May 24 Tuesday
On August 28, 2021, the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park will open St. Louis Sound, a new 6,000 square feet special exhibit that explores the history of popular music in St. Louis from the dawn of recorded sound in the late 1800s to the turn of the 21st century. Nearly 200 artifacts will be on display from national stars, local legends, and important venues. Artifacts on display are from the Missouri Historical Society Collections as well as over 100 objects on loan to the Missouri History Museum from individuals and other institutions. Artifacts on display include: The St. Louis tinfoil, recorded by Thomas Edison in 1878, the oldest playable recording of an American voice and the earliest known recording of a musical performance. In March 2021, the Library of Congress announced the “St. Louis tinfoil” is one of 25 “audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time” that will be inducted into their National Recording Registry. Costumes from Treemonisha, ragtime legend Scott Joplin’s ill-fated opera A dress and original theatre artifact of entertainer, French resistance agent, and civil rights activist Josephine Baker Dress worn by Tina Turner on the Tonight Show Artifacts from the Club Imperial, which hosted Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm and televised dance shows. Guitars belonging to Chuck Berry, Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, Albert King, and Mel Bay (who has taught millions to play the guitar) Trumpets of Miles Davis and Clark Terry Stage clothing of legendary artists like Little Milton, Luther Ingram, and the 5th Dimension The piano of Henry Townsend, the St. Louis Blues Legend whose recordings span nine consecutive decades Outfits from gospel stars David Peaston and Willie Mae Ford Smith Fontella Bass’s gold record and Grammy nomination for “Rescue Me” Artifacts from Mississippi Nights, including the stage floor that was played on by everyone from Kenny G to Nirvana Stage clothing of The Welders, St. Louis’s 1970s all-female punk band Artifacts from Bob Heil, who built sound systems for The Who and invented the Talkbox A drum that symbolizes the racial divide in St. Louis’s 1920s jazz scene Pieces from Gaslight Square, St. Louis’s nightlife center of the 1960s In addition to incredible artifacts, St. Louis Sound will feature interactive maps of St. Louis musical hotspots, listenable song selections for every artist covered, archival film footage, and a trivia game for visitors to test their music history knowledge. The Missouri History Museum will offer a wide range of exhibit-related programming throughout the duration of the exhibit, including the St. Louis Sound: LIVE series of free, live performances relating to the many artists featured in the exhibit. St. Louis just can’t stay quiet. No matter the genre, style, or musical moment, this city has a huge story to tell. St. Louis Sound is open at the Missouri History Museum from August 28, 2021, through January 22, 2023. Admission is free.
Green Door Art Gallery proudly presents Botanicals & Blooms II, A celebration of all things floral and botanical. The exhibit features sculptural gourd vessels by Pat Berkbigler, clay floral sculptures by Nasrin Godarzi, photography by Ronald Krieger, and watercolor works by Karen Romani and Marty Spears. The artwork will be on display and available for sale May 4 – June 25, 2022. Join us for the opening reception on May 20, 2022 5:00 -8:00 pm. Green Door Art Gallery’s 35 resident artists will also be exhibiting and selling artwork including fused glass, mosaics, watercolor, oil and acrylic paintings, collage, mixed media, wood, pottery, textile art, jewelry and more. Green Door Art Gallery is located at 21 N. Gore in Old Webster Groves in the historic Heritage Building. Hours are Wednesday thru Sunday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. www.greendoorartgallery.com (314) 202-4071
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present the first solo exhibition in the Midwest by Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist Chitra Ganesh. In her multidisciplinary practice, Ganesh draws on Buddhist and Hindu iconography, science fiction, queer theory, comics, Surrealism, Bollywood posters and video games, combining them with her own imagery to present speculative visions of society in the past, present and future.
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “A Sound, a Signal, the Circus,” a major new commissioned project by California-based artist and filmmaker Nicole Miller. Known for her evocative videos and multimedia installations, Miller frequently addresses themes such as race, translation and the politics of representation.
Bruno David is pleased to present Good Will Combines, an exhibition of new paintings by Cindy Tower. This will be her third solo exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work with an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography. Tower’s “Combine” paintings break divisions between the materials of artmaking and ordinary things like old dresses; between painting and sculpture; and between the fields of art and daily life. Their themes traditionally have had an environmental perspective on consumption, intimacy, obsolescence, loss, and transcendence as they interplay with the natural world. They are landscape-based, often biographical, with elements in the paintings standing in for herself, family members, or moments or places in her life. Her paintings are an overwhelming celebration of materials and process. They hope to provide the viewer with a visceral, physical experience that not only engages but also actually engulfs the viewer in the self-contained environment of each work of art. Tower’s views are optimistic in that they create beauty despite being formed out of the rejected detritus of modern consumer society. Tower provides social commentary on collective wastefulness and over-abundance. She gathers materials from landfills, charity shop discards, and from the destruction wrought by natural disasters. Tower says “Throughout my career I have used recycled materials--from found video footage to dismantling and using every single part of a broken-down truck, including the gas. (“Pirate” Cindy, 1998). ”Combine painting”, is a term coined in 1950s by Robert Rauschenberg consisting of three-dimensional objects integrated into his paintings.
