(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

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

You are invited to join us for the public opening celebration at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum this Friday, May 6 from 7-9 pm featuring two new exhibitions:

Cosima von Bonin: Character Appropriation
Conceptual artist Cosima von Bonin’s creative practice is distinguished by an exceptional interweaving of sculpture, installation, video, textiles, music, performance, and her own social network. The exhibition roughly spans the last decade of the artist’s career, including a selection of her textile “paintings,” her signature sculptures and outsized stuffed animals, as well as her latest pieces that embrace themes of idleness and mental and physical fatigue. more info >>

2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition
The exhibition will feature thesis projects by the 2011 Master of Fine Arts candidates in Washington University’s Graduate School of Art, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. 2011 MFA candidates: John Talbott Allen, Meghan Bean, Shira Berkowitz, Darrick Byers, Jisun Choi, Zlatko Cosic, James Daniels, Kara Daving, Andrea Degener, Kristin Fleischmann, William Frank, Nicholas Kania, Jordan McGirk, Zachary Miller, Esther Murphy, Kathryn Neale, Katherine McCullough, Christopher Ottinger, Maia Palmer, Nicole Petrescu, Lauren Pressler, Bryce Olen Robinson, Whitney Sage, Donna Smith more info >>

RELATED EVENTS
Opening Afterparty
Friday, May 6: 10 pm at Atomic Cowboy (4140 Manchester Avenue)
The celebration continues at an afterparty featuring Moritz von Oswald—an influential electronic music pioneer and frequent von Bonin collaborator—at Atomic Cowboy (4140 Manchester Avenue) starting at 10 pm ($3 cover; free passes will be available at the opening reception). 21 and over only

Gallery Talk
Saturday, May 7: 1 pm
Meredith Malone, curator of Cosima von Bonin: Character Appropriation, will lead a talk in the galleries offering visitors an in-depth look at the exhibition’s works and themes.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will launch its annual Kemper Presents Concert Series with a performance by the Pernikoff Brothers March 4. The series, designed to showcase the talents and diversity of contemporary St. Louis musicians, will feature seven local acts working in a variety of styles and genres, from indie-folk and a cappella to American roots music and lush, melancholic jangle-pop. All concerts are free and open to the public and take place Friday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m. in the museum’s foyer — or, weather permitting, on the Florence Steinberg Weil Sculpture Plaza. Free food and drink will be available.

FULL LINEUP:
March 4: Pernikoff Brothers
March 11: Paper Dolls
March 18: Prune
March 25: Mosaic Whispers
April 1: Beth Bombara
April 8: Pretty Little Empire
April 15: Bob Reuter

The Kemper Presents Concert Series is made possible with support from 88.1 KDHX and Yelp.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton, on Thursday, March 3 the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a FREE poetry workshop: “High Art/Low Language: Experiments in Poetic Style,” from 11 am to 1 pm.

Peyton’s subjects shift from Oscar Wilde to Andre 3000, from ultra-eminent Shakespeare to hip-hop antagonist Eminem. In Ghost high and low culture share a wall, the boundaries between them blurred and broken. In this interactive creative writing workshop, we will consider these boundaries as they apply to language at large. What “counts” as art and what cannot? Led by Eileen G’Sell, instructor of English at Washington University and publications assistant at the Museum, this free workshop will last two hours and include lunch.

Space is limited and registration is required by Monday, February 28; please CLICK HERE to sign-up.

SPRING 2011 OPENING CELEBRATION
Friday, January 28
Member Preview: 6-7 pm
Public Opening: 7-9 pm

Plan to stop by the Kemper Art Museum for this special event to get the first look at our newest exhibitions while enjoying light refreshments and a cash bar. RSVP on Facebook and invite your friends! >>

EXHIBITION DETAILS
Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton
Luis Camnitzer: Foreword and Last Words
Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking
in the Teaching Gallery: Dada and Surrealism: Rethinking Reason

RELATED EVENT
Artist Dialogue with Elizabeth Peyton
Saturday, January 29
11 am, Steinberg Auditorium
more info >>

The holiday season is a great time to explore the visual arts around town. See below for a list of what you can expect to find at the Saint Louis Art Map institutions…

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
Current exhibition: stylus | a project by ann hamilton
(closed December 23, 30, and January 1)

Laumeier Sculpture Park
Current exhibition: Ahmet Öğüt: Underestimated Zones
(The offices, indoor galleries, and shop will be closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. The park grounds will remain open from 8 am to sunset but will be closed on Christmas Day.)

