Unless you’ve been under a rock, you  know that the largest annual gathering for the field of printmaking is happening right now in St. Louis. Yesterday, I met one of the out-of-town speakers for the SGCI Conference next to Bruno David Gallery across from the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts.

Swoon, a Brooklyn-based artist, has been installing print murals around town for the conference, and the Pulitzer worked with her to install the one yesterday in Grand Center. Swoon (Caledonia Dance Curry) is the recipient of the Community Engagement Award and is giving a talk today for the SGCI Conference at 4:30pm at the Chase Park Plaza.

We’re also very pleased to announce the Pulitzer’s very own Senior Curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, is being awarded with the title Honorary Member of the Council by SGCI. Read about Francesca’s extensive achievements on the conference website.

Ruckus Roboticus, “Here We Go” (Live), Grease Records

This Saturday is the closing of Ann Hamilton’s stylus, and there’s a lot on the schedule for the day. For one thing, Ruckus Roboticus, a deejay and performer, will be playing grown-up-friendly children’s music from 1pm to 3:30pm. Below are some words from Chris DeVille, a writer and fan, about the bot and what to expect on Saturday.

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Ruckus Roboticus is an entertainer of many stripes, and he’ll show most of them Saturday when he plays the closing reception for Ann Hamilton’s stylus.

“Play” is the operative word whenever Ruckus steps behind his extensive technological rig. The Dayton native, born Dan Haug, brings a youthful zest to his work, from his award-winning DJ mixes to his production work for TV networks such as Nickelodeon and MTV.

Then there’s “Playing With Scratches”, his 2008 debut album for Grease Records. The album found Haug building funky sound collages to tell a story about the wonder and confusion of childhood-think Girl Talk with more obscure samples but just as much playful ingenuity.

His cartoonish flair captivated kids but also struck a chord with grown-ups-everyone from Spin to NPR piled on the accolades, and stars like Bloc Party and Vampire Weekend lined up for remixes…--Chris DeVille

Read the rest of this post at 2buildings1blog.

As Web Communications Assistant for the Pulitzer, yes, I’m on Facebook a lot, and for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting daily updates, invites, and reminders from artists and spaces on one of the most anticipated art events in St. Louis, Open Studios. Even electronically, the excitement is palpable.

When Mad Art founder Ron Buechele wrote in his Facebook status “getting ready for open studio,” I messaged him to find out what getting ready entailed as well as what he thinks the artists’ weekend show-and-tell does for St. Louis.

He replied, “The greatest effect is that the event has the potential to expose an underexposed artist. That, and it humanizes the artists to the general public and takes a little of the mystery out of what we do. I completely revamped my studio from top to bottom, so it has a whole new look and feel, although I am the only one that will know that. I hope that the event draws a large and eager crowd, and personally, that it brings some people to Mad Art who have never been here before.”

To learn more about Open Studios, on Wednesday afternoon, I actually got off the computer and walked next door to our neighbor/the presenter of City-Wide Open Studios, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and spoke with its Assistant Curator, Laura Fried, and curatorial intern Brittni Zotos. Fried plays a major role in organizing the event, including communicating with the hundred-plus artists involved. She explains some details behind Open Studios in this video I took that afternoon:

Zotos talks about her important role in Open Studios:

As Laura Fried mentioned, Open Studios gives people the opportunity to glimpse artists in their natural habitats, and it also can take people to parts of St. Louis they might not have seen otherwise. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to all the studios this weekend, but I have a few mapped out. Currently, I have a soft spot for a St. Louis art sub-community off of Broadway on Ohio, where you can find a cluster of artists participating in Open Studios–Arcadia studios (Sarah Paulsen, Emily Hemeyer), Gary Passanise, and Floating Laboratories, near a vegetable factory on the Mississippi River.   

Wednesday night, I went to the the recently founded Floating Laboratories, the studio of Kevin Harris, to see what was happening there in preparation for the big event. Harris said he might sweep the floor, but really what people will be getting is what his studio would look like with or without a tour of people coming through–just like the Discovery Channel. None of Harris’ work is sampled in CAMSTL’s preview show, because it’s all too big. If you’d like an idea of what you might find there, watch this video of Harris working on his “Snuffleupagus,” with a base of wood and bubble wrap:

It looks like today will finally be sunny in St. Louis (at least, I’m crossing my fingers…), so I thought I’d highlight a video from the Pulitzer’s director, Matthias Waschek, where he talks about the lighting for our current Old Masters exhibition and why we chose to focus on natural light:

You don’t get a better example of this than in the Cube Gallery, where the gold ground paintings are exhibited.  This video on our web catalogue takes you through the whole range of lighting situations, by taking you down the hallway next to the watercourt and towards the paintings in the dark Cube Gallery.

Also be sure to check out the videos from the rest of the exhibition curators- Stephan Wolohojian from Harvard, Judy Mann from the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Francesca Herndon Consagra from the Pulitzer.  If they leave you wanting more, you can also submit a question to each curator (my favorite part!).  Their answer will be posted on their video page.