The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum has expanded its regular Spotlight series feature to include an interactive online component called Spotlight: Talk Back. This new site was conceived as a way to allow a wider appreciation and discussion of selected works from the Museum’s collection and special exhibitions, and to foster dialogue about art between experts and non-experts. Featuring casual conversations with art scholars, the site encourages visitors to join in the discussion by sharing their own thoughts and responses to individual works of art, which in turn will inform subsequent conversations on the site.
Kemper Art Museum Spring Exhibitions Open February 5
Stop by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum on Friday, February 5 from 7-9 pm for the public opening and reception for two new special exhibitions:

Sharon Lockhart, Outside AB Tool Crib: Matt, Mike,Carey, Steven, John, Mel and Karl, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.
Contemporary artist Sharon Lockhart is well known for her films and photographs that often explore social subject matter. To create the works in Lunch Break, Lockhart spent one year in Bath, Maine, at the Bath Iron Works shipyard—a private sector US naval shipbuilding company—observing and engaging with workers during their daily routines. The resultant film installations and series of photographs focus on the activities of these workers during their time off from production.
Allison Smith: Needle Work
Allison Smith’s work draws on “living history”

Allison Smith, Untitled, from Needle Work, 2009. Inkjet print on exhibition paper, 22 x 16”. Courtesy of the artist.
museums, battlegrounds, and most recently the Internet to explore gendered conventions of craft, constructions of national identity, and experiences of violence. Needle Work centers on Smith’s recreation of European and American gas masks from World War I and World War II, and includes staged photographs with the masks and images of the masks on silk parachutes printed by Washington University’s Island Press.
And mark your calendar for these related events:
Sharon Lockhart Walkthrough
Saturday, February 6, 2 pm
Artist Sharon Lockhart and curator Sabine Eckmann lead a walkthrough of the Lunch Break exhibition.
Allison Smith Lecture
Monday, February 8, 6:30 pm, Steinberg Auditorium
Artist Allison Smith will discuss her work, including the Needle Work exhibition.


In conjunction with saintlouisartmap.org, the
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 