(L-R) John Stezaker, Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time, and Art and the Mind-Brain installation shots.

The galleries of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum are buzzing with activity as installation of three compelling exhibitions nears completion.

The photographic collages of London artist, John Stezaker, employ classic movie stills, vintage postcards, book illustrations and other found materials to bring new meanings to old pictures. Adjusting, inverting and slicing them together to create collages that are at once captivating and unsettling, eerie and elegant, nostalgic and absurd in the first U.S. museum exhibition of this influential artist’s work.

Hungarian artist, Balázs Kicsiny, has created an installation that explores the nature of service through unconventional three-dimensional representations of the army, the circus and the restaurant. In Killing Time, Kicsiny both investigates and conflates these institutions and their raisons d’être—to protect or kill, to entertain and to feed—immersing viewers in fragmentary, disquieting and sometimes absurdist narratives that challenge assumptions about who is serving whom, and to what purpose.

This season’s Teaching Gallery exhibition is curated by Mark Rollins, professor of philosophy, in conjunction with his course “Art and the Mind-Brain,” offered by Washington University’s School of Arts & Sciences in spring 2012. The exhibition presents works from the Kemper Art Museum’s collection by Joseph Albers, Romare Bearden, Georges Braque, Tom Friedman, Naum Gabo, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, Rembrandt van Rijn, and others that reveal important aspects of how we see and think.

The three exhibitions open Friday, January 27, 2012 with a member’s preview from 6-7 p.m. and a public reception from 7-9 p.m.
On Saturday, January 28, the Kemper Art Museum will host a panel discussion with Stezaker, Karen Butler, assistant curator of collections, and Michael Newman, associate professor of art history, theory and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, at 11 a.m. in Steinberg Hall Auditorium.
Kicsiny will lecture about his work at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, January 30, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium as part of the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series.
Mark Rollins will offer a gallery talk of Art and the Mind-Brain in the Bernoudy Permanent Collection Gallery on March 7 at 5 p.m.

John Stezaker
January 27, 2012 – April 23, 2012
Kemper Art Museum, Ebsworth Gallery

Balázs Kicsiny: Killing Time
January 27, 2012 – April 16, 2012
Kemper Art Museum, Garen Gallery

Art and the Mind-Brain
January 27, 2012 – April 16, 2012
Kemper Art Museum, Teaching Gallery

If you’ve driven past White Flag Projects lately, you may have noticed our new banner featuring Jeremiah, a print from Tommy Hartung’s recent show Anna at On Stellar Rays in New York. The eponymous film will be on view in White Flag Projects’ new exhibition“Tommy Hartung & Uri Aran”. Hartung’s film takes its inspiration from Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel Anna Karenina. On the surface the film might appear to have a tentative connection to the source material, as Hartung does not borrow characters or scenes directly from the novel. Through a combination of different film languages, Hartung explores the themes that permeate the novel in a manner that resonates with contemporary societal issues.

Hartung’s actors are dismembered mannequins created from a wide range of materials that evoke the desperation and alienation of the titular Anna Karenina. The mannequins are clothed in a manner recalling the garb of peasants; their labor in the film recalls Tolstoy’s romanticization of the working class. Words like “dejected”, “dismal”, and “haunted” appear frequently in the reviews of the show, reflecting both the material aspect of Hartung’s actors and his eerily lit set, and echoing Hartung’s statement that the film incorporates “a language like that used in horror films.”

In addition to the stop-motion animation of the mannequins, the film includes superimposed clips from the Soviet film Earth and computer simulations, introducing a political element. Hartung’s inclusion of socialist realist clips and crowd imagery comments on the tendency of movements to create a political entity out of certain romantic ideals. The unsatisfied nature of his mannequins seems to point out how little this process serves individuals.

Hartung’s incorporation of varied materials and film styles seems to extend seamlessly into the environment in which the film is viewed. In the exhibition at On Stellar Rays,Anna was accompanied by a selection of sculptural objects that were created from elements of the film’s sets. Hartung utilized mannequin figures, various props, pieces of the set, and a camera track system used for panning shots. As in previous works, Hartung’s creative process is as much a part of the final piece as the film itself, and the viewer is drawn into that process and the unique environment that Hartung has created.

