Questioning contemporary art

The Beginning of Modern America

2012-01-21T11:08:00.001-08:00

photo courtesy the author.

I'm reading Charles C. Mann's book 1491 (thanks to Sanjay Jain, who sent it to me after a very interesting discussion about an up-coming program at Laumeier).

This book is opening up my worldview about the dense, complex web of cultures that existed in the Americas before, during and after first contact. I'm just now reading about Atawallpa, the last Inka leader, whose empire was larger than that of China, the Ottomans and Russia at the time.

While Mann's ideas differ slightly from those of Jared Diamond, I am still shocked that I only heard of Atawallpa two years ago!

The first chapter of the book talked about the People of the Dawnland, Native Nations living on the Eastern seaboard who fought off snooping Europeans for decades, if not centuries. One false move, however, spelled the demise of the Dawnland peoples--due primarily to smallpox and other diseases, but finished off by guns and steel.

The image above is from Cook's baking store in West Allis, Wisconsin. The current story about the first Thanksgiving is not what we were taught in school--sadly, however, the axe seems the constant theme of the white invasion of the United States. No matter that Native Americans helped the Puritans survive, violence fueled by religious discrimination was never far behind a momentary detente.

What I love about the arts is that artists are constantly pushing at the boundaries of knowledge through their asking questions--and this type of tome--1491--fuels some of the most compelling artistic research in today's global cultural dialogue.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

2012-01-16T06:28:00.000-08:00

Photo by the author.

I am part of the 2011-2012 Focus St. Louis program, Leadership St. Louis [LSL]. (Thanks to Susan Barrett for sponsoring me in this great program!)

This weekend's topic was race--perfect timing given today is the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.

Because of my generation's focus on multiculturalism in the arts, I have always been committed to foregrounding artists from diverse backgrounds, sexual orientation, etc... I suspect I have been most successful in looking for gender equality for obvious reasons, but that's no excuse, I can always work harder.

Perhaps it's from being from Canada, where being polite and non-confrontational are values I picked up, I've always felt uncomfortable with talking about certain issues, particularly race, except with Kevin and some other dear friends. At yesterday's LSL meeting all kinds of uncomfortable questions were asked and, as usual, I got a bit weepy at the injustice that still exists in our American culture (let's not get started on other parts of the world, shall we, and how sexism predominates in virtually every country since time immemorial!)

One exercise we did was add beads of different colors to a cup in response to answers. Most of the questions were based on working in a very big office (who is your boss, your direct supervisor, your work mentor, is technically one bead for me, and I only allowed each person one bead). The questions were less about our personal lives, but this is the diverse pool I came away with.

I got to participate in a real conversation about race in America with my smart African American, Asian and white colleagues in the LSL program, and a barrier has been broken for me. I'm planning on attending the MLK day event at Wash U tonight--not the best location, but it's the one I can attend.

This year I promise to be more broad in how I investigate issues of race and gender in my work.

Guest Blog by Mike Cloud: Things seen and unseen

2011-12-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

I was in Chicago a few weeks ago for Tony Tasset's opening at Kavi Gupta Gallery. At the dinner afterwards artists Mike Cloud and Doug Ischar and I stumbled upon the topic of "things-we've-seen-but-no-one-else-did."

My story was about the Milwaukee billboard that featured a plate of cheese, crackers and an apple with the caption below that read "Make a Cracker Happy." I didn't get it at first glance, but after Kevin insisted I re-read it, we laughed pretty hard about it. When we sought the billboard out again for me to photograph it a few weeks later--poof, gone. No trace of it on-line, no commentaries anywhere. A mirage--or a conspiracy?

All photos courtesy Mike Cloud, Chicago.

Mike Cloud related an event when he was a teen growing up in one of Chicago's western suburbs. The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise near him introduced some decor and uniforms that were of kente cloth. The experiment lasted only a few weeks, and Mike has never met anyone who had a similar experience.

Mike submitted these images to illustrate, or amplify, his memories from that chimaera.

I take this picture to slyly suggest the cannibalism that goes on in most places on earth, or as a riff on the pejorative, plantation-style ripples that emanate out of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Then, of course, this image of two skeletons, intertwined in death, suggest that we are all linked. Perhaps Mike is suggestions that eating chicken is eating human flesh, or that cultural differences are as broad or as thin as we think they are. Were these two humans sacrificed for a religion, executed for adultery, or that they died of unknown complications? Like the kente cloth in a fast food restaurant, we may never know the answer to this mystery.

New Orleans Redux

2011-11-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Jackson Square, New Orleans. All photos courtesy the author.

I just logged my fourth trip in two years to New Orleans to continue work on a series of projects linking St. Louis to New Orleans.

Freedom Ride. Image by Joe Baker.

I timed my visit to see the first three acts (the work awaits more funding to be completed) of Freedom Ride, an opera by Xavier University professor Dan Shore commissioned by friend and Longue Vue House and Gardens Director / Chief Curator Joe Baker. The Freedom Riders drove from Washington to New Orleans to defy the segregation of interstate transportation. Edith and Edgar Stern, founders of Longue Vue, hosted the group when they arrived in the South. Edith founded the opera program at Xavier, another elegant connection in this program.

The opera was magical, the powerful voices of the singers evoking the hope and anger of people soul-tired of waiting for their civil rights.

It is hard not to layer issues of race and class when visiting the South, particularly in this economic climate and post-Katrina. While not every artist needs to explore these issues, it's hard not to look for kernels of connection when viewing Prospect.2, which also opened the same weekend as the opera debut. Through reviews of friends who attended Prospect.1, and through the press I read, it sounded as if the first iteration had much more funding. Lack of funding, however, doesn't explain the problems I observed in Prospect.2.

Dan Tague, Crisis Car CC829, 2011.

Sadly, the worst of the installations were in two of the biggest institutions in town. At the Contemporary Art Center, where Prospect founder Dan Cameron used to work, was work by Dan Tague alongside some compelling works by local and international artists, but the whole experience felt disorganized and disgruntled.

I have not be impressed by the shows I've seen at the CAC--is it lack of will, lack of standards, lack of expertise? I am sure there was a lot of local anger at how diverse and global Prospect.1 was--does Prospect.2 suffer because Cameron was obliged to capitulate to local demands and sensibilities?

Jennifer Steinkamp at the New Orleans Art Museum.

Jennifer Steinkamp's haunting, moving trees in a niche at the top of the lobby stairs at NOMA was glorious--too bad the whole thing was washed out by the light of the lobby. The other works that hung on the lobby's walls felt like an after-thought, a concession NOMA made to Prospect.2 without truly giving over any real gallery space. Why wasn't the Odili Donald Odita mural that was going up by the cafe included in Prospect.2? It felt as if NOMA gave over its least art-appropriate space, and grudgingly at that, in order to be listed on the Prospect.2 letterhead.

Sophie Calle in the 1850 House in the Vieux Carre.

Works placed inside other types of institutions seemed to fare much better by being given a context within which to live. Sophie Calle's multi-room installation in the 1850 House put her self-involved stories into an historical space. But Calle's modern narcissism seemed rather trite alongside the issues of slavery, immigration and disease that are animated through the stories of the people who lived at the 1850 house.

Ragnar Kjartansson, The Man, 2010

Ragnar Kjartansson's video The Man was not commissioned by Prospect but was a 2010 collaboration between the artist and musician Pinetop Perkins, the last of the Delta Blues musicians. Was this location chosen as a subtle comment on the role of African Americans in driving the economy of the South, with the blues being subversive resistance of the economic exploitation suffered by African Americans? Subtle thinking indeed, but at least the work was lovely and haunting.

Nick Cave at the Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University.

Nick Cave and Joyce Scott were paired at the Newcomb Art Gallery, and although I am not interested in Scott's work and Cave's work speaks to me, there were enough interesting ways to think about the two that the pairing was not disheartening in the way some of the other group shows were.

Joyce Scott at the Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University.

Finally, one great public art piece I saw was Michel De Brion's work Majestic, curated and produced by The Third of May Arts, Inc., a Canadian producing collaboration.

Michel De Brion, Majestic, 2011.

De Brion used old New Orleans city lights to make this work parked under the shadow of the freeway overpass in the tangle of streets bisected by the badly designed freeways. Like a pick-up-jack, I thought about the dislocation and re-ordering of the landscape of New Orleans because of Katrina, and the ways in which the city continues to try to put itself back together again. This work was a lovely surprise, stuck, as it was, in this no-man's land.

What a tough balance Prospect.2 had to navigate--how to concentrate installations / art works so that more people can see them while allowing the type of commentary of engaged public art that gives relevance to a biennial in a place as complex and contested as New Orleans? Prospect.2 seems to have galvanized more local activity. I picked up the first issue of Catalogue, which listed the various galleries and public art works happening around town. Surely that alone is a good thing, giving voice to the non-institutional voices.

I am eager to see what the next version of Prospect will be if simply to see how new genre public art can re-invent itself at each iteration.

The question of bronze

2011-08-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

New Chuck Berry statue on the Delmar Loop, St. Louis. photo courtesy the author.

Joe Edwards, guru of the Delmar Loop, the man who single-handedly revived the commercial district near my house, has long admired Chuck Berry. Berry plays monthly gigs at Edward's Blueberry Hill restaurant / club, and they recently installed this bronze statue of Berry, right across from Blueberry Hill.

Nice hommage.

Too bad it doesn't look like Chuck Berry.

Another problem with the Berry statue--given the historical record is complicated, it doesn't do Chuck Berry any good to call him the "father of rock and roll"--it cheapens him.

What is it about the lack of refinement of bronze statuary?

Statue of Pat Tillman. photo Sheldon Branford.

This reminds me of the Pat Tillman statue the Arizona Cardinals put up of Tillman after his death by friendly fire in Iraq. Horrific face! Must frighten children!

Picture of Pat Tillman. (c) NBC sports.

A literal translation of an equally disturbing photograph. But the photograph has the life, color and movement that the statue only mangles. Why are sports people so enamored of bad representative art?

Dred and Harriet Scott plaque on the Delmar Loop Walk of Fame. photo courtesy the author.

This plaque for St. Louis-natives Dred and Harriet Scott is much more compelling as a complex public statement than the bad Berry statue.

What I do like about the proximity of the Scott plaque (Tina Turner is nearby) and the Berry statute is how it suggests the role that St. Louis has played in American life with the birthing of African American artists / activists as diverse as the Scotts and Chuck.

While St. Louis has to grapple more effectively with race--as does every other city in the country--this symbolic representation puts diverse citizens together in ways they would not have been in real life. Now that's a great public service.

Museum standards

2011-08-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

I took this picture in an unnamed museum this past week. Several thoughts came to mind:

That no matter how hard you and your team might work, something as insignificant as this--a registrar's identification tag sticking out from behind a painting--can sink the way the public sees you. Reminds me of my first visit to the new Tate building that had shoe prints on the wall. It was mid-week--the staff had at least a few days to clean up from weekend crowds. Sloppy!

Museums are a tough balance between asking broad, intelligent questions about material, social, political and cultural life and the pernicious details of crossing t's and dotting i's.

Having started off as a cataloguer at the Museum of Modern Art, I crossed a lot of t's. In my current post I am looking at some of the bigger questions that artists can help us as a society address. Keeping these poles of activity together is a tough task, but it separates the good institutions from the mediocre.

Museum material culture

2011-08-04T14:36:00.001-07:00

Harley Davidson Museum, Milwaukee. All photos courtesy the author.

We finally broke down and visited the Harley-Davidson Museum in downtown Milwaukee.

It's astonishing how the area has been transformed--beautiful pathways and native prairie plantings bordering the Menominee River. Loads of parking for bikes and cars.

Sculpture. Enough said.

Why--WHY--are bronze statues so awful? No wonder people hate public art. This image of a hill racer recalls a fantastic interactive computer program in the Museum where you can pick your hill, sprocket shape and speed and see if your cartoon effigy makes it up the hill. This guy--he's going down, his bike will smack him in the head and boom, early retirement.

Earliest H-D motorcycles.

I loved all the different bikes. Evidently a few other companies were making bikes before Harley--Indian, Pope--but Harley was the first one to do motorcycles only, not bicycles first.

Wall of tanks.

And the designers know either the Vitra Museum or Andreas Gursky. Gorgeous!

Prettiest tank!

They changed graphics, colors and models every year, starting almost from the beginning.

Founders: three Davidsons, one Harley.

Loved this old picture. Their display of material culture was pretty beautiful. I was rather dreading how gear-headed the descriptions could have been, but there was a lot to enjoy without being a "knucklehead".

Typical museum-goers.

Ya baby, lots of Harley owners there. They've got their own vocabulary. Have they heard of wife-beaters, or is this where the phrase comes from?

Cool petroglyph.

Gorgeous use of varied graphic design.

Engines on wall.

Again, Vitra.

Museum design.

Lovely display of objects--how to enliven things that do not change dramatically?

Mod motor oil ad.

They tried to hip it up in the 70s--perhaps this is when their marketing lost track of their audience?

Harley wedding dress.

Enough said.

Album covers.

I loved that Minnie Pearl did an album cover on a Harley.

There was not much about the later years--the virtual bankruptcy, the Jay Leno effect--which leaves the story still storybook. But I suppose real Harley people know it--in any case, it was an elegant space with groovy objects.

I was willing to go to the Harley Museum because of a shift in my thinking when Kevin had to shoot the 100th anniversary parade. I came to discern the different bike shapes--I'm an Indian woman myself--and the different sub-cultures of riders.

Categories I counted:

gay couples (over 10)
mixed-race couples (almost 5)
woman driving man (1)
Japanese couple (1)
people standing on their bikes (4)
wedding dresses (3)

The other hundreds of riders who made it into the anniversary parade were as you might suspect--Grateful Dead look-alikes with their molls on the back. But I was still surprised by the diversity where I thought there would be none.

