• Art Organization: Laumeier Sculpture Park

Anschultz Discovers the Joy of Wood Chipping

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.

• 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 >>

• Art Organization: Boots Contemporary Art Space, Juan William Chavez

Boot Print Volume 3 Issue 1 Now Available Online

HOT OFF the PRESS!  Boot Print Volume 3 Issue 1 begins as usual with the Boots shows. First comes Turkish artist, Serkan Ozkaya with this breath taking installation entitled A Sudden Gust of Wind by Liz Wolfson; followed by Slinger II curated by Cole Root and discussed by Juan William Chávez.

Then Boot Print pays tribute to Ernest Trova, Tom Friedman and Larry Krone - St. Louis’ finest established artists interviewed by three emerging artists based in the city namely Matt Strauss, Juan William Chávez and Brandon Anschultz.

This issue’s Study Section focuses on groups, collectives and collaboratives that are space-free. The key notion here is the camaraderie among a creative group of individuals working under an umbrella name. Whether artists, curators or activists, they make it happen. Boot Print is proud to present: The Guerrilla Girls by Virginia MacKenny; Temporary Services by Tim Ridlen; What, How and for Whom by Danyel M. Ferrari; Raqs Media Collective by Ashok Mathur; Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries by Kelly Shindler; and Avant Car Guard, Doing It For Daddy and Galerie Puta by Robert Sloon.

And finally, Georgia Kotretsos talks to the creators of Magazine Forte - a sound magazine, which is about to commence in September 2009 from New York City and to Pablo Helguera about Artoons - his latest book of art related cartoons.

Click Here to Start  Downloading  Boot Print

• Art Organization: Kimberly Singer, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

Kemper Art Museum summer exhibitions CLOSE Monday, July 27

Make plans to stop by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum before Monday, July 27 so you don’t miss the summer 2009 exhibitions. In Rirkrit Tiravanija: Chew the Fat, the artist films conversations with twelve international artists of his generation who rose to prominence in the 1990s. This resulting video installation, originally produced for the Guggenheim’s exhibition theanyspacewhatever (October 24, 2008 January 7, 2009), captures each artist in an intimate setting, resulting in a series of fascinating and intimate portraits. The interviews are displayed on multiple monitors installed throughout the gallery, which is transformed into a laid-back viewing lounge. The featured artists include Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, Elizabeth Peyton, Tobias Rehberger, and Andrea Zittel.

Read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch review >>

Watch the trailer:

In addition, see the 2009 MFA Thesis Exhibition, featuring the work of twenty-seven master of fine arts candidates in Washington University’s Graduate School of Art, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. And don’t forget to head upstairs to check out the Museum’s recently-reinstalled Portraiture section of the permanent collection gallery.

• Art Organization: Kimberly, Kemper Art Museum

RAC Tweet-up and more this weekend

This Friday, June 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm the Regional Arts Commission is hosting a Tweet-up in conjunction with its opening of its Time Well Spent exhibition, followed by an afterparty at Eclipse, the rooftop bar at the new Moonrise hotel. As far as I know, this is the first visual arts event in St. Louis that directly incorporates Twitter and social media–and although I tweet (@kemperartmuseum) old-school, from my desktop instead of some fancy-pants mobile device, I am still curious to see how this will work and what the audience interaction will bring to the event.

RAC has also provided a handy tool on its website called Arts Tweet St. Louis, a rolling compendium of tweets from arts organizations around town, and a great way for those unfamiliar with Twitter to “dip your toes in,” so to speak, given the ability to follow some tweets and see what the tool is all about without even having to sign-up and login to an individual account.

As always you can find a whole lineup of more local arts events coming up this weekend through RAC’s ArtsZipper calendar; but, if you do happen to be on this end of town please feel free to stop by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, which is just around the corner from RAC and the Delmar loop, and open until 8 pm on Fridays. In addition to the permanent collection gallery we have two special exhibitions on display, including the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija called Chew the Fat — a video installation featuring interviews between Tiravanija and a dozen of his prominent artist friends. For a preview you can watch the video trailer on our YouTube channel, or read a recent interview excerpt between Tiravanija and Yoko Ono published in Artforum.