Anna and other works by Tommy Hartung will be on view at White Flag Projects in the exhibition “Tommy Hartung & Uri Aran.” The exhibition will open with a reception from 6-8 PM on Thursday, January 19 and will remain on view until February 18, 2012. For more information on this exhibit and other upcoming events at White Flag, please visitWhite Flag Projects.

(1/17/12 by Stephanie Trimboli, Intern)

Packages of all shapes and sizes have been arriving throughout the week from Karma NYC containing posters, books, records, intriguing glass bottles. The unexpected gem is a massive Dan Colen installation, sent to White Flag on the whim of Brendan Dugen, owner of Karma. Karma is part bookstore, gallery, and publisher, specializing in artist books and editions. This is the first time an artwork by art world dynamo Dan Colen will appear in Saint Louis.

Colen, a “multimedia neo-pop artist of his generation” belongs to a group of bohemian rabble-rousers from downtown New York that includes Ryan McGinley, Nate Lowman, Aaron Young, Agathe Snow and the now-deceased Dash Snow — many of whom have work in WF’s Karma pop-up show. The group generally betrays graffiti and skate culture influences and, though there was early critical skepticism, has had a defining impact on the art culture of this millennium’s first decade.

Over the past several years Dan Colen has seen enormous success, appearing in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, at P.S.1, and the New Museum in New York, among many others. Gagosian Gallery New York mounted a solo show in 2010 that confirmed Colen’s already dynamic presence in the art world. His “slacker chic”-style artworks include painting series of Disney-inspired candles and pieces made to look like bird droppings, artworks made from gum, and his more recent “Trash” series – of which the WFP installation is a part.

And his work isn’t without controversy. One particularly inflamatory poster showed the artist draping a Jewish tallit over his erect penis, which he plastered all over Berlin. Many of the posters were removed, but Colen was unphased by the response. Perhaps his current use of trash is a response to his critics, a “you-think-my-art’s-trash-I’ll-show-you-trash” attitude.

Whatever the qualitative appraisal is, Colen and his friends never fail to fascinate and intrigue. They seem to be perpetuating the myth of the hard-living New York artist, à la Nan Goldin, who constantly breathes art.

Karma’s pop-up shop will open Friday, December 16 from 7-9 PM and remain on view for the weekend — including Saturday, December 17 and Sunday, December 18 from 12-5 PM. For more information, please visit our website at www.whiteflagprojects.org.

(12/16/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern)

Day of the Locust is a group exhibition based on the idea of failed idealism, wherein the included artworks deconstruct various strains of ideological extremity. The exhibition suggests that a double standard exists in our culture, one in which the American dream promotes affluence, yet condones it as immoral; champions education, yet decries the educated as elitist; stigmatizes political activism as extreme and, simultaneously, political apathy as unpatriotic.

A gouache painting by Mamie Tinkler reads “It’s the economy, stupid” in black text on a white background. Its sleek appearance is undermined by a black paint streak across the letter “t” in “stupid” – a painterly “error” that functions similarly to the phrase itself – coined by James Carville – which undermined the pettiness of partisan politics during Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. At once artful and earnest, the piece is a kind of protest sign, channeling the artist’s own political frustration as well as a sense of throw-back liberalism, half-1968 and half-1992.

In dialogue with Tinkler is Charlotte Posenenske and Lee Lozano, two mid-Century artists who grew so disenchanted with art’s inability to affect real social change that they abandoned the art world entirely. Cut of the same cloth while adopting a more Warholian approach, Jonathan Horowitz’s façade banner Coke/Pepsi (112 Cans) – designed specifically for this exhibition – questions the true of nature democratic choice, as it has been reduced to brand diversity.

The exhibition begs a comparison to the current Occupy Wall Street movement (which has established itself here in St. Louis). Both the OWS movement and Day of the Locust call into question aspects of the American economy, and more recently, the relevancy of art. A small offshoot of the OWS movement called Occupy Museums targets museums on the basis of their perceived cultural elitism and allegedly incestuous relationship with the 1%.

As we approach a new election year and the economy verges nearer collapse, Clinton’s campaign slogan strikes a fresh, national nerve. Perhaps the role of idealism is to sate America’s constant search for purpose and belonging. Or, maybe its purpose is to re-set the rapid pendulum swings from one extreme to another – underscoring the basic necessity of common sense.

Day of the Locust will be on view Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 5 PM until December 10th, 2011. For more information, please see our website.

