Reached just before naptime, St. Louis spoken word artist Brett Underwood said, “I don’t know what to expect, so how can you? Josh and I will be having some of the same kind of fun that we had when I followed him on the air all those nights. I have written one new piece for this session already…what’s it called?…oh, ‘The Liar Has a Squirrel’…and hope to write another or three this week. We are both flattered and excited about the opportunity to play Ear Doctors in such a setting.”

This Sunday, from 1-4pm, as CAM is celebrating Misterios de Mayo/Running of the Bulls Family Day Fun Run next door, the Pulitzer and 88.1 KDHX will offer Dream Sounds, the first in a series of music shows inspired by Dreamscapes. Read the rest of this story here.

April Highlights at the Pulitzer

Dream Matrix Review from St. Louis Magazine’s Look/Listen; A Love Letter From the Rust Belt; Opera at the Pulitzer; Videos of Panel Discussion on the Psychology of Dreams; Next Exhibition: Reflections of the Buddha

Design and print by Firecracker Press

The Sheldon Art Galleries announces the opening of five new exhibits on February 18 with a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception from 5 – 8 p.m.  New exhibits include  Larry Fink: Attraction and Desire – 50 Years in Photography and two related exhibitions by German-born painter Max Lazarus.  For a complete listing, visit www.TheSheldon.org/galleries.asp or RSVP for the opening on Facebook!

Tiny Content is a refreshing group show now on view at Snowflake. Void of any claim to directly tackle grandiose themes, the works instead are boiled-down gestures that allow for earnest simplicity, with little room for flowery interpretation. With conservatively chosen and meticulously placed work, the space appears neutral, sparse and thoughtfully arranged by curator Bevin Early. Dedicated to all that is as curious as it is marginal and overlooked, the exhibition coheres because of what it lacks: content to analyze. The title is a quote from a Willem De Kooning interview (which also appeared in Susan Sontag’s essay,  ”Against Interpretation”), in which he describes content as “a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It’s very tiny – very tiny, content.”

In John Early’s Swivel Swing, the viewer is invited to draw a circle on the gallery wall, using a pencil from a nearby jar. A few feet away is his sculpture Threshold, comprised of two V-shaped wooden boards attached at the top by a string, marking the highest human jump recorded. The two pieces converse well — exploiting and accepting limitations within the ordinary and the superhuman. Nearly hidden in the corner of the gallery is Mike Schuh’s Placed; composed of floor tiles from his studio, now arranged on Snowflake’s floor, it  illustrates the dual connotation of its name, as an object “placed” casually or with pain-staking precision. Peter Pranschke and Dan Solberg’s works are neat and concise with quiet depth, extending the tone of the exhibition. I would encourage all to experience this exceptionally beautiful, modestly provocative show before it close on December 5th.

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.

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.

Currently on view at the Saint Louis  Art Museum, Photography on the Street, showcases a selection of ten works on paper. These prints are displayed on the second floor of the museum in a small gallery where visitors are invited to view the exhibition and surrounding exhibits at their leisure. The selection dates from the 1930s through the 1970s tracks the development and use of smaller, portable cameras—the combination of smaller cameras and faster film allowed artists greater freedom in the medium, enabling them to capture fleeting scenes of urban life. The photos are primarily black and white with the exception of two color prints from the 1960s and 70s. The variety of subject matter ranges from the hardships of post-war depression to the glamour of celebrity culture. Ironically, what these photos have in common is that they portray the isolation and ambiguity that befalls individuals in the midst of city life.

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Former prisoners became actors and art historians in front of the masterworks currently on display at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in their exhibition, Ideal (Dis)Placement: Old Masters at the Pulitzer.  In preparation for an ongoing succession of shows, the performers took a six-week class led by Prison Performing Arts director Agnes Wilcox.  After writing about their impressions of the art pieces, their own words were made into a series of dramas they acted out in front of the pieces.  The result was a captivating, participatory production that showcased humorous routines of personal histories bravely intertwined with modern day interpretations of the paintings.

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When attending an artist’s lecture, it is perfectly reasonable to expect the artist not to give free hugs. Fortunately, nobody told Brett Cook about traditional lecture dynamics. Wednesday, March 18th, in his lecture entitled
“Collaborative Aesthetics: a Dialogue about Community and Soul” at Washington University, Cook hugged every participant who offered their definitions of “community” and “soul.”

The rest of the lecture was much of the same. After beginning with a breathing exercise in order to better assess the artwork, Brett Cook exhibited photos of traditional portraiture in the faculty club at Harvard University and a cow sculpture painted with Mondrian geometry in a West Indian neighborhood. He displayed artwork that he views as inaccessible to the public and irrelevant to the community. In contrast, Cook presented his own portfolio, which was increasing representative of the spaces in which each piece was displayed.

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In honor of the re-dedication celebration of Steinberg Hall on Washington University’s campus, Fred Tomaselli gave a lecture about his life and work. Tomaselli had been asked to speak by his gallery owner James Cohan, an alumnus of Washington University.

Tomaselli began in school by studying painting, but felt that the pressure of its art historical lineage was more than he could live up to.  As a result, he spent several years exploring sculptural forms.  Several of his works became interactive pieces requiring the viewer to be an active participant in the work.  For example, in his piece, “Box for Your Head”, the viewer is required to insert their head into a hole, covered by the neck of a T-shirt, in a wooden box that is hung on the wall.  The viewer is rewarded for this action by a view of an alternate reality, outer space.

His talk framed his work within the context of his life-long experience and interests.

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As a resident of St. Louis, it goes without saying that if you drive downtown, you will see various angles of the Arch along the way. It stands as a tribute to the Louisiana Purchase among other historical events, and is an easily recognizable icon of Missouri at the very least. As a student tour guide at Washington University, I often point out the nearby Arch, which you can see on campus if you’re lucky (and it’s winter). It was all I knew about St. Louis for a long while – that the city was home to the “Gateway to the West.”

In late January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum opened a new exhibit on Eero Saarinen, the architect who designed the Arch, and invited the public to join in a free symposium held at Washington University’s Steinberg Auditorium. The Symposium was hosted by Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and sponsored by ASSA ABLOY. I dropped by for one of the last portions of the day-long discussions, arriving in time to hear Patricia Heyda, a visiting assistant professor of architecture at Washington University, speak about the “Riverfront Charrette.” The “Charrette” took place last November, with students gathering from Midwestern schools to re-design the Riverfront property (theoretically) here in St. Louis.

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