• Art Organization: Kemper Art Museum

Follow Saint Louis Art Map on Twitter

A number of the Saint Louis Art Map institutions are now on Twitter. You can follow everyone by following this list>> — or follow us individually here:
@contemporarystl
@kemperartmuseum
@thepulitzer
@sheldonSTL
@whiteflagprojects

Happy tweeting!

• Art Organization: Kemper Art Museum

Kemper Art Museum Spring Exhibitions Open February 5

Stop by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum on Friday, February 5 from 7-9 pm for the public opening and reception for two new special exhibitions:

Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break

Sharon Lockhart, Outside AB Tool Crib: Matt, Mike,Carey, Steven, John, Mel and Karl, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.

Contemporary artist Sharon Lockhart is well known for her films and photographs that often explore social subject matter. To create the works in Lunch Break, Lockhart spent one year in Bath, Maine, at the Bath Iron Works shipyard—a private sector US naval shipbuilding company—observing and engaging with workers during their daily routines. The resultant film installations and series of photographs focus on the activities of these workers during their time off from production.

Allison Smith: Needle Work
Allison Smith’s work draws on “living history”

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Inkjet print on exhibition paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.

museums, battlegrounds, and most recently the Internet to explore gendered conventions of craft, constructions of national identity, and experiences of violence. Needle Work centers on Smith’s recreation of European and American gas masks from World War I and World War II, and includes staged photographs with the masks and images of the masks on silk parachutes printed by Washington University’s Island Press.

And mark your calendar for these related events:

Sharon Lockhart Walkthrough
Saturday, February 6, 2 pm
Artist Sharon Lockhart and curator Sabine Eckmann lead a walkthrough of the Lunch Break exhibition.

Allison Smith Lecture
Monday, February 8, 6:30 pm, Steinberg Auditorium
Artist Allison Smith will discuss her work, including the Needle Work exhibition.

• Art Organization: Kemper Art Museum

Kemper Spotlight Series

Enjoying St. Louis Visual Arts Over the Holidays

The holiday break can be a great time to get out and explore the visual arts in town with family and friends. See below for a list of what you can expect to find at the Saint Louis Art Map institutions…

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
(open regular hours)
Current exhibition: Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark

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

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
(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)
Current exhibitions: Chance Aesthetics, Metabolic City, and A Challenge to Democracy

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
(closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; otherwise open regular hours)
Current exhibition: For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there

Sheldon Art Galleries
(closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well as New Years Eve and New Years Day; otherwise open regular hours)
Current exhibitions: The Language of Objects, Legends of St. Louis Blues Music, William Christenberry, Backpack Blues, and Jessika Miekeley

White Flag Projects
White Flag will be closed during the holidays and will open the Love and Theft exhibition on January 9, 2010.

MOCRA
MOCRA is closed to the public from until February 2, when we reopen with a re-presentation of our “Good Friday” exhibition.

Boots
Boots will be closed during the holidays and will open in early February with our international artist in resident exhibition-Wilhelm Neußer.

• Art Organization: Kemper Art Museum, Kemper Art Museum

Chance Poetry Reading Dec. 4

detail from Untitled “Cadavre ezquis” (”Exquisite Corpse”) by André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Yves Tanguy (1938). Collage on graph paper.

Chance Poetry Reading
Friday, December 4
6-8 pm, Kemper Art Museum

Poets and lovers of poetry alike are invited to join us for an informal poetry reading at the Kemper Art Museum. Read your own work inspired by chance, bring your favorite Surrealist poem to share, or simply come to listen and enjoy. Light refreshments will be available.

Offered in conjunction with the Chance Aesthetics exhibition, on view through January 4.

Art Map now on Facebook

Anyone on Facebook can now get new Saint Louis Art Map posts delivered right to your news feed – just CLICK HERE and become a fan of the Saint Louis Art Map blog’s page.

• Art Organization: Kemper Art Museum

Yve Alain-Bois to lecture at Kemper Art Museum

On Monday, November 9 at 6:30 pm, renowned art history scholar Yve-Alain Bois will lecture in Steinberg Auditorium, adjacent to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University. A specialist in 20th-century European and American art, Bois is recognized as an expert on a wide range of artists, from Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, and Ellsworth Kelly. His talk is titled “Chance Encounters: John Cage, François Morellet, Ellsworth Kelly.”

Bois has curated and co-curated numerous influential exhibitions, including Piet Mondrian, A Retrospective (1994-95); L’informe, mode d’emploi (1996); and Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry (1999). His books include Matisse and Picasso (1998), for which he received the Alfred H. Barr award in 2001; Formless: A User’s Guide (with Rosalind Krauss, 1998); Painting as Model (1990); and Art Since 1900 (with Benjamin Buchloh, Hal Foster, and Rosalind Krauss, 2004). Bois is currently a faculty member at the School for Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ.

The lecture is presented in conjunction with the special exhibition Chance Aesthetics now on view at the Kemper Art Museum, and is co-sponsored by the Department of Art History and Archaeology. The talk is free and open to the public, and will be preceded by a reception at 6 pm in Steinberg Hall.

more details >>

On the Air: Matta-Clark at the Pulitzer

Gordon Matta-Clark, "Bingo", 1974 Three building fragments: painted wood, metal, plaster, and glass The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Nina and Gordon Bunshaft Bequest Fund, Nelson A. Rockefeller Bequest Fund, and the Enid A. Haupt Fund, 2004 © Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

Francesca Herndon-Consagra, senior curator at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, discusses the upcoming exhibition Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark , opening Friday, October 30 on the newest St. Louis Art Map: On the Air podcast.

Listen to hear her take on Matta-Clark’s major contributions, his career and influences, and specific works on view such as Wallspaper (1972, recreated in 2009) and Pier In/Out (1973). She also talks about what her drew to the artist, as well as connections between Matta-Clark’s work and Pulitzer architect Tadao Ando. Plus, find out more about exhibition-related programming, such as the film at Citygarden downtown, and programming that directly connects the exhibition’s themes to local artists and community groups.

Exhibition website >>
Transformation website with related programs >>
Listen to podcast >>

Interview with Roberley Bell

Roberley Bell, Flower Blob #77, 2006, image courtesy of the artist

Artist Roberley Bell discusses her exhibition Inside Out at the Laumeier Sculpture Park in the latest installment of the Saint Louis Art Map: On the Air podcast. Her work explores the relationship between the man-made and the natural with a focus on the artifice of nature. She talks about the colors and materials in her flower blob pieces, her inspirations and influences, recurring motifs in her work, and the ways she sees visitors interacting with her work.

• Art Organization: Kemper Art Museum: Kimberly Singer

Japanese Screens: On the Air

New Saint Louis Art Map: On the Air episode now available, featuring Philip Hu, associate curator of Asian art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Hu discusses the exhibition Five Centuries of Japanese Screens: Masterpieces from the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, which opens on Sunday, October 18. He talks about putting together the exhibition, some of his favorite pieces, the stories behind some of the screens, and more.

listen to the interview >>