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
Current exhibition: Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other
(open from 11-3 on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; otherwise open regular hours)

Sheldon Art Galleries
Current exhibitions: Uncommon Objects / Personal Views; Lourdes Delgado: Jazz in New York; Group f.64 & the Modernist Vision; Designing the City; St. Louis ArtWorks Public Art in the Community; Maturity and Its Muse
(closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well as New Years Eve and New Years Day; otherwise open regular hours)

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Current exhibition: Richard Artschwager: Hair and Elad Lassry: Sum of Limited Views
(closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; otherwise open regular hours)

MOCRA
MOCRA will be closed to the public until January 11 and reopen with a an extension of the James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer exhibition.

White Flag Projects
White Flag will be closed during the holidays and will open the Time Wounds All Heels exhibition on January 5, 2011.

Enjoy three free nights of contemporary Brazilian film this week at the Tivoli Theatre (6350 Delmar), presented by the Kemper Art Museum in conjunction with the Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other exhibition. The films all start at 7 pm and are in Portuguese with English subtitles.

Tuesday, Dec. 7: Aboio (2005)
Directed by Marília Rocha

For centuries, cowboys in the Brazilian outback have employed aboio – a kind of plaintive, wordless song – to communicate with their cattle. Yet today, this largely improvised form is on the verge of extinction. Rocha’s award-winning documentary, at once simple and immersive, explores the age-old phenomenon as well as the lives and imaginations of the cattle drivers for whom it emerges as a form of coded language. watch the trailer >>

Wednesday, Dec. 8: Andarilho (Drifter) (2007)
Directed by Cao Guimarães

Between the cities of Montes Claros and Pedra Azul, three lonely drifters follow different paths, each establishing intimate relationships in a transitory world. This second installment in Guimarães’ planned trilogy about solitude continues the director’s daring visual exploration of existential themes. With its breathtaking images of human forms set amidst stunning landscapes, Andarilho captures the relationship between thought and movement, geography and introspection. watch the trailer >>

Thursday, Dec. 9: Terras (Land) (2009)
Directed by Maya Da-Rin

The result of three years of research, travel and filming, Terras investigates the convergence of wilderness and urbanization in the remote Amazonian region where Brazil, Colombia and Peru meet. Exploring the lives of urban dwellers in the bustling new cities of Letícia and Tabatinga as well as the indigenous tribes who live in the surrounding rain forest, the film is at once an eye-opening view of cultural difference and a subtle inquiry into the impact of urbanized growth in an ecologically fragile region. watch the trailer >>

St. Louis Brazilian group Samba Bom will be performing a free concert this Friday, October 29, from 6-8 pm at the Kemper Art Museum. Featuring a unique mix of Brazilian popular song styles including Samba, Bossa Nova, Chorinho, and more, the concert is presented in conjunction with the Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other exhibition. Plus, stop by for a curator-led tour of the exhibition at 5. There will also be light refreshments available, rounding out the appeal of this unique cultural experience!

Installation view from Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other, New Museum, New York, 2010. Foreground: Rain Rains (2002).

Brazilian conceptual artist Rivane Neuenschwander will discuss her work with Richard Flood, chief curator of the New Museum in New York, at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 9, in Steinberg Auditorium.

The dialogue is held in conjunction with Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other, the artist’s first major midcareer survey, which opens at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8. Covering a decade of her work, the exhibition explores Neuenschwander’s wide-ranging interdisciplinary practice, which merges painting, photography, film, sculpture, installation and participatory action.

“It is Neuenschwander’s extravagant disregard for artistic categories that makes her work so perfectly tempered for this time,” says Flood, who organized the exhibition, which opened at the New Museum last June. “In this exhibition, much of the art is created by the public, and much of what isn’t made by the public is clearly dedicated to the public.”

A Day Like Any Other remains on view at the Kemper Art Museum through Jan. 10. Other related events will include a concert of Brazilian popular music by the St. Louis band Samba Bom (Oct. 29), a lecture by art historian Monica Amor (Nov.8) the Contemporary Brazilian Film Festival (Dec. 7-9), presented at the Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar Blvd. In addition, the museum will host a pair of special curator-led tours, each lasting approximately one hour, Oct. 29 and Jan. 7.