On view thru November 28, 2010, the exhibition at the Front Room, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, presents an installation of the Belgium-based organization, Agency, alongside a series of photographs by Miriam Böhm.

Agency, the invention of Kobe Matthys, serves as a platform for highly systematic investigations that make formal inquiry into issues of authorship, copyright, and intellectual property. Existing as a compendium amassed and catalogued by Matthys, Agency gathers facts, subjects, objects, collectives, humans and non-humans to perform speculations and conduct Agency’s exhibitions. In this installation, titled Assembly, Agency displays evidence for the copyright infringement of a certain artist’s renderings of Place des Terreaux – Fontaine Bartholdi et Hôtel de Ville, wherein dubious distribution was enacted. “Thing 001408 (Lyone (Rhône)” bears witness in the Front Room, as testament to the problematic events that take place in the realm of artistic property.

Miriam Böhm, Berlin-based artist, presents a series of recent photographs that, like Agency’s Assembly, demonstrate shifting events of perspective. Böhm’s process begins with photographing marble slabs and faux marble paintings, followed by staging the prints against a textured backdrop, which she then re-photographs – producing a different image altogether. The work emerges, much like the marble slab itself, as a layered tablet of materiality – a compression of pictorial illusion, revealing the limitations of representation.

Image Credits:

Agency & Miriam Böhm, Installation in The Front Room, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2010. Photos by Alex Elmestad.

London-based filmmaker John Smith screens Lost Sound at the Front Room today thru December 5, 2010.  From his compendium of over 40 videos, films and installations, which he presents across a variety of platforms including movie theatres, exhibition spaces and televisions, Lost Sound is specific case of film that obscures the roles of representation and abstraction, documentary and fiction.

Developing this specific kind of cinematic language, Lost Sound composes footage taken on the streets of East London: the subjects are pieces of discarded audio tape inhabiting barb wire fences, tree branches, and other miscellaneous locations within the city’s sidelines.  In collaboration with sound artist Graeme Mille, the ambient sound is skillfully mixed with audio data from the remnant music tapes found on-site, which was re-recorded and inserted back into the film’s sound design. Smith and Mille layer image and sound into an elaborate experience for the viewer to de-code, addressing traditional roles of environment and viewer, perception and narrative.

Image Credit:

John Smith, Flag Mountain (Southern Nicosia, looking towards the border with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), 2010. HD video, color, sound, seamless loop (8 minutes cycle). Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Leighton Gallery.

Charles “Bobo” Shaw plays a two-valve bugle in the Main Gallery, for the rehearsal of sound waves: Jazz.

Join the Pulitzer this Thursday, from 6 to 9pm, for our third sound waves. Musicians  Charles “Bobo” Shaw, Zimbabwe Nkenya and KDHX DJ Josh Weinstein will interweave and improvise jazz throughout the installation stylus. As always, sound waves is free and open to the public. Come sip refreshments, explore the galleries and enjoy a truly unique listening experience.

For more information, visit our events page or e-mail info@pulitzerarts.org.

Many of us at Laumeier have been involved in various capacities with an exciting new sculptural installation in the Museum’s Children’s Sculpture Garden—Jessica Stockholder’s Flooded Chambers Maid, 2009. The colorful interactive installation was originally created for an exhibition in Madison Square Park in New York City. Laumeier is thrilled to bring the work to St. Louis on a long-term loan as well as an exhibition of Stockholder’s work in February 2011. Stockholder, is a highly influential American sculptor and the Director of Graduate Studies in Sculpture at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Venture out to Laumeier to see the work as a crew of Laumeier staff, volunteers and County Parks employees complete the multi-component work in the next few weeks.

Please also join Laumeier in welcoming Jessica Stockholder to St. Louis as she presents an artist lecture in collaboration with the Sam Fox School at Washington University in St. Louis. This Monday, November 1, 2010, at 6PM a reception will preceed a 6:30PM lecture in Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the fascinating exhibition, “Uncommon Objects/Personal Views: The Collections of Rick Ege and   John Foster,” found and folk art transport us to a world of underground artists, con men, former slaves, criminals and hobos – drawing us in to a secret world of outsider art. John Foster has been collecting art since 1972, largely driven by his passion for surrounding himself with “objects of great mystery and design.” Foster makes no distinction as to whether an object is anonymous or by a named artist, but instead seeks quality and meaning.