Harley is an American success story--none of the founders were from here, they started off in a 10 x 15' shack and became a global phenomenon. As bad as gas is, motorcycles and cars still freed people from their farms, their families and their futures by letting them run away and create a new life. That's something to celebrate, and Milwaukee had a role in that.

Politics in Venice, part 3

2011-06-24T04:47:00.000-07:00

Street poster in Venice. All photos courtesy the author.

Again, more politics. This poster was plastered around San Marco, looking like Elizabeth Peyton except for the text. After looking for anti-Catholic posters in Venice I found a lot of interesting things--Venice, perhaps because of its independent stature for so long, wasn't a friend of Rome. Anyone know who did this work?

Song Dong in the Arsenale.

China's Song Dong remains one of my favorite artists with whom I've worked. I commissioned him to do a work for my show Water, Water Everywhere... at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. His work is thoughtful and meditative, like this ramshackle construction that suggests a labyrinth and a soon-to-be-destroyed warren of alleys. Several works were also embraced inside the walls of this construction--hiding out or finding other meanings?

Liina Siib in the Estonian pavilion.

In her project Woman Takes Up Less Space in the Estonian pavilion, Siib challenges the assertion in Estonia that since women take up less space they can be paid lower salaries. In the un-fancy apartment Siib creates tweaked rooms with the images and words of Estonian women jumping off the wall. The work was funny and very sad.

Faycal Baghriche in The Future of a Promise.

Loved this madly spinning globe by Faycal Baghriche. It reminded me of Charlie Ray's spinning disc set flush into a wall--its effects almost invisible but certainly deadly.

Maria Rosa Jijon in the Latin American pavilion in the Arsenale.

Finally, one of the compelling political videos in the Latin American pavilion.

Beauty in Venice, part 2

2011-06-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

San Marco, May 29, 2011. All photos courtesy the author.

After hunting down as many outlying pavilions for the Bienniale as I could find, I feel I know Venice better than I ever have. The tourist count wasn't as high as it will get, and anyway, tourists did not touch the alleyways where international art would be found.

View from Museo Correr.

I had never been to Museo Correr, and Rick Steve's guide book was right: great view of San Marco from the windows still unobstructed by scaffolding.

View of canal from installation Days of Yi.

I would suspect most tourists would be mortified to see this open window, I thought about the Renaissance.

Building style exposed.

Impressive--look at the size of those beams. No wonder Italy is almost denuded, they've been building for thousands of years.

Saint in l'Accademia.

It's hard to find decent small gifts in Venice--too many kitschy glass gondolas, way too many Carnivale masks (perfect only for 12 1/2 year old girls). I loved this painting at l'Accademia--a saint whose mask looks back. Too bad there wasn't any information about who this was--where is my "Dictionary of Saints and Symbols" when I need it?

Conservation methods at l'Accademia.

L'Accademia's state of repairs is rather shocking. I saw many wall patches that looked like hastily-bandaged war wounds scattered throughout the building. The first floor, where all my favorite proto-Renaissance works were shown, was virtually unairconditioned--and we all know the effects of humidity on wood and paint.

Nothing like the slick and elegant spaces of Francois Pinault's Palazzo Grassi (no pics here, they are forbidden). Perhaps some wealthy collectors could spend a little less on themselves and toss a few bones to the public institutions in Italy that are clearly starving?

With the public in Italy fed up with the antics of their clownish government, I hope they will insist on protecting the Italian culture that has so influenced virtually every artist, almost around the globe, for centuries. When I worked with Yoshitomo Nara in the 1990s he told me that Giotto was a big favorite of his--see the connection? This historical work is important to all of us in the arts.

Politics in Venice, part 2

2011-06-17T04:20:00.000-07:00

Llyn Foulkes, Central Pavilion. All photos courtesy the author.

Imagine my surprise to see a room of Llyn Foulkes works at the Giardini. This under-rated LA-based painter has made powerful, disconcerting works since the 1960s. His presence made me appreciate the diligence with which Bice Curiger curated the show (although not sure that the historical works in the first room of the pavilion made sense).

Erwin Wurm.

Erwin Wurm's skinny house, just beside the Accademia bridge, is based on his parent's home and mocks the over-consuming lifestyles in the West. This modest profile fits with Venice however, a city where even the most grandiose palazzo doesn't match the egregious waste of resources or space of a modern McMansion.

Yael Bartana, Polish pavilion.

The presence of an Israeli artist in the Polish pavilion is an example of inspired national cross-over. Bartana imagines a political movement in Poland that begs Israelis of Polish descent to return, re-populate the country and save Poland from a death of homogeneity. One would understand Israeli's not falling for it, but the language was blunt and overt, bemoaning the evil act of killing Jews or forcing them to flee during World War II. Very interesting timing for this work.

Christian Marclay, Arsenale.

I finally got to see at least part of Christian Marclay's work about time. I read all the NY reviews of the work and finally understood the operatic, deeply meditative pleasure of the work. We passed our time with the piece from 2:25 to 3:50 pm, resting on the (uncomfortable) couches yet mesmerized by the ease with which I created mini-historical narratives I made up while watching.

Segalit Landau, Israeli pavilion.

Finally, Segalit Landau's lovely installation looking at water politics in Israel was both sweet and stifling. Through different videos she narrated the struggle for cooperation between political enemies for the appropriate management of water. This video, of a little girl tying together the shoelaces of negotiating politicians, made the most pertinent point--everyone is tied together whether they like it or not, so harming one's enemy is harming oneself.

Simple but effective.

Beauty in Venice, part 1

2011-06-15T03:51:00.000-07:00

Gondola in Venice near Rialto Bridge. All photos courtesy the author.

Politics and beauty may be the two organizing guides I had while in Venice. Yes, yes, Venice is beautiful. I read that 58,000 people live there while 15,000,000 visitors inundate the city per year. No wonder the city is sinking with all those well-fed Western European and American visitors.

Yuan Gong, Arsenale.

I found beauty everywhere. This gorgeous installation by Yuan Gong was a floating palace of dreams, a respite from the slogging through the Giardini (and a calming influence before the bad few shows that were to follow).

Shada & Raja Alem, Arsenale.

This decorative piece was hard to comprehend in the dark; a floating disc of black loomed above an oval carpet of patterns. A visual interpretation of experience at Mecca perhaps, or a not-so-subtle commentary on the dampening effect religion has on the intricate web of relations between people in the Middle East?

Raafat Ishak, The Future of a Promise.

Raafat Ishak's multi-paneled painting in the Pan-Arab show interpreted the hundreds of requests made for visas and his rejection by this many governments. This playful Easter egg hunt was soothing yet fragile in its delicacy--surely reflecting the fragility of the situation lived by immigrants across the world seeking a better life.

Karla Black, Scottish corollary pavilion.

I loved this installation by Scottish artist Karla Black despite feeling I had seen this type of installation decades ago in LA. This fugitive, diy-craft-y material installation both harkens to the 1960s feminist movement and the 1980s LA garage-style works shown at places like FoodHouse. The aesthetic has seeped into art schools across the country. As a Scottish artist her aesthetic reference must be different--this is the kind of detail that was missing in the written materials at the show.

Oksana Mas, Ukrainian pavilion.

Speaking of eggs, we found this installation by Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas in a church near La Fenice. The artist used thousands of painted eggs to re-create a Byzantine mosaic of Christ. This year I saw more art works based on religious forms than ever-before--interesting that artists are commenting on the (perhaps hollow) overwhelming presence of religious life in Venice.

Taibamo, Japanese pavilion.

Taibamo's enveloping video animations are disconcerting dreamscapes where land and water merge and reverse positions. The gooey tentacles of seaweed caress and obscure in this mesmerizing but somewhat confounding installation.

Long live Beauty!

Politics in Venice

2011-06-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

Horse statue in Venice. All photos courtesy the author.

What a relief to see a lot of art and to see a lot of artists dealing overtly with political topics. This year's Venice Biennale was of a minimum guaranteed quality (except where it was shockingly bad), but that sometimes makes for a sluggish show overall. I was thrilled to get a jolt of recognition through works addressing a range of contemporary issues although not each work was equally successful.

I espied Verrocchio's Colleoni Monument, started in 1479, while taking refuge under an umbrella to escape a hot day slogging between far-flung pavilions scattered around the city. Colleoni is a master of the universe but Verrocchio presents us with a brutish boor of a conquerer. (Art has always been political in some form or another, and denying that make the speaker seem very dull indeed.)

Adel Abidin work in the Iraqi pavilion.

I found Adel Abidin's video and installation a funny antidote to Verrocchio's conquering hero. Two white guys play Star Wars with fluorescent tubes from the office ceiling light; the choreographed dance made a nice mockery of the powers fighting over (name one) Middle East country.

Ahmet Mater.

Ahmet Mater's work in the show The Future of a Promise mocks the simplistic political creed of the former US government that started two wars in the Middle East.

Allora & Calzadilla tank.

Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla's installation Gloria at the American pavilion too made hay with politics. The sub-theme was war as competitive game. The best of their work is performative, which meant that some of the more static sculptural works were a bit inert without the animating presence of gymnasts.

A & C ATM machine / pipe organ.

This ATM machine drew a lot of attention and was evidently the most-used ATM in Venice for a few days!

A & C video.

I found this simple video the summation of Allora & Calzadilla's pavilion. The divided screen, the struggle of the men to stay horizontal was elegant, painful and provocative.

I was proud of the choice at the pavilion--there are so many deserving artists in the US but the choices were feeling like a queue for a job rather than an informed, or even inspired, challenge of what art can mean.

Lee Yongbaek, Korean pavilion.

Lee Yongbaek's work at the (South) Korean pavilion had some very nice work and some very bad work. This simple video, of old technology pulling new, seemed to capture the historical squeeze we are in today. We rush into the future with our new technologies without understanding old technologies and relationships. We embrace war without taking into account the impact on the conqueror and the conquered--war disrupts and destroys both societies in different ways, but destroy is the key word.

It was a pleasure to think beyond my own green box while in Venice, to feel re-connected to what artists around the globe are thinking and doing. Art can connect us across political and social boundaries, and given the precarious state of the world, we can use more politically-charged art.

A Month in the Mid-West

2011-05-26T04:54:00.001-07:00

Art work at Art Chicago. All photos courtesy the author.

Whohooo! This funny video work by an artist at Art Chicago (I should have been taking the label pics but did not, I apologize to this artist) is an unintentional bracket to the month I've just had.

Lambert Field after tornado strike.

A tornado hit Lambert Field just after I took off for the weekend, luckily they re-opened the next day so I was able to fly in Monday morning. This may be the only upside to an under-utilized airport.

Mats Stjernstedt in bamboo back yard.

Friend and colleague Mats Stjernstedt, former director of Index Gallery, Stockholm, current director of Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (I've even been there, twice!) and member of Laumeier's International Advisory Council, visited STL. He gave a gallery talk on Jessica Stockholder's show, conducted studio visits and participated on my panel at Art Chicago concerning new sculptural practices and changes for dedicated sculpture parks. Peter Tao, of Tao + Lee Architects, knows the owner of this bamboo backyard in U City.

What a haunting, lovely yard. Downside: you couldn't have kids, the bamboo shoots were like spikes jutting from the ground.

Theaster Gates in his home / studio / performance space.

One of the smartest artists / cultural workers is Chicago-based Theaster Gates. A group of us (me, Kevin Miyazaki, Mats Stjernstedt and NY-based critic and pal Lilly Wei) went to Theaster's studio at the invitation of Kavi Gupta. Theaster has purchased several houses on the south side of Chicago with the intention of creating a vibrant cultural space in this neglected neighborhood.

Theaster is planning a collaborative project for next year's Documenta that involves a group of his south-side neighbors traveling to Kassel to convert a building there. Stay tuned.

Sculpture panel at Art Chicago, May 1.

I organized a panel on changing sculptural practices at dedicated sculpture parks and other arts organizations. Left to right: Dr. Matthias Wascheck, former director, Pulitzer Foundation, St. Louis; artist / activist Theaster Gates; me, talking about Beverly Pepper's commissioned work Cromlech Glen at Laumeier; Dennis Kois, director, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum; missing, Mats Stjernstedt, director, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. We talked about new artistic practices, like Theaster's, and how they are being manifested in spaces like Laumeier, deCordova and elsewhere.

Philip Guston at Art Institute of Chicago.

And a break to run through the Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection show. Guston, someone whose work makes me sad and happy at the same time.

Mark di Suvero at center in white hat, deinstalling work at Laumeier.

Mark di Suvero has been a presence at Laumeier since it opened in 1976. He recently won the Presidential Medal of Honor, and is having a show of his work on Governor's Island (I gave the Board Chair, his wife and a St. Louis collector a tour of Laumeier last fall). Here Mark is, overseeing the complicated deinstallation of a work, in-between two cranes and lots of strong, and strong-willed, guys. Fun to watch--from a distance.

Ursula von Rydinsgvard at Laumeier.

Laumeier continues working on a collections assessment which includes refurbishing and reinstalling Ursula von Rydingsvard's Untitled work. She chose this great location near the Estate House (see the stakes in the ground?) This gives us the opportunity to clear out this area near a small non-functioning pond, pour a set of stairs for easier public access and to animate her work by sending visitors through it. Ursula is a great artist and fabulous person who deserves all the attention she is getting these days.

Next generation: Tea Makipaa.

These are the five foundations poured for Germany-based Finnish artist Tea Makipaa's work. The six-part piece, called Not Without My Dog, has been commissioned for our show Dog Days of Summer. The piece is designed from a dog's perspective and is part of our investigation into an "archaeology of place." Over 20% of Laumeier's audience comes with their dog--thus, we are focusing on our long relationship with them and how it has changed since the mid-19th century. June 25 - October 2. Tea will be at the opening to speak, she'll give us some great insight into her process.

Art work at Art Chicago (apologies to the artist).

