Packages of all shapes and sizes have been arriving throughout the week from Karma NYC containing posters, books, records, intriguing glass bottles. The unexpected gem is a massive Dan Colen installation, sent to White Flag on the whim of Brendan Dugen, owner of Karma. Karma is part bookstore, gallery, and publisher, specializing in artist books and editions. This is the first time an artwork by art world dynamo Dan Colen will appear in Saint Louis.

Colen, a “multimedia neo-pop artist of his generation” belongs to a group of bohemian rabble-rousers from downtown New York that includes Ryan McGinley, Nate Lowman, Aaron Young, Agathe Snow and the now-deceased Dash Snow — many of whom have work in WF’s Karma pop-up show. The group generally betrays graffiti and skate culture influences and, though there was early critical skepticism, has had a defining impact on the art culture of this millennium’s first decade.

Over the past several years Dan Colen has seen enormous success, appearing in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, at P.S.1, and the New Museum in New York, among many others. Gagosian Gallery New York mounted a solo show in 2010 that confirmed Colen’s already dynamic presence in the art world. His “slacker chic”-style artworks include painting series of Disney-inspired candles and pieces made to look like bird droppings, artworks made from gum, and his more recent “Trash” series – of which the WFP installation is a part.

And his work isn’t without controversy. One particularly inflamatory poster showed the artist draping a Jewish tallit over his erect penis, which he plastered all over Berlin. Many of the posters were removed, but Colen was unphased by the response. Perhaps his current use of trash is a response to his critics, a “you-think-my-art’s-trash-I’ll-show-you-trash” attitude.

Whatever the qualitative appraisal is, Colen and his friends never fail to fascinate and intrigue. They seem to be perpetuating the myth of the hard-living New York artist, à la Nan Goldin, who constantly breathes art.

Karma’s pop-up shop will open Friday, December 16 from 7-9 PM and remain on view for the weekend — including Saturday, December 17 and Sunday, December 18 from 12-5 PM. For more information, please visit our website at www.whiteflagprojects.org.

(12/16/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern)

Day of the Locust is a group exhibition based on the idea of failed idealism, wherein the included artworks deconstruct various strains of ideological extremity. The exhibition suggests that a double standard exists in our culture, one in which the American dream promotes affluence, yet condones it as immoral; champions education, yet decries the educated as elitist; stigmatizes political activism as extreme and, simultaneously, political apathy as unpatriotic.

A gouache painting by Mamie Tinkler reads “It’s the economy, stupid” in black text on a white background. Its sleek appearance is undermined by a black paint streak across the letter “t” in “stupid” – a painterly “error” that functions similarly to the phrase itself – coined by James Carville – which undermined the pettiness of partisan politics during Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. At once artful and earnest, the piece is a kind of protest sign, channeling the artist’s own political frustration as well as a sense of throw-back liberalism, half-1968 and half-1992.

In dialogue with Tinkler is Charlotte Posenenske and Lee Lozano, two mid-Century artists who grew so disenchanted with art’s inability to affect real social change that they abandoned the art world entirely. Cut of the same cloth while adopting a more Warholian approach, Jonathan Horowitz’s façade banner Coke/Pepsi (112 Cans) – designed specifically for this exhibition – questions the true of nature democratic choice, as it has been reduced to brand diversity.

The exhibition begs a comparison to the current Occupy Wall Street movement (which has established itself here in St. Louis). Both the OWS movement and Day of the Locust call into question aspects of the American economy, and more recently, the relevancy of art. A small offshoot of the OWS movement called Occupy Museums targets museums on the basis of their perceived cultural elitism and allegedly incestuous relationship with the 1%.

As we approach a new election year and the economy verges nearer collapse, Clinton’s campaign slogan strikes a fresh, national nerve. Perhaps the role of idealism is to sate America’s constant search for purpose and belonging. Or, maybe its purpose is to re-set the rapid pendulum swings from one extreme to another – underscoring the basic necessity of common sense.

Day of the Locust will be on view Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 5 PM until December 10th, 2011. For more information, please see our website.

(11/17/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern

The last week has been a whirlwind of activity for us over on 4568 Manchester. MAKE Skateboards opened on Friday, 10/28, while a few miles downtown the Saint Louis Cardinals were defeating the Rangers in the World Series (Go Cards!).

Saturday and Sunday, Scott Ogden and Jonathon Lavoie orchestrated their MAKE Skateboards exhibition. The exhibition was essentially a make-shift skate shop, consisting principally of a collection of skateboards by contemporary artists, which were all for sale. The skateboards relocate the definition of the typical art collector (i.e. a different person buys a $95 skateboard than a $200,000 painting). But, why skateboards? Scott Ogden grew up skating and cites skateboards as the way he got “tricked into making art.” According to him, they present an intersection of painting and graphic design, functionality and art. When I commented that I could never skateboard on something so carefully made and aesthetically interesting, Ogden said that he got that a lot, and that it frustrated him. He really just wants people to skate with these boards, to wear them down with each board slide until one day it snaps in two after a particularly rad trick.