In his own words, Foster tells the story behind “Assortment of 15 Carnival Punks,” one of the most wondrous pieces in the exhibition: Read the rest of this entry »

Laumeier Sculpture Park presents Amsterdam-based artist Ahmet Öğüt in an exhibition of works from 2005-2010 in his first one-person exhibition in the Midwestern United States. The selection of works represents the range of Öğüt’s interests—from the creation, and destruction, of public space to the subtleties of the urban environment.

Underestimated Zones, which opens October 23, will illustrate the breadth and depth of the artist’s exploration of the collective creation of shared space. Laumeier visitors will experience the artist’s sly humor as he probes and pokes at the boundaries of social barriers and cultural norms. The exhibition will feature still images, video and mixed media as well as a unique installation requiring Laumeier’s tile gallery to be covered in asphalt.

Ahmet Öğüt (pronounced “oot”) was born in Diyarbakir, Turkey, in 1981 and works and lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He received his BA in painting from Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2003, his MA from the Art and Design Faculty at Yildiz Teknik University in Istanbul in 2006 and studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 2007 – 2008. His work has been exhibited around the world including the Venice Biennial in 2009.

A Preview of the exhibition for Laumeier Members will take place from 4-5:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 23, 2010 followed by the public opening beginning at 5:00 p.m. with the artist in attendance. The free reception will end at 7:00 p.m. with the exhibition continuing through January 9, 2011. During the Öğüt exhibition, Laumeier’s Indoor Galleries will be open during new winter hours: Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 12 p.m. until 5 p.m.

More details at www.laumeier.org

While Brandon Anschultz was preparing for his upcoming show at Laumeier Sculpture Park, I was lucky enough to observe the construction (or deconstruction) of what I consider to be one of his most intriguing pieces—Approximately 1350 hours of painting and 2 hours of wood chipping. While I waited with Anschultz for the wood chipper to arrive at Laumeier, we discussed his show, and specifically the piece he was working on that day.

I couldn’t hide my horrified expression when I saw the back of his truck piled high with paintings, all sawed into five inch strips, in preparation for their demise. He showed me a painting that had been exhibited in New York, laid the pieces on the ground, shrugged his shoulders and suggested that he actually preferred it sawed apart. I asked why he was destroying work that he liked. “It’s just part of the process,” he replied. That’s when I began to understand that with Anschultz’s work, the process is as important as the finished product.

When he started up the wood chipper and began feeding his paintings into it one strip at a time, I snapped a few pictures. I couldn’t watch for long—it almost seemed intrusive for me to witness simultaneously the destruction of past work and the creation of new work.

If you would like to view the finished work, Approximately 1350 hours of painting and 2 hours of wood chipping, and meet the artist, attend the opening reception of Stick Around for Joy on Friday, June 11 from 6-8 p.m. at Laumeier’s Indoor Galleries.

— Rebecca Lee, Laumeier Intern

Brandon Anschultz: Stick Around for Joy, runs from June 11-September 26, 2010 at Laumeier Sculpture Park.

Kathryn Adamchick, an Art/Food organizer, talks about how Art/Food relates to the work of Gordon Matta-Clark and a 1971 pig roast under the Brooklyn Bridge.

As part of the Contemporary’s “Homegrown Summer,” and to celebrate the closing of the Pulitzer’s Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark, the two institutions will together host Art/Food tomorrow, June 5, from 1-4pm. For full event details, please visit our event page.

To get an idea of how this multi-layered event came together, I interviewed one of the key organizers, Anna Poss, Administrative Assistant to the Departments of Curatorial and Community Engagement at the Pulitzer.

AB: What has your role been for Art/Food?

AP: I have been working with Kathryn Adamchick, an independent art education consultant, and Alex Elmestad, from Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, in developing and planning this event. We wanted to create a collaborative event that represented the themes of our respective shows. For the Contemporary and their Great Rivers Biennial, the goal is to feature local and sustainable food. For the Pulitzer, the aim of the event is to incorporate the ideals of Gordon Matta-Clark from his restaurant Food and his performance pieces that incorporated food, like the pig roast he had under the Brooklyn Bridge. Food and art both have this amazing capability of bringing people together from diverse backgrounds and uniting them. Art/Food really highlights this connection and celebrates it in a way that is rarely done. Read the rest of this entry »

Holy Trinity Catholic School students make a video with 2010 Whitney Biennial winner Theaster Gates about what they want to see in their neighborhood. Gates’ exhibition Dry Bones and Other Parables from the North will open this Saturday as part of the Transformation Project Walk.