My favorite piece at Art Chicago, not just because I'm working on a show about dogs and not just because of the quirky juxtaposition of the fluffy poodle and a doomsday message (May 21st has come and gone and we're all still here).

I am finally tired of the unstable Missouri landscape. I spent a weekend in May at a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Wisconsin--tornado sirens went off there too.

Enough already--let us enjoy our poodles!

Public Sculpture in St. Louis

2011-04-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

photo by the author.

Prettiest piece of public art in St. Louis? This canopy by Liam Gillick at Centene's new headquarters in downtown Clayton, MO.

The parking structure (out of the picture, to the right) uses color to mark the levels. While this never makes sense in most parking structures (how many times do you still have to write down the floor number when parking in an urban area?), this one works.

I have no idea what the process was for choosing this artist, but whoever was involved--congratulations! See what a good budget for public art can do?

Learning on the Ground

2011-03-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

UMSL group at the Met, March 25, 2011.

I just returned from leading the 2011 Ferring Art and Art History Travel Study Program to New York. All happy faces, all tired feet!

We met with dealers like Jay Gorney to see the Kenneth Noland show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, artists such as Brad Kahlhamer and Ursula von Rydisgsvard, below.

We saw the George Condo and Lynda Benglis shows at The New Museum, Laurie Simmons at Salon 94 on the Bowery, Tim Rollins & K.O.S. at Lehmann Maupin and Paul Ramirez Jonas at Alexander Gray Associates.

Ursula von Rydingsvard at The Sculpture Center. photo by Dr. Karen Cummings.

What struck me most was how many significant, mid-career artists were in the museums and galleries. What a great time to re-invest in these important figures!

Not everything has to be about the go-go kids. Depth and wisdom do have great value in our marketable world.

Shout it Out!

2011-03-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

Washington University campus, St. Louis. photo courtesy the author.

Funny how bullhorns are creeping into my speech these days.

Protestors in the Middle East demanding the creation of civil society.

Protestors in the mid-west trying to stop the dismantling of civil society.

This eerie stage on Wash U's campus looks very Soviet-era, despite the neo-Gothic building in the background.

The speakers on top of the pavilion reminded me of when I was part of a union negotiating team when I worked at the Museum of Modern Art. PASTA-MoMA was part of the white collar division of the United Auto Workers--open shop, of course (this means employees were not obliged to pay union dues but they benefited from the union's work on their behalf).

The lawyer for MoMA complained one morning that he had $1 million worth of damage to trees on his property in Connecticut. We were trying to raise the minimum wage for the front desk workers who made $13,000 a year and had to speak two languages (this was around 1987). It's as if we were on different planets.

I am all for free markets but I believe in the Social Contract that provides a safety net for people less fortunate--like the millions laid off because of the global financial collapse. The arts are part of that civil society / Social Contract that I pay to support--that lots of people pay to support. The arts frame the value of life, giving it texture and meaning.

If we are all not trying to make everyone's life better, then we're in one big open shop--where the majority does the hard work while a minority benefits.

All of our nationals arts foundations--from museums and libraries to public radio and television--are under attack. If you haven't already I urge you to express yourself--even if you disagree with me, take a stand.

Modeling Business

2011-01-29T10:12:00.000-08:00

photo courtesy the author.

I am reading "Good to Great and the Social Sectors" by Jim Collins, lent to me by Amy Rome and Leslie Peters of The Rome Group. Amy and Leslie are guiding our Strategic Planning process at Laumeier. Focusing on our sustainable "business model" is the most important element for me in this exercise.

Diane Ragsdale's post, linked to by Andrew Taylor, below, is a helpful at-a-glance in thinking about the elements needed to explain a "business model":
http://www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager/main/back-to-business-models.php

Yet I like what Taylor (and Collins) say about replacing "value model" for "business model" in how non-profits "sell" their worth to funders and patrons alike.

In the 1980s the arts sector veered away from the intangible values arts organizations bring into the bean-counting territory favored by business leaders and politicians mindful of expenditures of public funds.

Perhaps it's time to re-import the "value" of our proposition back into our non-profit business models. Given the collapse of our economy and the threats to further de-funding, any and all new language we find could be enormously helpful to protect ourselves from the heathens at the door.

It's interesting to, in the same week, listen to radio stories about the creation of a national arts policy under President Kennedy while, simultaneously, the NEA et al are threatened with extinction.

Eliminating NPR and the NEA would not only cause more job losses but fatally crush those independent voices that are not about capital or the monitization of life. We need independent voices in this country when we are so in danger of losing our position as a global social and cultural leader.

Let's put "value" next to arts "business" to stave off the superficial attacks lobbied at us so we stop fighting this battle and instead focus on our social commitments to our constituents. When the economy improves it's crucial that the arts can again lead the country in making our citizens informed and engaged in civic life.

Southern Architecture

2011-01-02T18:08:00.001-08:00

Clinton Library, Little Rock, AR. all photos courtesy the author.

Kevin and I had some whiplash moments during our Southern tour. We left St. Louis and headed to Little Rock, Arkansas, to see the Clinton Library. A very chatty guard was pleased to tell us that, when in town, the Clintons stay on an apartment on top of this building. (See the slight roof-line on top?)

Should we know that? I asked him how they got up there--through the Library? Kevin said I shouldn't have asked so many questions. But what director wants a bunch of beefy Secret Security guys barging in at all hours of the day and night? I vote for an exterior elevator.

Scale West Wing Office.

Best room in the library: this scale model of the President's office. Made me think of Martin Sheen.

For every grand building we saw there was a tenfold volume of buildings that speak of economic decay. For every suspicious thing I've heard or seen about the South, in television, print or the movies, we saw inspiring spaces. For every hardscrabble burg we passed through we saw signs of incredible strength and human glory.

Central High, Little Rock.

What a grand building this is! I never saw the footage of the forced integration of American schools while in school in Canada so had no real idea of what the Little Rock 9 went through to get into this school. The National Parks Service building across the street had poignant, pointed footage on the racial divide that happened right there. The neighborhood around the school? Neglected, degraded. I wonder why?

Beer Can House, Houston.

I talked my family into taking an eating break to go to the Beer Can House (oh, we did do things other than eat and watch movies!) This lovely piece of folk art is trapped between two hideous apartment complexes--who's got the worse view, hmmm? I love the quirky quality of this kind of endeavor, even if it implies the author loved his six pack, just like Hank Hill.

Lower Ninth Ward homes.

While in New Orleans we went looking for the Brad Pitt-sponsored homes in the Lower Ninth Ward. Above, one of the houses that reinterprets the architectural vernacular of the region.

Old Lower Ninth Ward home.

As charming and playful as the new homes are, the area is still strewn with these former residential spaces. I would say 70% of the area is empty. Who is helping here, and why does much of the rest of New Orleans look similarly like ruins?

Downtown Jackson, Mississippi.

Never thought I'd be in Mississippi. The city fathers bulldozed their old downtown places just as efficiently as did towns across the country. This block cringes in the shadow of the larger corporate spaces around it--will these poor lost buildings be saved, or sacrificed, in this latest round of economic downturn? Hard not to think of the Great Depression, or even William Christenberry, when going through this area.

Lorraine Motel, Memphis.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis embraces the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. When open, visitors can actually go into the rooms above, where King and his associates were staying. Across the street you can stand in the (assumed) location where the murderer stood.

It was haunting to be put in the place of the real protagonists in this pivotal moment of American history. What other artifacts could convey this trauma other than the real spaces where real bodies reside?

The second part of the museum, located on the "bad" (aka murderous) side of the street, explored the various controversies around the King assassination. Mafia, CIA, crackpots all are implicated. (I was shocked to learn that Ray, a Missouri State Penitentiary escapee, had fake Canadian passports to help him move around more easily. How could he NOT have had help?)

It was a very moving experience to see this museum and read a narrative that was bracing and pointed about the social issues swirling around at the time. Hard not to compare and contrast today's society with the issues King was fighting--entrenched poverty, class discrimination, etc... Moving and tough.

Elvis basement.

What better to wash away Southern grit than with Southern flair? Elvis's home was not the McMansion I thought it would be. That his "man cave", above, was in the basement is astounding given Elvis's international reach. The large but, by today's standards, small crib is a testament to not over-spending--on your home, anyway!

Architecture is the thing that we all live in, whether we pay attention to it or not. Architecture is the first one up, the last one down in a good / bad economy. That these experiences were not a flush or over-bearing visual stimulation but rather sought-out experiences tells us about the lack of density in the South. Perhaps it's a good thing that these communities have not over-built--perhaps that temerity is what will save them.

Portable, Storable Collection

2010-12-29T06:11:00.001-08:00

Bill and Hillary cookie cutters from the Clinton Library, Little Rock, AR. photos courtesy the author.

As my search for the perfect floaty pen continues I believe I have run across a new small collectible: cookie cutters.

Above are two from the Clinton Library's store in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.

I love that they have a sense of humor about eating either Clinton's head!

Saints cookie cutter, New Orleans.

The down side of this art form is that you better check the work--this cookie cutter from the French Quarter was sub-standard work.

These may be the new small collection that I try, I look forward to understanding what they mean about us.

On the Road Again

2010-12-21T04:40:00.000-08:00

Hot mulled wine with pomegranate, cinnamon and star anise.

Kevin and I head out on our holiday road trip, but first, tonight, staff party at my house.

I made a new hot mulled wine recipe last night--I love digging the pomegranate seeds out, it feels very true to the season but I don't care for the streaks of red juice that I found everywhere!

Maple leaf cookies.

Happy holidays everyone, I'll write from the road!

Clue: Art World Version

2010-12-17T15:23:00.000-08:00

Part of "Solve the Art Forgery" area at The Magic House, St. Louis.

I've been feeling pretty guilty about not going through all the images I took in Miami two weeks ago (the warm weather seems long long ago and far far away), but the image above, taken during a recent tour of The Magic House, brought me back to my senses.

The Magic House is a great, rambling children's museum run by Beth Fitzgerald and her team. I laughed out loud at a lot of the inventive elements of the Museum, particularly the art whoddunit that included a secret sliding bookshelf and a tube to slide between floors.

The panel above lays out the various suspects in a forgery case, with a CSI-type set of clues leading the kids down the path (evidently the Nanny was looking guilty to that day's kids). The signboard made me wonder: what are the "types" in the art world that are guilty, or innocent? Below are some of the types I found in Miami:

The dealer: This work by Mounir Fatmi was at Lombard-Freid Projects. I've worked with Lea and Jane over the past decade because of our common interests. I loved Fatmi's combination of Muslim prayer rugs with hip hop culture.

The jokester: Gimhongsok's bronze trash bag dog is part Jeff Koons, part mourning of the way we treat other species as throw-aways. As a Korean I assume the artist eats dog--it's on many menus there--so garbage is in the eye of the beholder.

The pioneer: Sam Durant has created numerous bodies of works that dig into influential, if deliberately neglected, episodes in American culture, such as the Black Panthers' resistance to racism in America and the colonization of this continent by white settlers. These three fallen soldiers are funny and somehow deservedly buffeted historical figures.

The entertainer: Judy Wethein's lovely video of a Colombian group singing the American national anthem with their own localized additions was charming, and sad, a little clowning bathos to sober up the frenzy of the fair.

The criminal: Need I say more?

These were but a few of the types I met at the fair.

The ones I like the best are the agitators, the artists who press us to answer questions about why we're here, what we've done and why we're not guilty.

Beach Bums All

2010-12-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

Dennis Hopper Self-Portrait with Rock and Cactus, 2010

I arrived in Miami yesterday afternoon for ArtBasel Miami. I've run into to many colleague and friends, saw some good, some mediocre work, things I will pursue down the road.

This work, however, stopped me in my tracks. I didn't get a sense of self-reflection, frankly, this felt like a Llyn Foulkes work depicting him as between a rock and a hard place, which Hopper hardly was. He passed away recently but I suspect his work will go up in value now.

Ah, the market.

We went to a great party at the Bass Museum of Art last night, the opening launch of their three year Caribbean initiative with Puma.Creative. Fantastic. A few years ago the Bass was a sleepy forgotten outlet; now, with the beautiful front entrance park that bounds Collins Avenue, I know the director and pal Silvia Cubina is going to make this place rock.

More soon.

New Orleans Part II

2010-11-21T18:56:00.001-08:00

Terrell House, New Orleans. All photos courtesy the author unless otherwise noted.

I was in New Orleans during the weekend of November 12 for the opening of Brandon Anschultz's Kranzberg series show that Laumeier Sculpture Park co-organized with the Longue Vue House and Gardens. Laumeier's director of exhibitions and collections Kim Humphries, curator of the show, and his partner Sarah Colby and I flew to New Orleans on Friday to see the show. We stayed at the Terrell House on Magazine Street--what a treat!

Brandon Anschultz work at Longue Vue. Photo courtesy Sarah Colby.

Longue Vue's director Joe Baker make the entire home available to Brandon, who made a glorious range of small sculptural interventions throughout the Stern's mansion. The video work in the living room tv cabinet was particularly hysterical; it was as if a manic maid found hair and dust just after the Stern's left the room.

Street corner in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Sarah, Kim and I spent Saturday looking at art in New Orleans. We ran into a funeral parade on Treme Street--hauntingly appropriate in light of the fabulous series on HBO. Surreal and exquisite at the same time.

Parade as it flowed down the street.

I couldn't quite read the image on the t-shirts that many of the parade followers wore, but as we tried to track them in the neighborhood, they disappeared, like the ghost of the dead child on the shirt.

Parade as they passed us by.

Saturday was also the opening of Prospect 1.5 events.

Rashaad Newsome at Good Children.

The video by Rashaad Newsome at Good Children was particularly beautiful. African American women on a stage played a call-and-response to the women on the screen, the subject of the video being responsibility. No excuses, the singers seemed to say, take responsibility. There was no information on context but the work was beautifully produced and mournful, like the afternoon parade.

