Txst Collection

Adam Parker Smith’s marble sculpture Minerva introduces a sculptural installation in front of the J. C. Kellam Building at the heart of the Texas State University San Marcos campus. The sculpture depicts the classical figure of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, along with her symbolic owl, uncannily compressed into a rigid cube.

This sculpture is part of Smith’s multi-year body of work reimagining classical antiquity in a modernist context. To create Minerva, Smith worked with a team of researchers at museums such as the Uffizi to render it through 3D modeling. From the 3D rendering, Smith employed a team of master carvers in Italy to chisel the sculpture from Carrara marble, beginning with robotic carving and finishing by hand.

With his characteristic humor, Smith questions the reverence by which we view and connect with classical objects, inviting us to see them in a new way.

Adam Parker Smith is a New York-based sculptor and installation artist. His work has been shown widely across the U.S. and internationally, including at Marlborough Gallery, London; Galería Curo, Guadalajara, Mexico; Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg; the Brooklyn Museum, Derek Eller Gallery, and The Hole, New York; Ever Gold Gallery, San Francisco; Honor Fraser, Los Angeles; Parisian Laundry, Montreal; Galerie Sho Contemporary, Tokyo; the Times Museum, Guangzhou, China; Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, Austria; and the Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE.

Terry Allen’s National Pastime II portrays an anonymous businessman, necktie windblown, face turned backward to gaze into his own empty head. Allen discusses this sculpture in relation to the first bronze bust he made, National Pastime. That sculpture also depicts a businessman but he’s being hit in the head by a baseball bat. According to Allen, experiencing a great work of art might be “like being hit in the back of the head with a bat.” In tandem with this sister sculpture, National Pastime II proposes, with a dark sense of humor, that not only baseball but also violence and obsessive self-examination might be considered our national pastimes. 

Terry Allen was born in 1943 in Wichita, Kansas and grew up in Lubbock, Texas. He has led an artistic life, gaining notoriety as both a visual artist and musician. His fame arose with the release of his landmark album of “outlaw country,” Juarez, in 1975. Allen’s artwork is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and dozens of other museums and public and private collections. 

Austin, Texas-based artist duo Betelhem Makonnen and Adrian Aguilera describe their neon artwork, untitled (in the beginning was the photon), as highlighting “the inherent link between light waves (composed of photons) and communication, spotlighting communication’s power to go beyond imparting information to profoundly shaping our perception of the world and ourselves in it.” The artwork is installed on the exterior of Texas State University’s Live Oak Hall, the film and television building. The use of neon script references a long line of minimalist and light artists who have also used this commercial medium in artistic expression.

The work expands on the seminal quote from media theorist, Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message." Whether through print, radio, television or other forms, media plays a crucial role in shaping culture and society. According to Makonnen and Aguilera, “In our ever-increasing era of information overload, it is more critical than ever to remember that we have the power to shape media even as it shapes us.”

This work was made in collaboration with fabricators at Neon Jungle, Lucid Art LLC and traditional neon benders at Ricochet Neon.

Betelhem Makonnen is an Ethiopian-born, Austin-based interdisciplinary artist working in photography, video, installation, and writing. She also works as a curator and arts educator. Makonnen holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at venues such as Artpace, the Philbrook Museum, The Contemporary Austin, Le Musée des Abattoirs, and The Carver Museum. Her work has been featured in publications including ARTFORUM, Frieze, Hyperallergic, Glasstire and The New York Times. Makonnen is a co-organizer of the Addis Video Art Festival in Ethiopia.

Adrian Aguilera was born in Mexico's industrial capital of Monterrey. He holds a BFA from The Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, and an MFA from Cornell (2025). Working with a variety of mediums that include sculpture, text-based work, print media, video, public art, and installations, he researches the intrinsic essence that resides in objects. He has exhibited at Artpace, Johnson Museum, Philbrook Museum, The Contemporary Austin, Fusebox Festival, Blanton Museum of Art, The George Washington Carver Museum, and Alfred University. His work has been featured in publications including ARTFORUM, Frieze, NYT and Glasstire. He currently lives and works in Ithaca, NY and Austin, TX.

Aguilera and Makonnen, along with artist Tammie Rubin, are co-founders of the Austin-based arts collaborative Black Mountain Project.