Join the Pulitzer this Saturday, May 15, for the Transformation Project Walk, the grand finale to the Transformation projects. Since last fall, the Pulitzer has been implementing community programs in relation to the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, which combine art, social engagement and the urban landscape. On Saturday, these programs will showcase their achievements at various sites in Grand Center and the neighborhood of Hyde Park. For a full description of this event, visit the Pulitzer’s website.

Robert Longyear spray paints a battered trashcan inside the Woolworth Building. The St. Louis-based artist collected various objects around Grand Center to be incorporated into his show for Transformation. For an explanation on this exhibition, visit the Urban Evolution blog.

Michelle Grabner is an artist, curator, and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is also the curator of Newtonland, the current exhibition at White Flag Projects. I had the pleasure of interviewing Michelle on the morning of the show’s opening; this is the third of four installments of that interview.

Lynna Borden (White Flag Intern): Yes, I found this idea of disconnection and the lack of traditional support and structure very thought-provoking. Would you be able to talk a bit more about why you think that’s relevant today?

Michelle Grabner: From a studio perspective, and as a painter, the idea of the support, the idea of edges, of contours, or boundaries, or limitations has been something that has been pushed at and is perennially challenged. In theory, we discuss rhizomes and topple vertical and stabilized position, so we’ve been playing with structure and the ideas about structures for years. One of the histories of modernism is based on a relationship of how we unravel, dissolve, and reinforce these kinds of structures.

But as of late, our relationships to networks, how we move through time and space, and how we negotiate our own narratives in the age of social-networking, has us re-evaluating old dependable structures and unable to recognize the ones that shape our current condition. I like to think that the dissolving of a boundary, or a surface, or a support is a critical gesture but that might be too idealistic.

Realistically, I think the renewed interest in mobiles is not a critical breaking down in a kind of post-modern execution or an undoing of frames; instead, it ends up being something that is much more external and reflects a network condition.

LB: I think it’s interesting that you talk about social networking because that’s not something I’d originally considered as an aspect of this show, but it makes a lot of sense. Now, you can have five minutes of real-time interaction and then continue your “friendship” through these various interfaces like facebook, text messaging, and twitter. It’s sort of disconcerting.

MG: Yeah, see, that’s really great because then you’re talking about these structures of time or just being in the physical space of somebody else before you can develop a friendship, those things have been pulled away. Space, time – those kind of organizational foundations are not necessary anymore, but then you have to talk about the quality of friendship.

LB: Right. It’s definitely not the same.

LB: The show also relates a lot to science, of course the title, Newtonland, the idea of gravity, and Painlevé’s compilation of films entitled Science is Fiction. What do you see as the relation between all of these elements?

MG: This is where I’m quite simple in terms of the idea of Newton and gravity. So we’re talking about some contours and structures that have been pulled away, but we still have this overarching natural, albeit weak, force called gravity. Within the deep seas, gravity and pressure is distorted, but here, in this space, gravity is literally being featured. The law of gravity takes the spotlight. Structures may be dissolving around us but things aren’t floating away quite yet, though they’re coming close.

Science is Fiction is a kind of wonderful thing too because there are other forces at play so there’s a kind of corrective element to Painlevé’s title of how he thinks. Again, it’s a construction of science, an investigation that doesn’t add up to a kind of truth, but the perception of truth.

So I value gravity and do not take it for granted. I need it as a law of nature to literally and figuratively get out of bed in the morning. There’s something welcoming about some universal truths and, as simple as gravity is, at least it gives you something to work with. A lot of the work in this show works through the poetics of gravity, harnessing it to create these beautiful systems of balance and movement within this natural force.

LB: Many of the pieces also recall Calder’s mobiles. Why did you choose to bring those back into focus right now?

MG: Right now, Gagosian gallery in Manhattan is hosting a big Calder show and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago has a collection of Calder’s works and they’re going to be opening in June along with contemporary artists influences by Calder. It’s funny, thinking about and seeing more suspended and dispersed work in contemporary art. A couple years ago, sculptors were thinking about the aggregate—pulling together, packing, compressing. Now we’re seeing this different kind of approach to organizing form. This is an interesting phenomenon—artists are choosing to do away with cohesion.

Calder’s stabile or mobile presentations are iconic, acutely negotiating, color, shape, movement, and balance. Calder hasn’t been rediscovered by contemporary artists—don’t get me wrong, his pieces are extraordinary, but there’s something beyond Calder, something within a greater context that I believe compels artists to the idea of suspension. Calder may be the grandfather, but why Calder was exploring this vocabulary and why artists are looking at this now isn’t comparable. The context is different, and I’m interested in exploring this trend and, hopefully, this show starts to ask those questions.