Performance at The Front.

The show at The Front, across from Good Children, was equally engaging but for different reasons.

We visited another gallery but were quite disappointed by what we saw. A great accidental dinner at Dominique's capped a great weekend.

White chocolate crocodile at the N.O. airport.

When I was in New Orleans many years ago visiting a friend we went to the zoo and saw their albino crocodile. The beast looked like a creepy, haunted white asparagus, so when it raised its head to yell, it packed quite a kick. When I saw this chocolate souvenir at the airport I laughed out loud--the ghost of the crocodile returns!

New Orleans is in the throes of an artistic change, and I hope Laumeier can continue the dialogue with the city that spawned so much of contemporary St. Louis.

The Future of Museums

2010-10-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

Bookmark from Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, an AIDS-support organization in New York.

What is the future of museums? What about non-profits in general, from health care and social services to micro-loans for veterans? How will museums stack up against social organizations as the economy continues to reform itself? These are urgent questions--now where to find the answers?

I was recently accepted into the Nonprofit Services Center's Women's Leadership Academy for Executive Directors. I got notice just a week before the Academy started--evidently I'm the first arts person to participate and finding an underwriter was tough. (An aside: the Arts and Education Council will henceforth sponsor an arts leader--a great boost for our team!) Through the Women's Academy I have met a woman who started her non-profit using running to build confidence in girls and a woman who organizes small business loans for returning veterans. The group presents an impressive array of talents and passions dedicated to making the region better.

Despite the diversity of the non-profits in this year's Academy, our problems are very similar, but it's clear that we in the arts need to speak differently.

We've tried touting the uplifting, unquantifiable benefits of culture for social growth as our defense. We've tracked numbers to demonstrate our value as an education / entertainment outlet. We've generated economic impact numbers to show our contributions to society's health. What else can the arts do to defend themselves in this economy?

Director's Forum panel "Investing in Consultant: The Value of an Objective Perspective", left to right: Kevin Grogan, The Morris Museum; Lisbeth Mark, Jeanne Collins & Associates; Susan Kreeger, Real HR Solutions; Shirley Ferguson Jenks, Jenks Group; Richard W. Franklin, Exhibits Coalition.

In addition to the conversations I've been having at the Nonprofit Services Center meetings, this past week I attended a Director's Forum run by the Art Museum Partnership, based in New York. The title of the program was "Survival Strategies for the Recession-Weary Leader."

While I'm not sure the conference stuck closely to the overarching topic, and we didn't share new fund-raising secrets, I did learn some interesting / shocking things:

1. The Association of Art Museum Directors estimates that 75% of current museum directors will retire within 10 years. As a result AAMD is instituting its own training programs.

AAMD has been behind the eight ball on this; museum directors and curators from smaller organizations have turned recently to the management programs at Columbia University and the Getty to gain expertise and mentoring. I suspect the AAMD's program may cut into these existing programs as a way to keep itself relevant to the field.

2. AAMD is (finally) opening up its membership beyond 200, which made it exclusive and exclusionary, to allow organizations with budgets lower than today's floor of about $2.5 million.

What this said to me: It sounds like the AAMD recognizes a need to move into the 21st marketplace and diversify to younger leaders, women and minorities, and to consider how this next generation (myself included) will change the field. It's exciting that this group is shaking itself up to address the pressing needs seen and felt across the field. AAMD walks a fine line between support and advocacy, but they need to take a more active leadership role on behalf of all of us.

3. Many museum boards hire a search firm to replace directors, and you are only considered for such posts if you are in the head-hunter's Rolodex (this from Becky Klein of Phillips Oppenheim.) What a shock: what of America's famed meritocracy? This was the most chilling fact.

In light of the AAMD's recognition of a crisis of succession it seems that head hunters need to broaden their own practice and allow for new candidates to break into the hallowed halls of museum practice. Perhaps this explains how conservative and homogeneous large museums have become--because the candidate pool is so small?

Sign on side of van in Chelsea area.

I saw this sign while touring galleries in Chelsea with some St. Louis friends after my conference was over, and somehow the discrepancy between "perfection" and scratched signage suggests the dilemma non-profits have in today's world.

How to meet a set of standards--both your own and the community's--when funds are fleeting and fickle? How can smaller arts organizations present world-class quality when they are barely heard above the cacophony of the marketplace? What, indeed, will we look like in 10 years when 75% of today's museum leaders retire? All compelling questions, I look forward to helping sort this out.

Justice for the Margins

2010-10-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yoshitomo Nara show at the Institute of Visual Arts (inova), Milwaukee, 2006. photo courtesy inova.

A friend brought this recent article in the New York Post to my attention--it's as if someone has been tracking me, like some caribou in the Arctic Circle.

New York Post "Urban Renewal", September 13, 2010

I have written about the different places I have lived over the past two decades: Seattle, Milwaukee, Phoenix and now St. Louis. (This excludes the big cities of New York and Los Angeles, but ignoring them makes the following point even more pointed.)

These housing acrobatics seem counter-intuitive to pursuing a "straight" path on a career ladder, but life isn't straight, is it?

Ragna Robertsdottir at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007. photo courtesy SMoCA.

What these cities brought me were unparalleled opportunities for professional and personal growth. How else could I have visited Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom over the past fifteen years? Displacement is an important part of shaking up your world view.

Rebecca Belmore and Osvaldo Yero mold for work on the US / Mexico border. photo courtesy F.A.R. (Future Arts Research) @ ASU.

I'm thinking about displacement because of an event last night. I was part of a celebration of the University of Missouri-St. Louis' Ferring Art and Art History Travel Program (named for Alison and John Ferring, two of the city's best philanthropists), held at William Shearburn Gallery in the Central West End.

The event, founded by Dr. Susan Cahan formerly of UMSL, gives 10 or so students free trips to art centers around the country. Susan left in 2009 to work at Yale, and I have taken over the program in her absence. Last March I took the group to New York. I worked them to the bone for four full days--that was my goal!

At Shearburn Gallery last night, three of the 12 students talked about their experiences in NY and how it challenged them and changed them.

Ahmet Ogut work produced in PHX and part of my up-coming show with Ogut at Laumeier Sculpture Park. photo courtesy the artist, Amsterdam.

It was a pleasure to hear, again, the impact the trip had on the students. I thought about the first time I set foot in New York--I emerged from the subway to see a collapsed crane strapped against the side of a skyscraper (the trigger to my dislike of cranes on buildings). I know the Ferring trip could play the same life-changing role.

Since good art is everywhere, what is important for an arts career is knowing what is happening elsewhere. Sure, you can just be interested just in what's happening on your block, but I'm more interested in the expansive mind, not the small one. Think small and big!

I am gearing up to organize the 2011 Ferring trip, we'll likely go to New York again because of the density of the experience. And for those students who have never been on a plane or out of St. Louis, watch out, a growth spurt is coming!

This is the great part about teaching--the change is immediately apparent. Yet part of the goal for the students when they return is to figure out how to contribute to making St. Louis vibrant by seeing the energy of other places.

Again, travel is a great teacher in the appreciation of self and others.

Muscular Abstraction

2010-10-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

Donald Judd Untitled, 1984. Photo: Mike Venso, courtesy Laumeier Sculpture Park

Much of the collection at Laumeier Sculpture Park is minimal, geometric, abstract. This is a function of the era of our founding, of course, and likely the taste of many of the patrons who contributed works or paid for purchases.

Yet muscular abstraction is also a function of the history of our place. St. Louis was not just a gateway to the west, it was a hard-working, hard-polluting, hard metal kind of town, where steamboats and cross-country travelers could gird up for their trip out west. Our landscape is still scattered with lead mines (and salt mines) that helped fuel travel throughout the booming 19th century.

Richard Serra, Twain, 1982. Photo from St. Louis Art Map

The much-maligned Twain, by Richard Serra, in downtown St. Louis, caused an uproar. The process of putting art in the public realm took the biggest hit, but the conversation around art took another. What is it about the work that created so much hatred? Is it because Serra's hard-edged work undermined the fluffy city-building happening around it? Is it because Serra's work made the bad architecture downtown seem that much worse? Is it because Serra reminded people of its now-disappeared working-class roots?

Flood gates, Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. Photo by the author.

The best piece of muscular public sculpture I've seen recently is this flood door, near the ferry landing at Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. The enormous doors hardly seem sufficient to keep out the kind of deluge that has happened here over time--Ste. Genevieve had to move from its original position at the water's edge in the late 18th century--but I'm sure they've worked out the technology.

This piece of public art is a reminder of the area's lifeline, but it is hidden away from the tourists to this hard-scrabble town and its examples of French Colonial architecture.

Sculpture is best when it reminds us of what and who we are. The Judd, above, reminds me of the primitive boxes of so much human habitation over time; the Serra, the complex forms that humans can make in the city.

The flood doors remind me simply that Mother Nature is the basis for everything we can and will ever do.

Aesthetics of Ink

2010-10-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Bavarian floaty pen. photo courtesy the author.

Many years ago my friend Diane showed me a part of her floaty pen collection. I was charmed--a collection that is affordable, portable and storable by the average person!

I began collecting floaty pens for her when I traveled, and have become an afficionado of the genre. I've mentioned this to other people who began bringing them to me, so now that I've got a mini-collection (20 against Diane's 200+), I buy two wherever I go.

During one trip to Denmark for an IKT conference several years ago, Diane charged me with buying up to $100 worth of pens at one of the two big floaty pen factories in Europe (the other is in Italy), but I never got out of Copenhagen for the a shopping spree. Too bad. When you start looking at the pens you can tell which are better made. It's all part of the aesthetic.

There are several styles of floaty pens, the predominate one being a tourist kchothke like the one from Bavaria, above. This includes Dutch on bicycles, Finns ski jumping, bluebirds underneath the St. Louis arch. I get it, but it's not that interesting.

Some pens evidence a sense of humor, but these are harder to find. The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas (which recently closed) had a floaty pen of hands moving across the keyboard. I would have liked one of Liberace dressed in some frou frou feather coat with air blowing it up to reveal--what? In any case, I now judge an institution or organizations' sense of humor, or lack thereof, based on their floaty pen.

Mustachioed Mt. Rushmore.

A floaty pen with a sense of humor includes the Mt. Rushmore mustache pen, above, although this is not the "official" pen of the historic site. It seems there is a new breed of entrepreneur who is producing these pens and having a good time doing it!

The best pen I've ever seen is one in Diane's collection. A cow moves slowly into a barn, placed at the mid-point of the glass capsule of the floaty pen, and comes out a hamburger on the other side. Now that's aesthetic transformation! Droll commentary on industrial farming? All-in-all, this is the one pen that sets the design standards for them all.

Kevin thinks my adopted floaty-pen obsession is a scam--for whom, me or Diane? We both are getting them for free. In either case we both get to imagine other places and experiences through the pens that make the way back into our lives. This, ultimately, is why people collect anything at all.

Aesthetics of Alcohol

2010-09-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Pabst Brewery c. 1850s. all pictures courtesy the author.

It seems that beer is a common element in my blog posts recently, a function of where I live, not what I imbibe.

After a recent tour to the Annheiser-Busch brewery in St. Louis with Diane, I've been thinking about the disappearing aesthetics of the German beer-making traditions in the Midwest.

Last night, after the terrible movie Agora, Kevin and I went over to a bar recently opened up in the Pabst Brewery complex in downtown Milwaukee.

I found a few funny pictures in the photo album laid out on the bar. I love the unpaved streets and horse-drawn carriages in the picture above.

Shuttered distribution building.

This is what the area looks like now. I prefer the lack of paving to this dumpy view.

The bar was opened in the former gift shop, with a few lovely courtyards open for outdoor drinking. The Blue Ribbon Hall had rows of heavy wooden tables laid out--they've recuperated some of the beer hall aesthetic.

Blue Ribbon Hall, partially reconditioned.

The bartender gave us a flyer for a play to be held in this space in early September. The play, presented by the Damned Theatre, is "A Rising Wind: The Sinking of the Lady Elgin", written by Edward Morgan and John Kishline. The sinking of the Elgin shifted the ethnic population of Milwaukee from Irish to German (but I'm sure the Italians benefited from it too!). I wouldn't say that the Pabst people understand the interesting social aspects of this, to them it's likely a rental, but still, I love the merging of art with such an historic place.

Blue Ribbon Hall fresco.

Around the walls of the Blue Ribbon Hall and the smaller private drinking room are grisaille (well, mostly blue and red, the Pabst colors) frescoes by the Chicago artist Edgar Miller.

Private drinking room.

The octagonal shape made me think of the Knights of the Round Table, only with a glaring fluorescent fixture ruining the atmosphere.

Ten disciplines of beer.

You can find murals in many of the well-known German places in town--from Usinger's Sausage to Von Trier's Tavern--and they vary in quality and imagination. I liked how these drew aesthetic reference from illustrated medieval manuscripts.

Beer was, before the 20th century, seen as much as a good calorie source to stave off starvation as it was drink. But perhaps this fresco goes a little far in visually equating beer consumption with The Last Supper? At least there are only 10 in the scene, not 12.

Groucho Marx at the brewery.

The Pabst Brewery closed in 1997 when corporate headquarters moved to San Antonio, Texas.

The aesthetics of place surely impacted what Pabst presented to the world. As corporations change shift to take advantage of tax laws, they lose the texture and authenticity so valued by consumers of today's disembodied world.

Dusk on a rainy Sunday night in Pabst alley.

This area at night is absolutely desolate. No homeless, no kids, no sketchy acts, just a long-neglected part of the city's history tossed aside. Given the great investments being made in reviving this kind of space, I suspect the aesthetics of beer will see a renaissance soon.

Start of School

2010-08-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

UMSL office chair. All images courtesy the author.