(11/17/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern

The last week has been a whirlwind of activity for us over on 4568 Manchester. MAKE Skateboards opened on Friday, 10/28, while a few miles downtown the Saint Louis Cardinals were defeating the Rangers in the World Series (Go Cards!).

Saturday and Sunday, Scott Ogden and Jonathon Lavoie orchestrated their MAKE Skateboards exhibition. The exhibition was essentially a make-shift skate shop, consisting principally of a collection of skateboards by contemporary artists, which were all for sale. The skateboards relocate the definition of the typical art collector (i.e. a different person buys a $95 skateboard than a $200,000 painting). But, why skateboards? Scott Ogden grew up skating and cites skateboards as the way he got “tricked into making art.” According to him, they present an intersection of painting and graphic design, functionality and art. When I commented that I could never skateboard on something so carefully made and aesthetically interesting, Ogden said that he got that a lot, and that it frustrated him. He really just wants people to skate with these boards, to wear them down with each board slide until one day it snaps in two after a particularly rad trick.

In keeping with the show’s interest in unearthing authenticity, MAKE Skateboards also presented artworks by adults with disabilities from the LAND (League Artists National Design) Gallery and Studio, part of the League Education and Treatment Center in Brooklyn, New York. Ogden has always gravitated towards showcasing art by adults with disabilities, both in contexts like MAKE Skateboards and in a documentary he directed called MAKE. Ogden identifies the artists in his documentary as possessing an “urge to create that is unstoppable”, people for whom art is “a way…to communicate with the world, whether anyone [is] listening or not.”

Finally, vintage clothing was also for sale at MAKE Skateboards (through a store in New York City called Portia & Manny), encouraging further discovery and revaluation of all things deemed art and otherwise.

MAKE Skateboards is a command, bringing the art-making process to the public. The theme of MAKE Skateboards, more than anything else, is accessibility, and a simultaneous obscuring/showcasing of commodification.

The transition from this engaging exhibition to the critical nature of “Day of the Locust” is fascinating. Today, the Saint Louis sunshine lights up the gallery space, reflecting through the glass bowl and absorbing into the mushy tofu surface of Jonathon Horowitz’s Tofu on Pedestal in Gallery (2002). This is a commentary on vegetarianism, one kind of idealism deconstructed in the artwork currently on view at WFP. The dichotomy between the two most recent shows proposes an interesting dialogue – one discussing the role of art in the contemporary world.

“The Day of the Locust” will be on view until December 10, 2011, Tuesday-Saturday 12-5 and by appointment. For more information, please see our website, http://www.whiteflagprojects.org/wfp10/.

(11/10/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern)

Robin Assner and Adam Watkins, I Love You (remix) (music video), 2011

Laumeier Sculpture Park presents Electric is the Love, in the ninth installment of the Kranzberg Exhibition Series which features artists from the St. Louis region. Electric is the Love will bring together a range of practitioners: collaborative architects, a sound artist, a super gamer and a sci-fi sculptor. Opening October 29, 2011 and continuing through January 22, 2012, the exhibition will examine how personal devices, mobile networks and surveillance technologies now unite us by creating an inexorable conduit that organizes our contemporary lives through new works by Dave Derington, Eric Hall, Christopher Ottinger, Yo_Cy (Christine Yogiaman and Ken Tracy) and Robin Assner and Adam Watkins.

Exhibition Opening: Saturday, October 29, 2011
4–5 PM Member Preview Reception and Artist Talk [free for members]
5–7 PM Public Reception and Gallery Talk [free]
Laumeier Sculpture Park Museum Galleries

• Learn more about the exhibition at www.laumeier.org
• Check out photos at our Facebook.com/LaumeierSTL photo gallery

Lines in the Sand, 2009, two-channel projection, black & white 16mm film with sound, transfered to DVD

In Amy Granat’s Lines in the Sand (2010), a black and white 16mm film, a male figure scratches lines in the sand with a stick, producing erratic zig-zags and eerie, unidentifiable shapes.

The accompanying sound, Richard Hayman’s Havanna in Hi-Fi, recorded in 1957, blares through headphones (the type of song to which Gene Kelly would dance in a musical comedy). Guitar, tambourine and trumpet evoke a South American ambiance, which speaks to the origins of the phrase “line in the sand” in the American Southwest.