Please feel free to leave any of your suggestions for upcoming arts events in the comments…

• Art Organization: Chris Peimann, Sheldon Art Galleries

Sheldon Exhibition Extended, Cindy Towers at NEXT

Don’t miss two newly installed paintings by Cindy Tower, Jarvic, 2006 and Christmas, 2005, in Cindy Tower: Riding the Rubble Down in the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Gallery at the Sheldon Art Galleries. The exhibition has been extended through May 16, 2009.  The switch was made because two of Cindy’s paintings in the Sheldon’s original exhibition were juried into two important exhibitions in Chicago in conjunction with Art Chicago and the NEXT Art Fair.  NEXT is an international showcase for emerging artists, with commercial galleries and non-commercial organizations participating from all over the world.  NEXT includes works from both commercial and non-commercial arts organizations. Tower’s work will be featured with other artists at the Bruno David Gallery booth # 7-8113 between May 1 and May 4, with a preview reception on April 30. Visit the NEXT Art Fair website.

Cindy Tower was also invited to participate in the exhibition Partisan, curated by Mary Jane Jacob, executive director of exhibitions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, mounted in conjunction with Art Chicago® 2009. Partisan is a special exhibition of works by artists that explore social and political ideas.  The exhibition will initiate a “dialogue about art, activism and social change,” and will “…provide a critical and challenging space of thought provoking and project-oriented works within an art fair context.” Art Chicago, the annual international fair of contemporary and modern art, brings together the world’s leading emerging and established galleries. Art Chicago is open to the public from May 1 – 4 with a preview reception on April 30. Visit the Art Chicago website at www.artchicago.com.  Congratulations Cindy!

• Art Organization: Juan William Chavez, Boots Contemporary Art Space

Now Available Online! Boot Print Volume 2 Issue 2

Hot off the press!!!  Boots Contemporary Art Space announces the fourth issue of BOOT PRINT.  Click here to download the pdf.

This issue features the following:

*Finnish Academy of Fine Art
*Academy Schloss Solitude
*The Rijksakademie
*School of the Art Institute of Chicago
*Gender and Queer identity
*Cory Arcangel
*Manto
*Isil Egrikavuk
*Front Room
*Deva Eveland
*Cacilia Canziani
*Elpida Karaba
*Jan van Woensel
*Silverio

• Art Organization: Mike Venso, Laumeier Sculpture Park

Kranzberg 2009 Artists Announced

With the arrival of spring, the landscape at Laumeier Sculpture Park is bursting with life and color.  As visitors continue to enjoy the In Sight exhibition in the indoor galleries, the staff is hard at work preparing for the 2009 Kranzberg Exhibition.  I thought I’d share the names of the local artists whose work will blossom in the galleries this June. The six artists are busy creating five unique installations for the seventh edition of the Kranzberg series.

Sarah Frost will construct two large-scale, site specific sculptures of repurposed items from daily life.

Craig Norton will create an installation employing drawings, stencils and wooden sculptures that will focus on the continuing strife in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Stan Chisholm will construct an installation/environment using a variety of two and three-dimensional materials in a large narrative vignette filled with idiosyncratic figures.

Mike Behle will exhibit paintings and sculptures reflecting on emotional contrasts of the human condition.

Cameron Fuller & Sarah Paulsen will collaborate on an ambitious gallery installation merging Fuller’s architectural, sculptural trickery with animations by Paulsen.

Visit our website for more information and mark your calendars for the evening of June 5 and check-out these local artists on the rise.

• Art Organization: Matthew Strauss, White Flag Projects

Blow Ups

White Flag doesn’t do many repeats, so our audience usually only gets one chance to see any of the artists we exhibit. It’s too bad in way, because they tend to get out of here and then BLOW UP. We’re always getting news about good things happening for artists that have been part the WFP program– and not the kind of fake junk some galleries put in these kinds of things to make it look like an artist who is doing nothing is doing something- THIS STUFF IS REAL. This is what has come in over the past few weeks:

Kansas City-based photographer Jaimie Warren had a monograph of her self-portraits published by the Aperture Foundation, not to mention a review in the last Artforum. She also performed at Deitch Projects infamous holiday party in December.  Jaimie’s exhibition at White Flag was in September 2007. THAT’S REAL.

Jacob Kassay was in January’s “One Loses One’s Classics”. There’s no way for us to confirm it without having to pick up the phone, but we hear his New York solo debut in at Eleven Rivington sold out… these days that is PRETTY DAMN REAL.

Amy Granat was already a big thing when she brought her show to WFP in May 2008, but she just got bigger. Word is the Museum of Modern Art has just acquired two of her works for their permanent collection. THAT’S REAL.

Matt Keegan’s work was part of Cinema Zero’s BENDOVER/HANGOVER show last year. This year his work will be in the much hyped “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus ” at The New Museum… and that’s a hard ticket to get (500 artists were nominated and only 50 are in.) THAT IS REAL.

If you need more of this kind of reality you can get it in April when we relaunch the White Flag newsletter.