In addition to my duties at Laumeier Sculpture Park, I am the Aronson Endowed Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

This semester I am teaching a 4393 course, "Art Museum and Gallery Management", to an all-female class of art history, design and liberal arts majors.

Re-reading the readings.

I've taught a lot over the years, but never such a sustained, focused course as this. I have a lot of material in hand that has influenced me, but this has been an extraordinary chance to review why I am where I sit. (In orange, evidently.)

What most strikes me is that I never stop learning--I read constantly, I have a stack of eight books waiting for me (well, they are mostly summer reading, but still!). How do I get through all the things I want to read?

Luckily, the smart Aronsons (Judy and Adam) stipulated an endowment at UMSL that supports my work at both Laumeier and UMSL. I did a small book shopping spree on amazon yesterday to get the students more up-dated materials.

This is my dream: to be paid to think about art.

Continued aesthetics of the road

2010-08-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

Inside the locked bathroom, trying to get out. All pictures courtesy the author.

After a rather funny start to the weekend (it was the modern lock not the old door that was the problem), Kevin and I had a trip road trip to Waupaca with pals Diane and John, Mary Louise and Ken.

It's not so often we adults take this kind of trip with friends, and despite the brief trip (two hours each way compared to four days one way when I moved to St. Louis with Mary Louise as the navigator), we still had a great time.

Navigational tools.

We had Google Map directions, several iphones and a gps, but the old-fashioned Gazeteer still ruled the day on the smaller country roads (where county road BB meets the KK, by the herd of black cattle.) Diane won the round!

Welcome to the inn.

Mary Louise booked us into a charming inn, which used to be an enormous working orchard, now with about seven acres of land and glorious river frontage.

Big old hollow, yet still producing, apple tree with a ladder supporting its tired arm.

We had dinner at Simpson's, a local supper club, and given the hour, we returned to the inn to yak and enjoy our time together (while avoiding an amazing gully washer of a storm).

Ken, John, Diane (with bug spray and camera) and Kevin walking down to the lovely Chrystal River.

Diane and I saw a huge heron taking off from its hiding place at the lagoon during our pre-breakfast walk (what a feast we were for mosquitoes), and later ran into a doe, whose path we were clearly blocking.

Diane at corn stand.

We stopped for corn and a few other vegetables--the corn was chewy, evidently, but it had integrity.

What a great set of visuals from yet another great trip down some back roads.

Poor Farm ahoy!

2010-08-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

The Poor Farm, friends out front. All pictures by the author.

I spent the last weekend of my Milwaukee vacation with partner Kevin J. Miyazaki (see his blog post), friends Mary Louise Schumacher (her post) and Diane Bacha (her blog), Ken Hanson and John Koethe up in the Waupaca, Wisconsin area to attend the opening weekend of The Poor Farm, an art / educational laboratory by Chicago-based artists Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam.

The three floors (and several projects outside, which I didn't see because of the frightful mosquito quotient) featured a series of artist projects, poetic meditations and mini-surveys of the work of Moira Roth, a much-honored art historian who has chronicled and participated in the feverish events of the American avant garde since the 1960s.

Michelle Grabner and Moira Roth, with knitting chair by Modesto Covarrubias, The Knitter, 2007-2010, behind.

We were lucky to walk through the spaces with Moira to understand the conceptual rooms of her mind and career, seeing how the seemingly-disparate artist projects reflected a disciplined and curious art historian's work.

Poems by Moira Roth, pictures by Slobodan Dan Paich.

I had most recently read Moira's work when doing a project with Nancy Spero, but hers is a career that has influenced countless generations of artists and art historians looking to make sense of the world through art.

History room.

One of the recently cleaned-up upstairs rooms of the 8,000 square foot former farm for the indigent (then a retirement home) housed a set of overlapping, intertwined history that feminist historians like Roth brought to legitimacy in the arts.

Books and texts focused on the 80th birthday of African-American artist Faith Ringgold; documents by Mary Jane Jacob and Russell Lewis on the Women's Building in Chicago, 1893; 19th century African-American history ranging from the tale of escaped slave Caroline Quarlls (who took the underground railroad to Wisconsin, a free state) to W.E.B. Du Bois; to a scattering of documents on the history of Native Americans in Wisconsin.

Roth, Jacobs and Linda Nochlin (who wrote a lovely poem about not being able to make it to Waupaca), are pioneers in a multi-layered multiculturalism which is at the heart of my curatorial practice.

The quiet, meditative quality of the weekend was underscored by the pleasure of lounging around outside drinking Veuve Cliquot and talking with really smart artists, art historians, poets and designers. Wisconsin is a great laboratory these days.

On vacation.

2010-08-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

photo by Kevin J. Miyazaki.

I'm on vacation this week--well, faux vacation, since I've got to finish my essay for the Ahmet Ogut show I'm organizing this October, and working on the 4000 level course I'm teaching at the University of Missouri-St. Louis starting at the end of the month.

still from Baraboo from inside Kathy & Duane's kitchen.

But still, I'm in Milwaukee with Kevin and pals and enjoying working at home in casual clothes. We've already had dinner outside at a friend's house and watched the movie Baraboo and attended the JACL (Japanese American Citizen's League) picnic (with bingo sharks in the group).

fruit tart for JACL picnic.

This is a great time to reflect on all the changes of the past year--and to think about all the changes to come in my second year at Laumeier Sculpture Park.

Happy August to all you Leos in the crowd!

St. Louis Weekend, part III

2010-07-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

CAMP on Cherokee Street. all pictures courtesy the author.

Last weekend was the 5 th Annual City-Wide Open Studios program organized by the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. With 155 artists / locations / organizations open Saturday or Sunday, visitors can get an interesting sense of the dynamic emerging arts community in St. Louis.

Lindsey Scott work / collaboration at C.A.M.P.

I chose Saturday as my day of braving Phoenix-like weather (estimated 105 heat index) and started on Cherokee Street, an historical, beat-up South City street with families eating Mexican food outside under small umbrellas (a nostalgic Phoenix moment), kids hanging around in a grocery store run by a Somali family and young African American guys with their shirts off amidst shoppers enjoying the street.

The co-op non-profit gallery / art space C.A.M.P. gives classes to neighborhood kids, has two artists-in-residence and hosts community meetings. I particularly liked the mountain made of fabric, including what appeared to be socks turned inside-out.

I ran into artist Bridget Kraft (I bought one of her knit hats on a decidedly colder day), who makes lovely formal landscapes out of fabric.

Bridget Kraft installation at C.A.M.P.

Next Firecracker Press, great atmosphere, love the pillows (more pillows!) Visited with artist Marie Oberkirsch, who has a studio downstairs and does great purses.

Firecracker Press.

"Cafe" (no coffee) at Luminary Arts.

Next stop, The Luminary Center for the Arts, founded by artists Brie and husband James. They bought / rent the building, a former religious school, and converted the cells / bedrooms into small studios for artists.

I liked this video by Brian De Pauli, whose beer-can beating protagonist recalled the struggles William Kentridge's characters suffer in his operatic works. Somehow dealing with personal demons feels right in this context.

Brian De Pauli video.

Even this small slice of artistic output in St. Louis was fun to taste--this is a vibrant, smart community that demonstrates when artists stick around after school, things happen.

Along the Missouri

2010-07-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Lewis & Clark statue in Seaside, OR. pictures courtesy the author

I just spent a few days in Cannon Beach, Oregon, at the Miyazaki family reunion--what a glory to have cool nights, a beach and bonfire at your front door.

In addition to relaxing, groups dinners, sand castles and a rain forest hike, we did some touring around to Seaside, OR, where I found the statue above. Lewis & Clark wintered in the area in 1805, camping, uninvited, on Clatsop nation land just south of what is now Astoria, OR.

Fort Clatsup, OR.

In addition to this lovely recreation of L & C's fort, there were great educational programs. A park ranger, dressed as a 19th century fur trapper, played a game of "telephone" with five volunteers to show how tough negotiating was for the Americans--they went from English to French to Hidatsu to Shoshone to Clatsup to trade one horse.

A brief film presented the Corps' presence from the side of the Clatsup--one of the chief's descendants played a role, and another woman talked about the misunderstandings, the thefts, the conflicting social rules.

Missed translations, beginning and ending of empires--it all seems so current.

Doing the People's Work

2010-06-15T13:51:00.001-07:00

Inside the Renwick Gallery. all photos courtesy the author.

I'm just wrapping up a day in D.C. doing the people's business. I've gone through jury duty twice recently--both in Phoenix, oddly enough--but I never get on the jury. Perhaps being of a certain age gives you both knowledge and baggage that could be compromising in that kind of context?

But when I review proposals for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a state or city arts organization, I feel I am contributing my expertise to the benefit of public culture. Given the intelligent level of discussion that goes on in D.C. with regards to our field, I feel proud of my professional colleagues and the hard-working staff at our nation's agencies.

Romaine Brooks, Self-Portrait, 1923

The secondary benefit, of course, to being in D.C. is to experience more art. Yesterday's menu: The Renwick Gallery, the International Spy Museum and the National Building Museum.

The Renwick had a great show The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946. Sadly the catalogue was sold out, but there were some lovely gems in the show, including a work by Noguchi (not made while he was in camp). Noguchi was outside the affected zone for internment, but the US government suggested he go into the camps willingly to demonstrate that the camps weren't bad. Noguchi was assured he could leave when he wanted to, but when he asked to be released, they kept him inside.

Next was the International Spy Museum. I learned that the Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti invented the cipher disc which has been used for centuries to encode messages. See how an artist's unique training can generate something used for good (and bad of course)?

Finally a stop at the National Building Museum for a show about the architecture of parking ramps, a necessary modern evil. Given that America is grappling with the problem of automobiles, after conquering this unruly country through its use, we should see parking ramps as a soon-to-be-relic. A thousand years from now, archaeologists will wonder what we worshiped in these temples.

In any case, what I take away from these few days in D.C. is that, from its beginning, this country saw the arts as an important part of its self-definition--look at the variety of organizations one can visit in an afternoon. It is also noteworthy that museums are willing to take on an episode as shameful as the jailing of American citizens due to prejudice and fear. That is the democratic voice expressed through objects.

It is clear, however, that we are at a crossroads in describing the arts' value in and to civil society. We in the non-profit arts need to reaffirm the value we have in light of permanently diminished funding by re-imagining, as artists do, what the democratic ideal can be.

Hawk on Havel

2010-05-24T20:26:00.001-07:00

Hawk on top of work by Joe Havel, May 2010. all photos, unless otherwise noted, are by the author.

One of the dilemmas we've debated at Laumeier is how to explain to the public that a bird can sit on a sculpture, but they can't. Since scolding doesn't seem to work, what new language do we use to get dog-walkers and babysitters not to damage the art?

detail of Laumeier's new limited edition t-shirt.

My initial idea of a t-shirt that said "you break it, you buy it" didn't fly with staff, so we modified our ideas and are just coming out with our first limited edition t-shirt (check our website soon to order yours!)

To address this issue of art safety (damage to surfaces, breaking parts) and public (falling off tall objects, breaking bones) safety, and the needs for interpreting the collection and why we exist, we've just finished Phase I of our Wayfinding Iniative.

This has been an incredibly fast-paced program, spear-headed by Mike Venso, Laumeier's pr and marketing director, who wrote his UMSL exit paper on Wayfinding at Laumeier. But the program never would have happened without good friend Patrick Castro, of LP/w Design Studios, Milwaukee, who offered his amazing design talents to help us communicate directly to our public.

Wayfinding kiosk. photo by Mike Venso.

In the four sides of the kiosks, we have written to "Place" (above); "Welcome", which talks about our supporters and how we got here; "Respect", or why we ask you not to touch; and "Explore", where you find a nice big map for orientation. The kiosks have been an incredible change in how audiences can use the park.

We are gearing up to complete the blind maquettes (with support from Lighthouse for the Blind), and will shortly begin working on a narrative arc for the park.

This will take time, but in the meantime, that hawk and its mate have great perches on top of our art!

St. Louis Weekend, part II

2010-04-28T04:38:00.001-07:00

Budweiser sign at Anheuser-Busch plant. All images courtesy the author.

Another wacky weekend in the Lou.

Diane and I visited all kinds of new places in town last weekend, with interesting and unintended consequences.

Before you judge us for going to the A-B plant, ask your arty self: why not? We saw some lovely aesthetic things, things you would never see in a business plant today. Draft horses, round buildings with stained glass windows, historic brick buildings made to school the worker's kids. An interesting lesson for corporate responsibility? I know the logic came from somewhere else, but still, an intriguing comparison.

A-B bottling building.

Horse and dog art.

Diane being from Milwaukee there was the inevitable check list comparing the A-B tour to the Miller tour. Points off A-B: not enough information about St. Louis and its relationship to A-B, limited sampling tastes--Milwaukee knows its audience!--they tried to give our tour group the bum's rush to accommodate the next group. Diane and I have pledged to try the Miller tour soon to fill in these blanks.

Diane at player piano.

Then off to the Scott Joplin House, where he lived for two or four years. Player piano was not his. None of the furniture, decorations, player rolls were his. Sad that such an important figure was so little preserved! (Perhaps the syphyllis had something to do with it?)

Diane at Tado Ando pool at Pulitzer Foundation.

Turtle at Laumeier.

After the terrible rainstorm (I swear we saw part of the tornado that touched down in University City), we drove to Laumeier where the air was clear and the animals were out. What bizarre sounds emanated from the fountain by Trova Woods!

Tree down.

Proof of the tornado that hit U-City. This tree was across the street from my house, and made a surreal end to a fun day.

St. Louis Weekend

2010-04-23T04:52:00.000-07:00

Nicolas Point, Altar in a Tipi, c. 1841-47, watercolor on paper, Saint Louis University Art Museum. All pictures courtesy the author.

Kevin and I spent last Saturday visiting places new to us.