The scratching action references the process Amy uses in two other pieces on view, Ghostrider (2006) and Chemical Scratch (Return of the Creature) (2003). She is most well known for her camera-less filmmaking process through destructive actions such as punching holes in, scratching lines on and applying acid to film stock. Lines in the Sand can be viewed as a metaphorical documentation of Granat’s artistic process.

Lines in the Sand presents two juxtapositions. The first is between the monumental and the banal. Despite the monumentality of both the concept and the soundtrack, the actual film is shot in grainy black-and-white, shifting in and out of lighter and darker exposures. The man’s sneakers edge into the frame several times reminding the viewer of the banality of the action, stripped away of the glorious notions of battle, loyalty and the nostalgia of history.

The second juxtaposition is between the temporal and the enduring. The metaphor of a line in the sand as something permanent and irreversible (a point of no return, à la Texan fighters at the Alamo), is juxtaposed with the temporality of the actual line in sand. This adds meaning to the process of recording such an action on film. It situates film as witness. Viewing the film as a metaphor for Amy’s creation process and for the film itself, Amy Granat presents the viewer with a narrative, scratching a plot into something both permanent and fleeting.

This is the last week to view “Amy Granat”, which closes October 22, 2011. For more information on this exhibit and other upcoming events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

(10/20/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern)

Still from El Matador (X5), 2010, silent 16mm color film

Amy Granat came to art through music. “Growing up in St. Louis, I didn’t really have much of a connection to contemporary art as a teenager. The music world of the early ’90s was my culture.”

At Bard College, where she received her undergraduate degree, she was in a band with then-boyfriend, Sebastian, where she played bass, sang, played drums and wrote music. (Here’s a link to a review of an Amy!Pop performance, circa 2004).

When she moved to New York after college, she began playing her music in the subway; meanwhile, she participated in The Film Collective and other film-creating pursuits. Enter Steven Parrino, introduced by a mutual musician friend. Steven, a painter, began including Amy in art exhibitions, where she met more artists – and the ball started rolling.

Knowing all of this, one thinks of Amy Granat’s films differently. Most of Granat’s films in this exhibition are silent, while a select few have prominent soundtracks – such as El Matador, which is accompanied by the crackling, whirring sound of 16mm film running through its projector.

The music at first seems out of place, resonating against the white walls and concrete floor. But it eases into the rhythm of the films, particularly Chemical Scratch (Return of the Creature) and Ghostrider, transforming their disorienting, slightly chaotic, strobe light quality into something that makes sense. The films keep rhythm with the beat of the song, as if they were having a conversation.

The song, “Oui oui non non” from 1999 (the era of Amy!Pop), plays for 2-3 minutes every half hour. Someone could easily visit the exhibition more than once and still not experience the auditory art.

The magic of the song is its ability to transform a formal exhibition environment into a more casual, inhabited space. The music brings viewers out of their reverie. They look around for the source of the noise and wonder if it is happening on purpose. The presence of the music fills in the silence of the films, and even after the last note, the gallery space holds on to the energy generated during the brief musical entr’acte.

The exhibition will be on view until October 22, 2011. For more information on this exhibit and other upcoming events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

(Allison Fricke, Intern, 9/22/11)

Tomás Saraceno, 32SW Iridescent/Flying Garden/Airport City, 2007. Air pillows, elastic rope, webbing, iridescent foil, and pump system, 67" diameter. Courtesy of the artist, Andersen’s Contemporary, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, and pinksummer contemporary art.

The Kemper Art Museum’s fall exhibitions will open with a special celebration on Friday, September 9, with a member preview from 6-7 pm and a public reception from 7-9 pm.

Openings are an opportunity to celebrate and enjoy the latest special exhibitions: Precarious Worlds and Tomás Saraceno. In fall 2011 the Museum will also be marking the reinstallation of the Bernoudy Permanent Collection Gallery, with a completely new layout exploring works in the Museum’s permanent collection through three new thematic arrangements: Nature | Culture, Body | Self, and Abstract | Real, as well as the fall Teaching Gallery exhibition Performance and Performativity in Contemporary Art.

Throughout the evening, a free shuttle will run between the fall openings at the Kemper Art Museum and Grand Center, where there will be events at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, and Bruno David Gallery. more details