In keeping with the show’s interest in unearthing authenticity, MAKE Skateboards also presented artworks by adults with disabilities from the LAND (League Artists National Design) Gallery and Studio, part of the League Education and Treatment Center in Brooklyn, New York. Ogden has always gravitated towards showcasing art by adults with disabilities, both in contexts like MAKE Skateboards and in a documentary he directed called MAKE. Ogden identifies the artists in his documentary as possessing an “urge to create that is unstoppable”, people for whom art is “a way…to communicate with the world, whether anyone [is] listening or not.”

Finally, vintage clothing was also for sale at MAKE Skateboards (through a store in New York City called Portia & Manny), encouraging further discovery and revaluation of all things deemed art and otherwise.

MAKE Skateboards is a command, bringing the art-making process to the public. The theme of MAKE Skateboards, more than anything else, is accessibility, and a simultaneous obscuring/showcasing of commodification.

The transition from this engaging exhibition to the critical nature of “Day of the Locust” is fascinating. Today, the Saint Louis sunshine lights up the gallery space, reflecting through the glass bowl and absorbing into the mushy tofu surface of Jonathon Horowitz’s Tofu on Pedestal in Gallery (2002). This is a commentary on vegetarianism, one kind of idealism deconstructed in the artwork currently on view at WFP. The dichotomy between the two most recent shows proposes an interesting dialogue – one discussing the role of art in the contemporary world.

“The Day of the Locust” will be on view until December 10, 2011, Tuesday-Saturday 12-5 and by appointment. For more information, please see our website, http://www.whiteflagprojects.org/wfp10/.

(11/10/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern)

Lines in the Sand, 2009, two-channel projection, black & white 16mm film with sound, transfered to DVD

In Amy Granat’s Lines in the Sand (2010), a black and white 16mm film, a male figure scratches lines in the sand with a stick, producing erratic zig-zags and eerie, unidentifiable shapes.

The accompanying sound, Richard Hayman’s Havanna in Hi-Fi, recorded in 1957, blares through headphones (the type of song to which Gene Kelly would dance in a musical comedy). Guitar, tambourine and trumpet evoke a South American ambiance, which speaks to the origins of the phrase “line in the sand” in the American Southwest.

The scratching action references the process Amy uses in two other pieces on view, Ghostrider (2006) and Chemical Scratch (Return of the Creature) (2003). She is most well known for her camera-less filmmaking process through destructive actions such as punching holes in, scratching lines on and applying acid to film stock. Lines in the Sand can be viewed as a metaphorical documentation of Granat’s artistic process.

Lines in the Sand presents two juxtapositions. The first is between the monumental and the banal. Despite the monumentality of both the concept and the soundtrack, the actual film is shot in grainy black-and-white, shifting in and out of lighter and darker exposures. The man’s sneakers edge into the frame several times reminding the viewer of the banality of the action, stripped away of the glorious notions of battle, loyalty and the nostalgia of history.

The second juxtaposition is between the temporal and the enduring. The metaphor of a line in the sand as something permanent and irreversible (a point of no return, à la Texan fighters at the Alamo), is juxtaposed with the temporality of the actual line in sand. This adds meaning to the process of recording such an action on film. It situates film as witness. Viewing the film as a metaphor for Amy’s creation process and for the film itself, Amy Granat presents the viewer with a narrative, scratching a plot into something both permanent and fleeting.

This is the last week to view “Amy Granat”, which closes October 22, 2011. For more information on this exhibit and other upcoming events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

(10/20/11 by Allison Fricke, Intern)

Still from El Matador (X5), 2010, silent 16mm color film

Amy Granat came to art through music. “Growing up in St. Louis, I didn’t really have much of a connection to contemporary art as a teenager. The music world of the early ’90s was my culture.”

At Bard College, where she received her undergraduate degree, she was in a band with then-boyfriend, Sebastian, where she played bass, sang, played drums and wrote music. (Here’s a link to a review of an Amy!Pop performance, circa 2004).

When she moved to New York after college, she began playing her music in the subway; meanwhile, she participated in The Film Collective and other film-creating pursuits. Enter Steven Parrino, introduced by a mutual musician friend. Steven, a painter, began including Amy in art exhibitions, where she met more artists – and the ball started rolling.