First stop were the galleries at St. Louis University Museum of Art and the show Crossing the Divide: Jesuits on the American Frontier. The quirky, Romanesque (I mean the period of art history) diary drawings by Jesuit Nicolas Point captured moments of great humor and great horror as the indigenous peoples of North America were slowly being surrounded by settlers. Point showed a great deal of bathos towards his tutors / charges of the various Native Nations.

The image above, of an altar in a tipi, shows the Jesuit's efforts to integrate Catholicism into local conditions. I think the simplicity of the tipi's triangle is nicely menaced by the smoke plume to the right (not mentioned in Point's notes).

Interior of Cathedral Basilica St. Louis.

Carrying along our religious theme we stopped at the Cathedral Basilica St. Louis, a lovely early 20th century church that is super-loaded with Byzantine-style mosaics. Kevin pointed how how the wall labels explained how the master mosaic mason--he--would do the work.

The pictures were all of female artisans though, a funny twist to the authoritarian text. Still, I loved the light that played between the walls of the space.

Painting by Dhruvi Acharya, Webster University.

Next on to Webster University to see Bring Me a Lion, a show of contemporary Indian art. In the typically small university art space was a densely-packed exhibition of great ambition but sadly without enough air to breathe--I vote for more space for the gallery! Still, what a great opportunity for the students, good for the faculty that fights for this educational program.

I particularly liked the works by Dhruvi Acharya, her comic-book bubbles puckering and blistering the mottled, skin-like surface of her paintings with terse observations and pleading requests.

Kevin at Riddles before the fights broke out.

After seeing the movie Greenberg at the Tivoli--save yourself grief and money, skip that mess--we walked across the street to Riddle's for dinner. The entire street was alive mostly with teenagers, who broke into a few fights while we were out. Like kids around the globe, they need more things to do at night to let their energy out!

A great day in St. Louis, which continues to unfold with surprising pockets of culture that speak to the histories that have formed this place.

LA in Da House

2010-04-09T05:17:00.001-07:00

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.

Spring, at last!

2010-04-07T04:09:00.001-07:00

Spring has hit Laumeier Sculpture Park--finally!

Everyone has told me that the weather in St. Louis this year has been unusual, from the soggy October through some bitter cold days and snow (though thank goodness we didn't get socked like the East Coast).

This past weekend, while artist Mark Newport was doing a gallery talk and hosting a "knit-in" in the park, the grounds put on a fabulous display.

The colored landscape, dotted with trees abloom in white, pink and purple, made the winter worth it!

Heaven on Earth

2010-04-02T04:33:00.001-07:00

Fuzzy fugitive photo by furtive fan.

I am still recovering from a four-day trip I led to New York with students from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Along with colleagues Dr. Ruth Bohan, chair of art and art history, and Gretchen Schisla, graphic design professor, we ran 12 students all around town.

It was exhausting but a lot of fun. Everyone was engaged, even if quiet, eyes were wide open. That was the goal!

The program, founded by former UMSL professor Susan Cahan, who is now at Yale, is an amazing program whereby students travel for free, (almost) all expenses paid for the trip. Friday we were at MoMA for four hours, with tours by Connie Butler, head of drawings, Emily Talbot, assistant in prints and illustrated books, with time for William Kentridge and Yin Xiuzhe. Then Marian Goodman, Greenberg VanDoren Gallery, a tour of Pentagram, then up to the Whitney for a tour and brief introduction by Biennial co-curator Gary Carrion-Murayami.

Then, the Met.

My favorite areas of the Met are the proto-Renaissance galleries, Velazquez, the Oceania rooms, Greek & Roman glass.

But they had up a show that made me weep with joy.

The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry was an exquisite show. Each page was mounted in a two-sided glass sheet so I could poke my nose in as close as I could, sans glasses.

I felt shivers of recognition with the works, thinking about the first time I was ever abroad, visiting the cool Gothic cathedrals all over France. I remembered taking an early winter train to Padua to see the Arena Chapel by Giotto, poking my head out of a round window in a foot-thick earthen wall in Ravenna while visiting the Byzantine mosaics, the insane cab ride I took my last trip in Istanbul to see some precious churches buried inside a bazaar.

I love my job, but in the flood of paperwork there must always be art at the center of the whirlwind.

Sore feet and hoarse voice aside, my eyes were wide open in New York. Again.

Signs of LA

2010-03-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

Oliver Michaels Museum Postcards, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, March 6 - April 3, 2010. All pictures are by the author.

I was in LA last weekend for some architecture business and had the chance to drive around the city and see some sights.

Some sights!

Oliver Michaels's show at Shoshana Wayne made me and deep peep Laura Esposito laugh out loud (how often does that happen in a gallery in a good way?) Michaels animates postcards of classic objects from museums around the globe, and creates situation comedies that are ominous or ruinous, political or sentimental. He plays off of the political contexts of these sculptures and replaces them with mostly specious pop culture overtones. What a great critique of our formal fetishization of historical objects.

Laura E. inside Bengston's recreation (although that furniture is new).

Bill Al Bengston's show A Re-Creation of the Ferus Space (Not Exactly but Close to Scale) and other work at Samuel Freeman Gallery (the old Patty Faure space in Bergamot station) brought back my years spent at the Newport Harbor Art Museum [NHAM]. Bengston's iconic chevrons and hearts, and a surprising graphic painting of an i, were a great surprise. Even though I'm not a huge fan of Bengston's work, that he is re-placing himself within the Ferus canon is interesting, and that the gallery allowed him to burn candles under those works is astonishing. Is this reification or R.I.P? Given how LA's art world is so well-known now, who can blame Bengston for wanting a bigger slice of the historical pie?

Noted LA-based video artist Diana Thater had a beautiful installation Between Science and Magic at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Thater films magician Greg Wilson pulling a rabbit out of a hat, over and over again and from many different angles. The film you see here was then screened at the Los Angeles Theatre, a lavish memorial to the importance film has had for the arts and for Los Angeles. Film, and now video, truly pull tricks out of nowhere (I'm thinking Rocky and Bullwinkle though!) A lovely work.

Then off to Redondo Beach and a Sunday morning walk in Palos Verdes where we saw the "other" LA freeway in action!

I spent four years at the NHAM thinking about the history of the visual arts in California. What was always clear to me--having moved to LA from NY--was that the many great schools, artists who stayed and plenty of intellectual room has given rise to one of the best artist communities on earth. LA has a unique combination of factors that mostly have nothing to do with the cliches of sand, swim and surf.

Every smaller city in America needs to find their own unique combination--what will ours in STL be?

Along the Mississippi, part I

2010-03-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

Pontchartrain Park. All photos courtesy the author.

I went to New Orleans last week for a site visit to see Joe Baker, Executive Director of the Longue Vue House and Gardens . We're working on connecting our places, and we spent time driving around the city after looking at every nook and cranny of Longue Vue (fabulous mansion, too bad about the plants killed by the freak frost!)

The founders of Longue Vue, Edith and Edgar Stern, were socially engaged civil rights leaders who, in addition to creating Longue Vue, built Pontchartrain Park, one of (if not the) first middle class African American sub-divisions in the country. This area was also devastated by levee breaches caused by Katrina, but the destruction was not reported in the way it was in the Lower Ninth Ward. (Perhaps there is something more nefarious, undermining about the word "ward?) The city is in a state of enormous flux--but we all know about this from the reporting that has happened since Katrina.

We were also lucky to tour the new arts area of St. Claude to see galleries The Front, Trouser House, KK Projects, Antenna and Barrister's Gallery. Most are non-profit and speak to the revitalization artists can bring to place.

Above is an image across from KK Project's main space--the white house was the site of Mel Chin's safe house from Prospect I, now being dismantled to make way for more projects and an urban garden out back.

The houses in this neighborhood look worse than those of Pontchartrain Park--due to devastation of the man-made kind, not nature! Many of these places seem to be ruins--but it is often hard to tell if they are degrading or coming alive, as in most urban areas. Where are the Sterns of this day and age?

Before we got on our plane back to STL we were sipping a glass of wine and enjoying a shrimp boil at Amy Graham and her partner Macon's place over-looking the Mississippi.

I'll be back.

Sculpture as the Symbolic Heart of a City

2010-02-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

St. Louis Arch, February 6, 2010. All pictures courtesy the author unless otherwise noted.

Sculpture is the symbolic heart of St. Louis. Not architecture, as we've come to expect with urban "starchitecture" of the past decade.

At the edge of St. Louis is the Gateway Arch, a truly exquisite structure that soars above your head like an arrow to heaven.

Unfortunately, too many city buildings crowd the Arch to its west. Very sad that city leaders allowed architectural ambition to sully this gorgeous sculpture.

Just to the east of the Arch, down below, back on land, is a rather dismal parking lot ($4 rather than $10 in the covered city lot). I've never parked within lapping distance of a major river before.

Images of the great flood of 1993 kept coming to me--what if the river rose just a few feet? My ride would be on a sight-seeing tour downstream before I knew it!

The Museum of Westward Expansion, inside the Arch's "shoes", was chaotic Saturday. The huge line was not for the educational films on the building of the arch nor for the film on Lewis & Clark's voyage to the West coast.

No, everyone was in line to take a five-passenger elevator to the top of the Arch, where you can peer out at the surrounding landscape from itty-bitty windows. (I am just claustrophobic enough to leave that trip to others--and I've gotta prise my car from the maws of the river!)

I don't quarrel with the commercialization of this historic site, though I may question some of the narratives explored through the concentric half-circles of display materials in the Museum.

Image of Carl Milles fountain outside Union Station, St. Louis. © Sharron Archibald

To fulfill the promise of the Arch as a symbolic heart of St. Louis, a group of business people are working with the National Park Service to re-imagine this space. The primary goal is to move tourists more effectively between the casinos and the Arch. This new waterfront will then truly be linked to the Gateway "spine" of sculpture that includes the new City Garden (full of sculpture), the Richard Serra "Twain" piece (sculpture), hop over the courthouse and cascade through the fountains, crowned with the sculptures "The Wedding of the Waters" by Carl Milles, outside of Union Station, above.

Henry Weber, The Captain's Return, 2006

Once the reconfiguration of the waterfront is completed, surely more people will see this sculpture in honor of the return of Lewis & Clark to St. Louis. [Note: the dog is not a Labrador, as I first thought, but Clark's Newfoundland who made the trip with the Corps of Discovery.]

The nation is on the cusp of a major ideological shift--in our understanding of our financial capacity and through our now-unbreakable bond with markets elsewhere--and the symbolic Arch complex has the chance to re-interpret our nation-building past in light of our nation-building future. Let the myths of western conquest and expansion be reconfigured; St. Louis can play an interesting role in this reinterpretation.

Our urban landscape, in great need of reparation and stitching back together, can represent the next phase of our American identity via sculpture.

Too Big to Fail?

2010-02-06T07:44:00.000-08:00

Museum of Modern Art, New York, interior

I have been thinking recently about the increasing peril faced by non-profits in this economic downturn. My concern has come from two directions. The most obvious wind of fear comes from the drying-up of donor funds lost in the recent financial collapse. No need to explain further.

The other area of concern has been the proliferation of non-profits over the past decade and the sense that we have outgrown the capacity for the community to support all of us.

This morning I read James Undercofler's post about non-profit structure itself being responsible for the stifling of nimble, responsive artistic production. This analysis certainly describes the past 40 years of non-profit arts organizations who, having started up as artist-run collectives in the 1970s, say, hit their mid-teens and assume that it's time to "grow up." So the organization expands its board, professionalizes its staff to meet financial and reporting requirements, and shortly lose their original edge. Have some organizations become "Too Big to Fail"?

I have written before about the damage caused when you graft a for-profit business system onto a non-profit--it can distort the original vision of the non-profit.

This image is from a panel discussion I attended last week at the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis. The topic--''The City as Studio"--points to how artists increasingly see a need to engage with a more dynamic, organic, open-ended structure such as "city" in order to make their work, by-passing non-profits for their often cumbersome processes and lack of resources.

By becoming "Too Big to Fail", do we disappoint the primary consumers of our work--artists and audiences?

Non-profits need to resist the for-profit "bigger-is-better" model, the failed 80s business model of endlessly expanding markets in order to preserve their core function. We of course need big encyclopedia museums--but what does "encyclopedic" mean in this global economy? Ultimately, this financial crisis is both forcing us, and allowing us, to be more precise and experimental with what non-profits do in order to inspire artists and their audiences.

Hollywood meets Hallowed Hall

2010-01-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

© Jeffrey Deitch by Lawrence K. Ho for the LA Times

What an interesting brouhaha over uber-dealer / impressario Jeffrey Deitch becoming the director of MoCA (the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles).

I "grew up" as a professional curator in LA and loved the raw vitality of MoCA, its programming and collection-building. (In full disclosure: current MoCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel hired me as an NEA curatorial assistant at the Newport Harbor Art Museum when I moved to LA, then hired me on full-time afterwards.) MoCA's programs have been some of the best in the contemporary art world, and its recent threatened closure speaks volumes about board fiscal responsibility (or not). It is this fiscal crisis that has opened the door to Deitch walking in.

The commercial-to-non-profit switch has been made before (a recent visible example is Henry Urbach closing his architecture gallery to become the curator of architecture at SFMoMA). What counts is whether or not that for-profit person has the skills to benefit the museum, to advance the non-profit's mission and to understand the difference between non and for-profit ethics.

Deitch has a business and art background, has twisted the norms of gallery behavior through his kunsthalle-like programs, and surely is Hollywood enough to capture the big film money that generally eludes LA's important cultural institutions (although "Brangelina" was at MoCA's 30th anniversary party!)

Perhaps this appointment is more shocking because it makes apparent (again) the power of rich board members to drive museum policy while they helped trigger an institution's near-death experience? Perhaps it's because Deitch is the director, not just a curator who takes cues from the top? Perhaps it's because museums have been the last bastion of "public discourse" in an otherwise fully monetized American landscape, and that last defense has now fallen? Is it because, in these desperate times, having a money changer in the temple of art is the only way for non-profits to save themselves?

