for an alternate space for “Errant Domestic,” which was scheduled to open March 11.

“We do not want to cancel it, but if we have to, we will,” Sauter said.

The Guadalupe, meanwhile, is hoping to organize a show of Latina artists to fill the gallery space that would have been occupied by the Perennial.

lsilva@express-news.net