LA in Da House

Bruce Yonemoto lecture at Steinberg Auditorium, Washington University, night before opening of his show at the St. Louis Art Museum.

SLAM and Wash U have a smart set-up going. With funds from the Freund Family, the curator and artists at both institutions put out a call for a one-year faculty appointment. Each artist who receives the faculty appointment has a one-person show at SLAM.

St. Louis is brilliant for this kind of cooperation and resource sharing. Bravo.

Bruce talked about his past work in new media, and his up-coming work in Peru, where he will stage an opera in the still-active ancient Peruvian language Quechua. Bruce's droll description of the on-going colonization of the Other by Western powers was understated but powerful.

What struck me with the brief clips he showed of his work is how prescient his work has been, and how he has vaulted over a generation of artists still grappling with an eclipsed Western visual culture.

Bruce's show adds to the vibrant presence of LA in da STL house. Today you can find at Stephen Prina at CAMSTL and Sharon Lockhart at the Kemper, Wash U. We at Laumeier are talking to a range of California artists--Sam Durant and Kelly Mason--about possible future projects, which will allow us to represent the "other" coast (here on the Mississippi we're the "fourth" coast, but that's another issue) in our programs.