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 »

This Saturday at 1pm, Bill Wischmeyer, Architect of Record for the Pulitzer building, will share his personal knowledge of Tadao Ando’s St. Louis achievement for the second Exploring Art: Dreamscapes and Ando’s Architecture. Last month, Emily Pulitzer explained her vision of the building and the realization of that dream. Co-founder of Los Caminos, an apartment gallery on Cherokee Street, and a Pulitzer docent, Francesca Wilmott recaps that discussion here:

Speaking in front of the reflecting pool, Emily Rauh Pulitzer shared the lively deliberations that occurred between her and Tadao Ando, as well as artists Richard Serra and Ellsworth Kelly, whose work was commissioned for the building. Unlike the commissioning process in the United States, Mrs. Pulitzer explained, Japanese architects do not traditionally involve clients in each stage of their planning. However, Mrs. Pulitzer held to her vision, and together, she and Ando developed an art sanctuary that fulfilled both their aesthetic and practical needs.

Tadao Ando has discussed the tensions that often accompany a collaborative process, noting that: “Working collaboratively with such uncompromising artists was incredibly demanding. However, the numerous changes and modifications made with each visit to the construction site have given the works a vitality and reality unique to this place. For me, the exciting collaboration with these artists has provided a rare and stimulating opportunity to reconsider the architecture and to rethink what it means to create.” Ando made one such modification upon viewing Richard Serra’s plan for Joe, the enormous Corten-steel sculpture that occupies the outdoor courtyard. Rather than constructing wide vertical windows along the wall that looks onto Joe, as initially planned, Ando felt that narrow horizontal windows would better frame the sculpture from within the building.

Read the rest of Francesca Wilmott’s post at 2buildings1blog.

Francesca Herndon-Consagra, Senior Curator at the Pulitzer, describes Dreamscapes, which opened on February 11. For a longer version of this introduction, visit dreamscapes.pulitzerarts.org.

Do dreams mean anything? Are they just erratic firing of synapses, or do they actually tell us something about ourselves and our experiences? What was going though Philip Guston’s head when he painted Dark Room, and what is it that makes something surreal, nightmarish or simply dreamy? Over the next few months, the Pulitzer will investigate the significance of dreams and art through its current exhibition Dreamscapes.

It’s been almost a month since the Dreamscapes opening reception, and the Pulitzer is just beginning to scratch the surface of the dream-themed exhibition. As many of you art enthusiasts in St. Louis know, the Pulitzer typically has two exhibitions per year, and in the time that an exhibition is on view, the Pulitzer, as part of its identity as a “laboratory”, investigates themes in the exhibition through customized events and programs.

For the duration of Dreamscapes, the Pulitzer is offering free public programs, every Saturday at 1 p.m., which include art-making, storytelling and discussion-based tours among other activities. Next month, we’ll add dream matrices to the mix, and as usual, our team of social workers will test how art can empower people and build community, beginning with The Dream Journal Project (find out more here). 

On April 7, senior curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra will moderate a panel discussion, in which psychologists from different traditions interpret artworks as they would dreams. (Apparently, stairs in dreams have been interpreted in many ways.) You’ll be able to see an archive of this and all Dreamscapes happenings on an interactive Dreamscapes web catalogue, where you’ll also be able to virtually explore the exhibition in the Ando building.

If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, this Saturday is a great opportunity to do so, since the curator will lead visitors on a journey through the building:

Saturdays at 1 p.m.

Gallery Talk with Senior Curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra
March 12, 2011
Senior curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra takes visitors on a walk through the exhibition. Experience the shuffling and reassembling of pictorial themes and fictions that evoke a journey from one dream to the next. At the same time, learn about the artists and the thought behind each work’s composition.   

Social Dream Matrix
April 9, May 14 and June 11, 2011
Art therapist Shelly Goebl-Parker and artists Hap Phillips and Nita Turnage lead social dream matrices. The act of dreaming is normally a solitary one. Through social 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

Frame of Reference
Every first Saturday of the month
Members of the St. Louis community from diverse backgrounds, from psychologists to poets to art historians to social workers, talk about their favorite work of art from their personal perspectives.

Dreamtime Storytime
Every fourth Saturday of the month
In conjunction with the exhibition Dreamscapes, the Pulitzer hosts Dreamtime Storytime, a series in which writers, artists, readers and dreamers share stories related to dreams to people of all ages. Among others, storytellers include librarians from the St. Louis Public Library and members of the literary arts center StudioSTL.

Exploring Art: Dreamscapes and Ando’s Architecture
Every third Saturday of the month
During these open tours, docents encourage group discussions on how the artworks on view and architecture relate to one another as well as how the visitors individually relate to the exhibition. Space is limited. RSVP to Visitor Services Manager Courtney Henson at chenson@pulitzerarts.org.

The Pulitzer will announce additional event details on www.pulitzerarts.org as Dreamscapes continues.

