• 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: Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Opening Night at the Contemporary!

Next Friday, January 22nd, the Contemporary Art Museum debuts its new exhibitions including the Main Galleries with Sean Landers: 1991- 1994, Improbable History and Stephen Prina: Modern Movie Pop, alongside a performance in The Front Room by Xavier Cha.

Installation is in full swing, the Contemporary staff is busy in preparations for an incredible new season. Performative, expressive, and literary, Sean Landers quixotic and elusive practice has since the early 1990s defied contemporary art world trends. For the artist’s first large scale survey in an American museum, this exhibition takes as its subject the artist’s early years in the studio, constructing a broad body of work that has long gamed on sincere attempts to map the boundaries of human-nature and the self. Alongside is a new exhibition by American artist Stephen Prina, who has long been considered a critical voice in contemporary art. For thirty years he has developed a singular and multifaceted practice that encompasses painting, installation, photography, sound, and film. Meanwhile, he has cultivated a rich and acclaimed career as composer and pop musician. Presenting Prina’s recent work in multiple media, alongside his music for the first time, Modern Movie Pop explores the relationship between artistic intentions and the afterlife of objects.

Join us opening night at 7:00 pm (6:00 pm for members!).

For more information on our upcoming exhibitions, please see our website at www.camstl.org

Image: Xavier Cha, Two-Way Mirror, 2009. 4 x 8 foot acrylic two way mirror, aluminum frame, professional clowns. Courtesy of the artist.

• Art Organization: Boots Contemporary Art Space

Boots Fall Opening Exhibition - Theaster Gates

Opening reception: Friday, September 18th - 6:30 - 10pm

photo: Sara Pooley

Holiness: In 3 Parts, a solo exhibition at Boots will give Theaster an opportunity to work through ideas surrounding the psychic space of the back yard. On opening night, with help from his performance ensemble, The Black Monks of Mississippi, Gates will bring charismatic structures of the black church into brief conversation with the formalities of City Planning Policy.

Performance will begin at 7:42 and last till 8:53

Part 1: The Westside Piece (Front Space) 7:42- 7:52 (Theaster and possibly Orron Kenyatta -poet)

Part 2: The Glorious Picnic (Front of the back) 7:52- 8:40 (Black Monks of Mississippi)

Part 3: Stairwell to heaven and Other things from my backyard (Back of the back Space) 8:40-8:53 (Monastic Funk Band)

“Holiness in three parts could be thought of in the following way: Heaven, Hood and the City - using sculptural objects made from things in my backyard, we will move between these three loosely prescribed categories. With “The City” representing hell and the hood being somewhere between paradise and the underworld, I hope to consider three different presentation formats, in three different parts of the space in what would appear to be a Joseph Beuys styled performance that uses the black religious form to deliver thoughts on new urbanism, slave labor via the embodiment of Dave the slave potter and the history of the racialized bodythrough performance. Holiness in three parts is literally a trinity of confusion and urban rumination. Lots of stones will be left unturned, but those turned will get a good shining”

Theaster Gates

Tea Shack- photo by Sara Pooley

about Theaster Gates

Sculptor and Performance Artist, Theaster Gates works with the sacred city found just below its forgotten and often abandoned exterior. With parts of old buildings and visions of grand rehab projects, Gates, a believer in the possibility of place, begins to release some of the resonate beauty of the city’s under belly in a way that is both contemplative and frenetic.

for more info on Theaster Gates click on the link

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

Coming soon to Boots…

Relation-Chute: Meditations on My Slaughter
Asma Kazmi

Relation-Chute is a platform for transdisciplinary action and the accumulation of materials, people, and ideas. By documenting her training in zabiha slaughter (slaughter in the method prescribed by Islamic law), the artist attempts to complicate the ever-growing distance between the consumption of meat, religious observance, and the reality of death. The project’s current form is a website which can be viewed here.

Relation-Chute: Meditations on My Slaughter at Boots Contemporary Art Space will focus on collapsing the distance that the Relation-Chute website assumes between a viewer and an image. The exhibit is a manifold encounter, realized through bringing a community of voices under one roof to participate in an exchange which will happen in words and beyond words, through shared inhabited time and space.

The artist, Asma Kazmi, was born in Pakistan and studied at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited and included in collections such as The Contemporary Art Museum in St Louis, Gallery 400, University of Illinois in Chicago, Boston Under Ground Film Festival, Balagan Film and Video Series, Women In Film & Video/New England, and the MassArt Film Society.