Bruno David is pleased to present Allusive, an exhibition by Chicago-based artist William Conger. This will be his second solo exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work with an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography. Much contemporary abstract art has long centered on the literal art object and aims to exclude reference or allusion to what’s not literally present. Now, more and more, recent abstraction evokes real or imagined objects and experience not actually depicted. In 1981, William Conger proposed the term Allusive Abstraction to distinguish his own work an abstraction that shared some traits with other Chicago artists, some earlier American painting (like Arthur Dove) and with Chicago Imagist artists. Art historian and critic Mary Matthews Gedo wrote about Allusive Abstraction in Arts Magazine, Art Criticism, and elsewhere in the 1980s. Some critics now use the term Abstract Imagism to include Allusive Abstraction. Conger said, “Over the decades my work has remained purposely allusive and formally abstract as it has also explored many alternatives. My newer work is flatter and more evenly colored with more mixed figure-ground paradoxes than my earlier work which is layered with modulated shapes. But it still alludes to landscape and objects, even anatomy, without ever giving up the primacy of purely abstract form.”
Bruno David is pleased to present Remix, an exhibition by Illinois-based artist Chris Kahler. This will be his 12th solo exhibition with the gallery. In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work with an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography. The Remix Series marks Kahler's return to works on paper. These small-scale pieces explore the ephemeral quality of color, intimate drawing and the recycling of paint detritus collected over the past 20 years. Kahler explains: “What sets these works apart is their focus on play and ability to create shifting points of view with elements edited out of my previous paintings. Instead of throwing them away, I have kept them with a project in mind. These works reference fragments from previous paintings while creating new possibilities.” David Olsen recently wrote about Kahler’s work: “Forms both amorphous and geometrical alternately shift, batch, and huddle upon the surface; lines touch, intersect, and overlap, at once running up against and counter to each other. Kahler’s new visual vocabulary is productively, gorgeously claustrophobic in the same way that a map, when viewed from a reasonable distance, suggests that everything is pretty close, an entire world within reach. These works anticipate the figuration of our fraught times while also reminding us of the prime mover of painting as such—the containment of that which is viscous, three-dimensional, and fluid.”
Bruno David is pleased to present Surmatants – Mars Rising, a video work by New York-based artist Andréa Stanislav. This is Stanislav third solo exhibition with the gallery. On view at Bruno David Gallery’s New Media Room is the artist’s elegiacally visceral response to the COVID-19 pandemic - converging Pittsburgh's Slavic immigrant labor history and 13th century plague informants. Tenants of Russian Cosmism and transcendence are evoked through Jesse Gelaznik's musical compositions, paired with dances by John Harbist and renowned choreographer Zeljko Jergan and performed by the Tamburitzans. Surmatants – Mars Rising was first shown in 2021 at The Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, Pittsburg, as part of her solo exhibition “Surmatants – Mars Rising.” Her hybrid practice spans sculpture, video, immersive multimedia installation, and public art. Stanislav’s work is anchored in a collision of beauty and horror — dualities that intimate sublimity, through equations of site + scale. Andréa’s work often excavates constructs and devolution of civilizations and empires —merging the past and present, while proposing questions of the future. In the Duchampian sense, the viewer becomes a participant who completes the work. Stanislav’s installations erode the boundary between subject and object in a literal “physicality of ideas” — manifested experientially through an immersive experience.
Bruno David is pleased to present Gone Fishing, a visual conversional installation in the WINDOW ON FORSYTH by Tom Reed. This is Reed’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view 24/7 at 7513 Forsyth Blvd., Saint Louis (Clayton), MO. Gone Fishing is a project rooted in conversation and community. Once a week, during this exhibition Tom Reed will be in the gallery tying flies and holding in-person and virtual conversations with the fellow artists and practitioners, Rachel Finn, Corey Escoto, Fred Stivers, and James Prosek, to discuss their connection between the river and the studio and everything in between. Over the last 15 years Tom Reed has dedicated a lot of time to the river and the pursuit of fly fishing and fly tying. This sport has a tight knit community. People who are dedicated to the art of both fishing and tying are as diverse as the day is long, Along the way he discovered a handful of artists who share in this obsession and have a developed a unique connection between the river and the studio. The river is continually referred to in Reed’s work. Once a symbol of time and change in his paintings, it now has become a collaborative partner. Reed spends days and hours on the river fly fishing. Mementos of this time on the river, beaver chewed sticks, logs, arrowheads, and junk, slowly began making their way into the studio and eventually into the work. Over time they formed a bridge between the river and the creative output in his studio practice.
The Art of Assemblage, a juried art exhibit. Assemblage art consists of assembling scavenged materials, odd and ends and everyday objects into artistic creations. See how local artists give common materials new artistic meaning. Artist submission deadline is April 17 at 6:00 pm The Soulard Art Gallery is a co-op art gallery located in historic Soulard. With artwork by 14 resident artists, we offer a diverse collection of works, including painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture, photography, and jewelry. We also host a group exhibition in our main gallery every month for artists to submit their work for display. Visit the gallery's website for additional details https://www.soulardartgallery.com/