The Pulitzer is open and free to the public Wednesdays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Pulitzer is located at 3716 Washington Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63108.  For more information about the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, visit www.pulitzerarts.org or call 314-754-1850.

DJ Needles describes what he’ll be playing at tomorrow’s sound waves: Hip Hop.

Tomorrow night, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., is our second to last sound waves (the grand finale is on Saturday), and from the buzz so far, I anticipate the KDHX/Pulitzer series heading out with a bang.

sound waves: Hip Hop will feature DJ Needles, known also as James Gates, spinning hip hop and music that has inspired hip hop, illustrating the rich history of the genre.  He has been deejaying for over sixteen years and has opened for national acts, such as De La Soul and the Roots. In accordance with the sound waves twist, his beats tomorrow will interplay with Ann Hamilton’s installation stylus, and he will choose music based on how  it flows with Shahrokh Yadegari’s sound component.

Also especially for Hip Hop night, interdesciplinary artist Stan Chisholm/18andCounting has designed limited edition posters, “remixes” of our original sound waves posters, which were designed and printed by All Along Press.

A recent graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, Stan has been a heavy-hitter in the St. Louis art and music community, through projects like “MoneyBags” and his own deejaying gigs. As to the reasoning behind the poster, Stan says, “My primary intent was to skew the language normally associated with the art forms and practices we’re most familiar with.” Gallery assistants will be raffling off these posters at the front desk.

For the exhibition stylus–a project by Ann Hamilton–the Pulitzer has invited many different groups to activate the interactive installation: the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, Webster University dancers, Shape Note Singers, librarians , all the musicians and DJs associated with sound waves, to name just a few.  With “stylus” as the exhibition’s title and Hamilton’s history with knitting, it seemed obvious that knitters be added to the list.

The Pulitzer invites all of you knitters to join in the biggest knitting circle St. Louis has ever seen on January 8, 2-5pm, at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Onlookers are welcome too. This event is free and open to the public, and visitors may come and go freely.

Please read about how this event was developed and ties in with Ann Hamilton’s work on 2buildings1blog.

Holy Trinity Catholic School students make a video with 2010 Whitney Biennial winner Theaster Gates about what they want to see in their neighborhood. Gates’ exhibition Dry Bones and Other Parables from the North will open this Saturday as part of the Transformation Project Walk.

Join the Pulitzer this Saturday, May 15, for the Transformation Project Walk, the grand finale to the Transformation projects. Since last fall, the Pulitzer has been implementing community programs in relation to the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, which combine art, social engagement and the urban landscape. On Saturday, these programs will showcase their achievements at various sites in Grand Center and the neighborhood of Hyde Park. For a full description of this event, visit the Pulitzer’s website.

Robert Longyear spray paints a battered trashcan inside the Woolworth Building. The St. Louis-based artist collected various objects around Grand Center to be incorporated into his show for Transformation. For an explanation on this exhibition, visit the Urban Evolution blog.

As my friend Courtney said the other day of Ideal (Dis-) Placements, stick a fork in it. It’s done. St. Sebastian has peered down from his post in the Entrance Gallery for nearly a full year, and in one month, he’ll journey back to Harvard Art Museum, as the other masterworks return to their respective dwellings.

We have another show to look forward to—Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark. As the title suggests, this exhibition will focus on how Gordon Matta-Clark, an artist in New York in the 1970s, transformed what was labeled useless–mainly abandoned buildings–into enchanting elements. One piece to be in Urban Alchemy is Garbage Wall, which will be of course a wall made from garbage. Might it be more than that, though?

The original Garbage Wall (Matta-Clark made three) was built in 1970 at Manhattan’s St. Mark’s Church. Celebrating the first Earth Day, Matta-Clark orchestrated its construction over three days by inviting passers-by to dump urban refuse into a mould with tar and plaster. For our 2009 re-creation, the Pulitzer is also asking the community to partake.

Our garbage collection is led by Jenny Murphy, a freelance “Garbage Specialist.” Yesterday, she went to two neighborhood schools to call for contributions, leaving behind cardboard bins. She’ll visit two more to again talk about Matta-Clark and the possibilities of art classes working on their own garbage sculpture; similar to what happened for last year’s Community Light Project, when students were invited to make light pieces during The Light Project.

To prevent the Pulitzer from becoming a landfill, we’re mostly taking donations from those specific schools at the moment. In addition, Jenny, and sometimes I, will make garbage runs. (Bulk trash days are coming up.) Jenny is also organizing a neighborhood trash clean-up with Big Brothers Big Sisters and Washington University Undergrads. You can get updates about these excursions on 2buildings1blog.

If you’d like the chance to play with urban waste, come by the Pulitzer’s booth during Earthways Green Home Festival on September 26. Jenny will be there crafting kites, seed starter cups, and handmade paper out of old newspapers with anyone who would like to join her. A tall Plexiglas box, trash, and gloves will be available  for people to simulate their own garbage wall. We’ll also be taking public donations there–nothing perishable please.