What will answer these questions will be Deitch's performance in furthering MoCA's substantial exhibitions program, his penetration into the culture that is LA, his support of the staff that is there and his holding back from the type of street art that he has championed in the past few years. (LA does not have the same type of street life that NY has, and you can only pull that bunny out of the museum hat ever so often.)

Have I lost my capacity to be outraged by conflict-of-interest issues in the world, particularly the art world? After the economy being driven into the tank, again, by Wall Street insiders and the politicians that feed and pet them, how can this possibly register on my rage-o-meter?

I'll say it: I think this is a brilliant, quirky, irreverant hire. So many art world insiders stand on line for their turn at the big hit, and someone just jumped the line.

The arts suffered in the 1980s when MBA's flooded museum director chairs and made decisions that undermined good museum practice. This why a training program for curators interested in becoming directors has started through Columbia University--to ensure that art and business co-exist--and we can avoid these problems in the future.

A parallel, if more understandable, arts brain drain has been the poaching of non-profit staffs to for-profit galleries. Sotheby's and Gagosian have pilfered curators to their stables because they add not just selling skills but quality content for ever-more sophisticated buyers. (An interesting reversal of the retail marketplace, where the consumer does all the work, clerks simply ring up sales.) This hiring makes perfect sense, even in this down market. And these curators who make the leap get bigger salaries, surely understandable in this badly-paid field.

(An aside: when I went to my IKT conference in Montreal two years ago, Louise Neri, formerly of Parkett magazine, was a last-minute addition on the panel about art and money--yes, the Europeans are just now grappling with this age-old American conundrum. Neri had just taken the job of publications editor for Gagosian gallery. The mostly-European group was hostile, one museum director saying to her "I pity you" for going to the dark side--I sure pitied her at that moment! With the American model of funding seeping into European governments, I fear my colleagues abroad will be struggling for funds right along with us soon enough.)

What is a bigger issue for me is when a museum hires a lackluster for-profit person. Why squander public good will if the benefit doesn't outweigh the risk? The general public is already suspicious of institutions receiving public monies, why give them anything more to complain about? These former dealers should be able to secure loans or donations to the collection, should know where good works are sequestered away for unique exhibitions and scholarship, they should be able to raise money for their museums (donations to auctions, for example) or their own projects when there is a cross-over of interest with collectors. Museum boards should keep a slightly different scorecard for such formerly for-profit staff, who are surely used to sales goals.

The standards for curatorial ethics are clear. Deitch has promised he will only sell from his substantial collection when he needs to supplement his salary, but in any case, how Deitch executes the ideas listed above will tell us how much is is able to bridge the ever-narrowing gap between commercial practice and museum ethics.

Everyone will be watching Deitch's moves. I am eager to see what MoCA will do now, and how some of our vigilant journalists will continue to hold the field's toes to the fire.

Starting on a fresh foot

2010-01-07T07:35:00.001-08:00

Snow is such a pretty sight, too bad about the air temperature!

Whenever someone talks about the schism between representation and abstraction in art work, I roll my eyes.

A painting of the image above would be representational, despite the geometric abstraction of the brickwork.

We have more important issues to explore in the arts these days!

Hopes for the New Year

2010-01-03T05:39:00.000-08:00

Like all products of the human imagination, St. Louis is full of contradictions.

While I see middle-class African Americans everywhere I go, there are pockets of the city that look like the worst cliches of Detroit--bombed out blocks of buildings, boarded up homes, small businesses with iron bars across their windows.

On a phone-in radio show on Christmas Eve, leaders in the city talked about their wishes for the New Year. Many expressed their desire to more fully grapple with segregation in this very American city.

A small beacon of hope: this sign off of Delmar in the Loop. Not a fancy, in-your-face sign, just one sitting quietly observing the traffic crossroads as Delmar transforms abruptly and absolutely from a vibrant college / touristy street into one of those depressed areas.The sign above, however, signals some hope for us all.

Other things I hope for in the coming year:

That our system of justice actually punishes the people who drove the economy into the tank--in other words, the white collar criminals who caused million dollar plus negative economic impact on people around the globe be truly punished.

That women across the globe attain rights to health and safety and equal access to economic opportunities. I heard on NPR once (or maybe I read this in a book about the history of feminism in Egypt?) that, in the developing world, for every $100 a woman earns, she puts $90 towards her family; for every $100 a man earns, he puts $90 towards his own pleasure. Imagine how countries could develop with more investment in the education of women and girls?

That we draw our war in Iraq to a close, and that the American government recognize our military actions in the Middle East are but a foolish inheritance from post-World War II European imperialism. We need to think of our own future, not protect the actions of Old Europe.

I also hope to see my boyfriend Kevin more in the New Year--this may be the one wish I have some control over!

Western Modernism re-made, part I

2009-12-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

Mona Hatoum World, 2004, at Site Santa Fe

Over the past fifteen years or so I have been lecturing, curating, traveling and teaching about how non-Western artists have reinvigorated Western Modernism by reinterpreting it from many different perspectives. When cultural tourism allowed for a wide range of Western curators to visit new places--like the Johannesburg or Istanbul biennials--how to place non-Western artists into a Western historical context became a topic of some importance.

How not to repeat the problems of MoMA's Primitivism show or the Pompidou's Magiciens de la Terre, where the curatorial premise reduced whole continents of artist's works into a formal mimicry of Western modernism?

It all boils down to context context context (location location location, or the place from whence you view the work).

Of course many institutions will work with non-Western artists to be fashionable, but to truly understand the intellectual import of these artist's work in considering post-independence Africa or Palestinian diaspora for example, is another thing.

Gabriel Orozco in How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age, Walker Art Center, 2003

Hatoum's work, above, is the globe in marbles. One false move, one petulant kick, and the whole thing goes haywire.

Orozco's installation, below, is a maze punctuated by signifiers of travel--a train or plane ticket--to suggest the dislocation of travel, flight, emmigration, diaspora. Both these artists rely on their own cultural histories to vault across the brittleness of late, mannered Modernism to create a fresh, vibrant world for us to consider. Imperialism is as much intellectual as actual, and these artists raise those issues in new ways.

I hope to be exploring some of these ideas with some of these artists, over the next few years, at Laumeier Sculpture Park and through my teaching at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Because of the uniqueness of our space, we have some great opportunities to vault beyond what a traditional institution can do and see what the second decade of the 21st century will hold.

Build It, But Will They Come?

2009-12-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

Kevin McMahon and Akua Nyame-mensah "The Bilbao Boom or Bust?" in Next American City, issue 25, pp. 30-31.

Of all the news analyses of the trends of the '00's I have particularly enjoyed the writing about the museum building boom of the past decade.

This recent article in Next American City and Robin Pogrebin's December 12 article in the New York Times both explored the trend of large museum additions and the resulting economic impact on the museum itself. (We know this routine: a museum expands, the director leaves, staff is laid off. Rinse. Repeat.)

I started anticipating the "Bilbao Effect" in 1998 faced with the addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum being completed. But since the economic collapse of the 1980s I have also bemoaned the grafting of for-profit management and market-expansion goals onto non-profits to disastrous effect.

What if, like businesses, non-profits don't have endless capacity for market expansion unless they "buy" other businesses (or expand their own space)? What if we cannot force increased market share (museum attendance) just because we're bigger? What if the expanded institution misinterprets the new entertainment options available and thus misinterprets their own mission and goals accordingly? What, ultimately, is the value of the preservation of material culture in our throw-away American society?

Is, perhaps, the museum model still a fundamentally European ideal?

Of the examples in the article above--Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Akron and Roanoke--I would say the Zaha Hadid building in Cincinnati had both an impact on the city and the art world because of the budget kept in check, it was the completion of a first museum building by a woman, etc...

But the most important question is: have the exhibitions at any of these institutions matched the ambitions of the building for the better elucidation of ideas, the unearthing of new content, the reinterpretation of the past in light of the present and future?

I would say rarely has that happened. So what, then, is the ultimate goal of the "Edifice Complex"? More realistic understanding of the museum's role in contemporary society, getting back to non-profit roots, actually press politicians and supporters to understand what museums do for the community, and not just in terms of tax revenue.

Place Your Bets Here

2009-12-18T18:14:00.000-08:00

My friend Judith Patrylak (shout out from Phoenix!) and I went to Cahokia Mounds last weekend to see one of the most significant cultural touchstones of the St. Louis region.

Judith had studied Native American history in one of her many past lives; I am interested in re-animating our cultural histories in as many ways as possible.

What I learned:
Much of our cultural heritage has been lost through attrition, neglect, manifest destiny.
Many St. Louis residents have never visited Cahokia.
The State of Illinois has to cycle out Illinois state maps with Rob Blagojevich still listed as governor. (The state's bird=jail bird?)

What struck me was the smartness of a display at the end of the "tour" in the Visitor Center.

They didn't just tell you the current archaeological theories for the collapse of Cahokia Mound society--they asked you to bet on which one won (or lost, depending on your perspective) with money fed directly into the display.

What a brilliant funding strategy!

"Failure of Leadership" was not the highest-grossing of the four winning answers, but given the climate discussions in Copenhagen this past week, we might want to start our own bets.

One of my favorite recent reads was Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail. Collapse kept coming back to me while thinking about cultural sustainability because, ultimately, this is what we are up against.

I don't mean just non-profits, I mean the various institutions that fulfill the "social contact" that has driven Western Civilization for the past 500 years.

We should all take lessons from Cahokia.

What a difference a year makes

2009-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Sparkly Christmas tree at the Fountainebleau hotel, Miami Beach.

Just got back from ArtBasel Miami. I do miss the warmth of the south--did it really have to rain?

I skipped Miami last year, art fair weariness. I have no problems with the market. However, as a curator, I simply got tired of having to fight to talk to dealers who were so focused on selling to institutions, not necessarily helping to build a more firm artistic career. The market calming down is a good thing for curators and artists, but maybe not for the dealers.

This year I went to Miami in a different position and therefore my goals were different. I was able to meet with several members of my new International Advisory Committee (check Laumeier's website soon for details): Silvia Karman Cubina, director of the Bass Museum of Art, Beverly Adams, curator of the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American art in Phoenix and Laurie Farrell, Director of Exhibitions, Savannah College of Art and Design. I had great conversations with all three of these experts who will be helping us work on outdoor temporary projects and collections-based exhibitions. I can't wait.

And of course I did see a lot of art.

The on-going rash of deer has not died down--I first started noticing this about five years ago in Miami (simultaneous with the storm of snowmen in art, and I've got the pictures to prove it).

Bambi and a big rack (titled by Beverly)

Bambi in the head / spot lights outside the convention center

The blizzard of snowmen several years ago was certainly a response to being in the lush tropics of Miami (just as the rash of genitalia in art was a symptom of hotel art fairs before that).

Gratitude towards junk culture at Nada Fair

The Taco Bell work was nicely ironic given the predominant influence of Latin American in Miami. Taco Bell is but a ploy of the fast food industry to sell a foreign culture's cuisine in a non-threatening (and non-spicy?) way to Americans. Right outside the convention center's doors is a polyglot range of food types rarely found in mainstream kitchens.

I moved rather quickly through the fairs with various friends and colleagues (hence my shocking lack of names for many of the works I am showing you). I ran into many colleagues whose own works or ideas will be great to bring to St. Louis--this is the biggest part of what I brought back with me from Miami.

I also got over to most of the private collector spaces--the Cisneros Foundation, the Margulies collection (needs some curatorial focus, a good architect might help snap that place together) and the new Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz space.

Inside the new De la Cruz exhibition space, with Allora & Calzadilla missile in foreground

Outside the De la Cruz space

The view outside this gorgeous new space brought home the inherent difficulties of selling, buying, making, presenting and loving art. With the obvious surrounding poverty of the area, the work of Allora & Calzadilla and Ana Mendieta became sharper, while the seductive work of Jim Hodges became softer. I look forward to seeing if they impose quasi-curatorial themes to their shows, a la Rubell, or toss things out choc-a-block like Marguelies.

Miami is really the wild west of the American art world, for good or bad, but they've really had an impact on how we see the arts in that city. The cabbie who returned me to my hotel had moved to Miami from Surinam about 25 years ago, and he said he's going to miss us art people because we are helping their economy.

Now that is the true shock of the current bad economy--that people are looking to the art world to help them.

What a difference a year makes.

all photos courtesy the author

Banking and non-profits

2009-11-28T15:14:00.000-08:00

Me (car) visiting Kale (canon) in jail.

I played Monopoly on Thanksgiving Day with my nephew Kale Lund, we had a ball for at least two hours until he got bored. I had to read the rules again because it had been decades since I've played (but I did stick with my strategy of buying up utilities and most of the properties I landed on--some things you never forget).

There was a whole "other" section in the rules I didn't remember at all. They dealt with selling properties back to the bank if you get into a financial crunch, but only after you've sold off your houses and hotels. If your competitor buys your property, you get the best price you can get. If the bank takes it, you only get half of the property's original value. (I guess I wasn't the only kid not reading those rules, hmmm?)

I was reading "The Chronicle of Philanthropy" yesterday as part of my holiday reading package. There were articles about non-profits dealing with how to keep staff (and CEO!) morale up, how a non-profit theatre is adopting the practices of a co-op farm in up-state New York to stay solvent, and about a new group of foundations dedicated to lending money to non-profits to help them cover short-term and re-negotiate long-term debt. This is a new hybrid form of non-profit foundation that wants to stabilize our important non-profit sector, in all of its dimensions. (It looks like these were the kids who did read through the Monopoly rules!)

Lessons for me? Games that teach math skills do work; that you can inculcate a sense of mutual responsibility from a kid's youngest years; that greed ultimately tears a hole in our social fabric; and that moral responsibility takes many forms.