Knowing all of this, one thinks of Amy Granat’s films differently. Most of Granat’s films in this exhibition are silent, while a select few have prominent soundtracks – such as El Matador, which is accompanied by the crackling, whirring sound of 16mm film running through its projector.

The music at first seems out of place, resonating against the white walls and concrete floor. But it eases into the rhythm of the films, particularly Chemical Scratch (Return of the Creature) and Ghostrider, transforming their disorienting, slightly chaotic, strobe light quality into something that makes sense. The films keep rhythm with the beat of the song, as if they were having a conversation.

The song, “Oui oui non non” from 1999 (the era of Amy!Pop), plays for 2-3 minutes every half hour. Someone could easily visit the exhibition more than once and still not experience the auditory art.

The magic of the song is its ability to transform a formal exhibition environment into a more casual, inhabited space. The music brings viewers out of their reverie. They look around for the source of the noise and wonder if it is happening on purpose. The presence of the music fills in the silence of the films, and even after the last note, the gallery space holds on to the energy generated during the brief musical entr’acte.

The exhibition will be on view until October 22, 2011. For more information on this exhibit and other upcoming events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

(Allison Fricke, Intern, 9/22/11)

Grand Center – the major arts and entertainment district in the St. Louis region and home to over 30 arts organizations – is getting ready to undergo some major changes, and we want you to be part of that process!

Top executives of Grand Center’s major institutions are launching an initiative to create a master plan for the Grand Center District. The plan will address such areas as recommendations regarding land use, zoning possibilities, and design guidelines (Fancy jargon for making the District more user friendly for each organization and their patrons – that’s you!).

Enabling a shared ownership among the community, the planning process will be influenced by input from patrons of Grand Center’s major institutions at upcoming public forums. These public forums will help determine the common vision and course of the master plan, including progress markers for one-, five- and 10-year goals. The planning process is expected to wrap up over the summer with a presentation of the final master plan in the fall.

Here’s where you come in. We know that you care about what happens to the area in which some of your favorite art institutions are located (including some from Art Map!). Let your ideas be heard by the people who will be redesigning and bettering the Grand Center District by joining these institutions at the first Public Forum next Thursday, June 23 at 5:30 p.m. at Powell Hall. At this forum, the public is invited to review the product of the planning process thus far and offer input into the project.

We’d like to know which of our supporters to look forward to seeing next Thursday, so please RSVP to the Contemporary Art Museum’s Public Relations Manager Allyson Pittman at apittman@camstl.org.

Thank you for your continued support and interest in the local St. Louis art scene. We hope to see you this Thursday!

Cinema St. Louis and The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts invite St. Louis-area filmmakers to project their imaginations on the Pulitzer’s world-renowned building by creating short silent films that employ dreamlike imagery.

In conjunction with the current exhibition Dreamscapes, on view until August 13, the Pulitzer will host an event that showcases dream-related films by local filmmakers. These shorts will be projected on several exterior surfaces at the Pulitzer on Friday, June 24, at 8:00 p.m.

One of the works–chosen by the Pulitzer and Cinema St. Louis–will be highlighted at the event, and the filmmaker will receive a prize of $500.

Cinema St. Louis will also choose several of the films to screen as part of the
St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, held in early August.

READ MORE AT CINEMASTLOUIS.ORG.

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

South African artist William Kentridge talks about Max Beckmann’s manipulation of physical space and its influence on his work. Max Beckmann’s The Dream is on view in the exhibition Dreamscapes. Watch the rest of this panel discussion on the Pulitzer’s YouTube channel.

What’s happening this month and some recent Pulizer highlights:

Panel Discussion on Psychology of Dreams
Thursday, April 7, 7:30 p.m. (Doors open at 7:00 p.m.)

The artist Max Ernst noted that painting gave “objective form to what is visible inside him.” This panel explores the varied and complex symbolism of dreams from different traditions in Western psychology. Panelists will introduce their particular traditions and then interpret some of the artworks in the exhibition as they would dreams.
Panelists include:
Britt-Marie Schiller, Dean, Faculty Member at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute and Professor of Philosophy at Webster University, St. Louis

Rose Holt, Jungian analyst in private practice in St. Louis and Chicago and active in the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago Analyst Training Program

Moderator:

Francesca Herndon-Consagra, Senior Curator, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Social Dream Matrix

Saturday, April 9, 1:00 p.m.

Art therapist Shelly Goebl-Parker and artists Hap Phillips and Nita Turnage lead a dream matrix. The act of dreaming is normally a solitary one. Through dream matrices, it becomes a shared experience, building a small temporary community when participants enter a dream matrix together. Sharing dreams in this way enables the discovery of new meaning and significance in dreams. The dream matrices are followed by art making as a way to reflect on newfound discoveries, reflections and inspirations. 
Read the rest of this entry »