Mosh Now, Cry Later: San Antonio’s love of sad rock and its impacts on visual culture

Mosh Now, Cry Later: San Antonio’s love of sad rock and its impacts on visual culture

Mar 7–Jun 8, 2025

Mosh Now, Cry Later: San Antonio’s love of sad rock and its impacts on visual culture is a multidisciplinary group exhibition reflecting on San Antonio’s inter-generational and subcultural enthusiasm for alt rock genres and the significance of the community generated by these scenes. From the late 1980’s through the aughts, to current trends of today, alternative and independent rock genres have had a passionate and consistent audience in San Antonio (including punk, post punk, new wave, emo, screamo, hardcore punk, goth, shoegaze, indie rock and other intersecting genres).

The exhibition pinpoints the shared sensibilities of a cultural undercurrent within the visual art and music scenes of San Antonio and explores parallels in emotional undertones. Mosh Now, Cry Later features artworks reflecting themes and methods aligned with those in these musical subgenres. Themes include melancholia, irony, lonerism, the symbolic use of the macabre to express heartache, and audience as performers (mosh!).

Additionally, threads of the exhibition endeavor to explore Latinx youth as pivotal members of this subculture. It explores the appeal of these genres connecting to potential intersections with Latinx cultura, such as the DIY aesthetics of punk with those of rasquache; current punk, emo, etc. as counterculture reactions to machismo; and vocal techniques of screaming and growling as a parallel to the grito.

The history of a music scene is often recollected and historicized by its musicians–Detroit Techno; Seattle Grunge; LA and NYC Punk, etc. Distinctly, the citadel of the alt-rock scenes in San Antonio has been audience-generated, which speaks to the power of collective catharsis. Central to the exhibition is a listening room, called Mosh Pit, which features archival, community-sourced photographs and ephemera documenting the alt rock music scenes of San Antonio, and a catalog of albums and playlists for visitor interaction. The dialog between the visually based artworks and the listening room in the exhibition mirror the cross pollination of ideas between disciplines in San Antonio’s artistic community.

Organizers

Mosh Now, Cry Later is curated by Jacqueline Saragoza McGilvray, Curator and Exhibitions Director, Contemporary at Blue Star.