Kale and I were playing the Hawaii version of Monopoly. He owned Waikiki Beach, I owned the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory for a few non-binding hours. See? With fiscal discipline and hard work, dreams can come true (for individuals and non-profits).

Four-letter "f" word...

2009-11-22T17:46:00.001-08:00

Fall.

Despite my best editing efforts, I couldn't make the lovely trees outside my window look better than this. I had been told October in St. Louis is normally sunny and mild--lucky me, the rain came instead. (Perhaps I shouldn't have used the "rain" setting on my white noise machine in Phoenix all those years?)

But on the up side, I found these cookies at Trader Joe's the other day. Maple Cream cookies were my favorites growing up in Calgary. Now that's a celebration of fall!

If bodies were buildings

2009-11-09T17:56:00.001-08:00

If my spine were a building, I would collapse.

I learned this after looking at my x-rays from my visit Saturday to my new chiropractor Dr. Stephen Costantino (I would recommend him to any St. Louisian reading this).

My sudden, recent pain is certainly linked to my new work station in a tilted attic room; I'll take steps to remedy my desk and computer disposition immediately. What caused my long-term internal listing could be many things, but I blame it mostly on a life spent bowing my head, reading books. Yet another hazard of my profession.

My rather distressing x-rays made me think of Wim Delvoye, a Belgian artist with whom I did a studio visit several years ago while on a trip sponsored by the Flemish government.

Delvoye digs into old technologies and infuses them with new light, as in the way he uses sometimes sexy, sometimes distressing images in his stained glass windows.

In the chapel image above Delvoye has matched his imagery with the delicate tracery carved into medieval chapels of Europe. It is often hard to believe that those slender, brittle bones of stone allow for an intimate feeling within the soaring heights of Gothic Cathedrals, but they do. This is why those churches are such enduring icons of spiritual faith.

Lest you think Delvoye only celebrates the microcosm inside the macrocosm of the Church, look at this other image, a dolled up killing field.

Given the great irony of his other works it is clear Delvoye does not hold harmless the pieties of faith of any sort--each has created its own killing fields.

Gothic Cathedrals stand today as monuments to the past. I am not an obsessive materialist--millions of things have been made over time, millions have been lost but many remain--but I hope art work like Delvoye's endures past our time as testament to the on-going testament to great human creation and great human destruction.

bottom two images from Wim Delvoye's website.

Blogging from place

2009-10-28T04:45:00.000-07:00

Green patch of my "place": table decoration from Laumeier's 2009 gala Out of the Park.

My dear pal Mary Louise Schumacher, art and architecture critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has asked me to be here "foreign" correspondent for her own blog, Art City, link below.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/artcity.html?tag=Marilu+Knode

(You may remember Mary Louise as my driving co-pilot in my move from Phoenix to St. Louis--she's the one who took the great picture of the burning truck.)

What she has done with her blog, Art City, is focus the energies and attention of the arts community in her region by becoming an expanded site for galleries, artists, dealers, collectors and their various audiences. The growth of the site, her addition of art maps, and features like "Pitch your Show", is an unparalled way for visual arts people to stay informed about the activities in the city. Art City is certainly a great model for other newspapers hoping to keep readership.

But Art City could only have happened on-line--no print publication could, or would, do all that for the arts, a notoriously bad sector for print advertising.

So we might well ask: what commitment do newspapers have to supporting the visual arts? They pay Mary Louise's salary--and that of the other arts writers at the paper who haven't taken a buy-out--THAT's what the Journal Sentinel is doing.

Sad that other newspapers don't gauge their arts writers' success by the same values they gauge a business writer: the interrogation of institutions and individuals, the highlighting of new trends, the health of the sector, the expansion of outlets and franchises, etc... Turns out arts writers do exactly what the business writers do (I mean that in a good way), only with more adjectives!

Exploring Laumeier Sculpture Park

2009-10-25T05:35:00.001-07:00

Pump house, disused, Laumeier Sculpture Park.

I took another cart tour of the Laumeier Sculpture Park on Friday (note to self: when in doubt, bring a scarf). Bill Briggs, one of Laumeier's enormously talented staff (County), showed me this stone house built over the fresh water supply used by the residents of the area 100 years ago. As you can see, the original pool has been degraded, and the stream itself has self-diverted, despite the best efforts of some Boy Scouts.

Stream on LSP grounds.

Standing in front of the pump house made me think of Robert Smithson's Partially Buried Woodshed, built on the grounds of Kent State University, Ohio, in 1970, just months before the National Guard killed students protesting the Vietnam War. As part of Smithson's investigation of entropy, he piled soil on top of the woodshed until its center beam collapsed. After the Kent State Shootings, the shed became an emblem for the collapse of social order--and of so many other things.

© Jane Crawford and Robert Fiore, Sheds, 2004, 22 min. color, sound

What struck me when looking at Laumeier's pump house was the inevitable way in which human interventions disappear--indeed, in which human marks become erased by the powerful forces of nature. As we embark on a new range of projects at Laumeier, I hope we can take into account the shifts in the ways we perceive earth works, artist interventions into--and definitions of--"public space," and the on-going, mutually affective relationship between humans and earth.

Nancy Spero, Queen

2009-10-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

Nancy Spero installation at the Cairo Biennial, 1998, photo by Barry Iverson; all images, unless otherwise noted, are by the author

Two friends just sent me the link to the NY Times' obituary of Nancy Spero, which I had missed, here in my move "cocoon".

Nancy was an inspiration to me for two reasons.

As a young curator working at MoMA, I went with a colleague from Prints & Illustrated Books over to meet Nancy. Of course I knew her work and was thrilled for the strong visual world she created through her collages. Despite her fame within the downtown arts community, she was kind and gracious and spoke frankly about the work, which tells not only abut the past but about our collective feminist future.

Many years later, in 1997, I approached Nancy to propose her work for the 1998 Cairo Biennial, and Nancy's work was chosen. My first trip to Cairo was shocking--I had a haunting, almost out-of-the-body experience after seeing the pyramids (remind me to tell you about the Winchester house "incident"). There was something about that place that I felt in my bones, despite being Northern European stock.

Nancy's installation was deceptively simple: her three assistants were to stamp images directly onto the walls of the Palace of Arts in Cairo. However, because the building was still in litigation, four years after its completion, we had to find a quick solution to not mar the walls with the paint. The Egyptians I worked with were both proud of Nancy's use of mythic symbols from Egypt's Pharonic past, but also somewhat defensive that a Westerner would "borrow" these forms.

The day of the Biennial's opening in Cairo was the day we bombed Iraq in the first war. The official opening the day's events attacked Nancy as the American representative--shocking, given Nancy's history and politics. Luckily, the first person to speak on our panel about Nancy's work couldn't be bothered to listen to the translation of this official's rant--she went blithely on about pattern & decoration in the work of Nancy Spero. In any case, my experiences in Cairo were transformative, thanks to Nancy.

Marwan Rechmaoui's work at Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, 2008

In addition to visiting one of the most glorious countries on earth, I came to work with many great artists from Egypt and the region, and indeed, I have worked, traveled and written about contemporary art in the area for a decade (the last article, on Beirut's "Home Works IV", was published in Art Papers last spring). And my work at F.A.R. (Future Arts Research) @ ASU, on desert aesthetics, was rooted in my reading, writing and finding ways to travel to the region.

Ghada Amer, Untitled (Milwaukee Love), 1998, photo courtesy the author

I commissioned works from Ghada Amer in 1998, Lara Baladi in 2004, and most recently, Ahmet Ogut, in 2008. Other artists whose work I supported include Mona Marzouk, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Halil Altindere, and Khaled Hafez. Scott Bailey, with whom I co-founded a curatorial practice program in Cairo in 1998, was a great inspiration and friend in negotiating the complex social issues of Cairo.

Work by Khaled Hafez, courtesy the artist

I had three dreams when I was a child: sky diving (are you crazy?), scuba diving and living in Africa. Because of Nancy Spero, I did one (Red Sea) and had close encounters with another. Nancy was not just a global leader in a radical, political, visual feminism, she was a personal inspiration to many women of her own generation, and mine.

Cement in St. Louis

2009-10-06T19:04:00.000-07:00

I went to see some art last weekend in St. Louis, visiting the Pulitzer Foundation (as well as re-visited the Contemporary Museum and stopped by Bruno David's gallery, smartly placed just across the street).

It was a gray, overcast, calm day.

Of course I don't have any pictures from the Pulitzer's show Ideal (Dis-) Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer, with paintings from Harvard and the St. Louis Art Museum--so I took pictures of the external environment to give you a sense of the light levels inside the galleries. One of the exercises of the show was clearly to show how these works owuld have been perceived when they were painted.

My favorite room was the one in the back, next to the Ellsworth Kelly, with the four proto-Renaissance works. That is the period I love for the dense emotional intensity packed into the small figures, the glittering surface of the Byzantine-influenced church that mirrors the radiant light of God. Compared to the bloodless, hyperbolic Renaissance works in the other rooms, these small works feel alive to me (many people love the Renaissance, more power to them, I find no emotional comfort in those works).

In the largest work in the room, Girolamo di Benvenuto di Giovanni del Guasta's Madonna and Child with Saints Nicholas of Tolentino, Monica, Augustine, and John the Evangalist, no date although the artist lived 1470-1524 (shouldn't they make an educated guess?), floating on St. Nicholas's torso was a disembodied head of a child. The child's disc of a head glowed in the dark, which to me was a meaningful expression of the mystery and faith embodied in religious ritual painting compared to the fleshy, Baroque-bordering-on-Rococo works in the other rooms.

It strikes me that the richness of this painting, and the story of Saint Nicholas, is a testament to the value of place in one's spiritual life. Each city, town, burg, village generates its own sense of mystery and life, and the del Guasta painting describes the joy of living in one's time, while knowing of one's history.

Floating back down to the courtyard I experienced the Richard Serra work "Joe" again, and again, felt a bit dizzy and disoriented not ten feet into the work. What imaginative glory and intellectual abuse this Serra provides.

What I loved about the Serra, against the grimy gray sky, was that it didn't provoke depression at the advent of fall, but rather, an inevitability of the abstractions we face in our daily lives--like spirituality, community, place. Balanced against my transport from the del Guasta, I felt refreshed on that fall day by experiencing art. Fabulous.

Accidental Sculpture

2009-09-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

During my first weekend driving around St. Louis, I saw some very interesting accidental sculpture in extraordinary public space, such as the beautiful installation above in the mid-century modern (mostly late 40's, not so much Eames) shop above, TFA on Grand.

Driving around around the waterfront of St. Louis we saw this single wind generator next to an urban home, then below, an angel lost amongst the industrial grid that imprisons the river.

There are two glorious strands of deliberate architecture in St. Louis, however. Most well-known is the St. Louis Arch by Eero Saarinen, commemorating Thomas Jefferson and the march towards Manifest Destiny, the conquest of the west.

Oddly, it is the Cahokia Mounds that are the most exquisite sculpture project in the region, the sculptures that refute the Arch as a monument to the American continent

There are many strands to tease out of all; I will continue this investigation anon.

(The bottom two pictures were captured from their respective websites; the rest are courtesy the author.)

Road Trip Art

2009-09-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

A selection of room keys, PHX - STL:
Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix (most lush experience)
Sheraton, Albuquerque (palm trees???)
Hyatt Express, Tulsa (rather dull suburban location)
Moonrise Hotel, St. Louis (best bed)

Museums make art experiences happen deliberately. Road trips make art experiences happen accidentally.

Some of my favorite images from my four day tour with Mary Louise:

Bathroom painting, Munds Park, AZ (image of Munds Park):

Mega-church, OK:

Sculpture Park, Coffeeyville, KS:

Pump jacks, a selection of sizes:

Finally, remnants of unpacking:

The efficiency of the American I-highway system made our trip fast, but our detours made it interesting. We drove through Window Rock, AZ, to see the administrative capital of the Navajo Nation, and Tucumcari, NM, a formerly thriving town on Route 66 but now a struggling enclave of dilapidated 1950s motels, to measure the impact of the highway system on small town America.

We also stopped in Coffeeyville, KS, where my grandfather Ogden grew up. The docent at the historical Brown Mansion confused our looking for the downtown (mostly empty storefronts) with their commercial strip (Arby's, gas stations), a testament to a town that hasn't yet revitalized its old real estate stock with boutiques and bars (too far from KC and Tulsa?)

The most dramatic image was outside Amarillo, TX (see previous post), which consolidated Amarillo's reputation for me.

Small town America looks like Stephen Shore to me, although Robert Frank loomed large in my mind while driving as well. Like any art experience, I learned a lot about the world in this trip, the trials and tribulations of people living outside big cities--and in our go-go, internet connected world, what a great and rare privilege it is to spend four days with a friend. We found artistic moments everywhere, thanks to the refined eyes of photographers who allow us to frame images laden with social and political content.

On a side note: I'm for the government's stimulus package, but improving roads seems less urgent than helping these smaller communities reinvest in themselves.

© all images author and Mary Louise Schumacher

Burnin' Truck Loads of Art

2009-09-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

© Mary-Louise Schumacher

My dear pal Mary Louise Schumacher and I recently took four days to drive from Phoenix, Arizona to St. Louis, Missouri, for me to take up my new post as Executive Director at the Laumeier Sculpture Park.

We had four fun days of yakking about art, life and America. We would cover two topics per day, and eight hours was often not enough time for all our side-trips.

Our best image of the trip: this burning truck-load of cars, which threw off an incredible wall of heat as we passed dangerously close (what WAS that police car doing?)

This trip led me to reflect on my art career, which has led me deliberately, nomadically, zigzagging across the country: KS, NY, LA, MKE, PHX, STL. Each shift was triggered by a new school, new opportunity or a personal change.

The cumulative effect is that I have lived in big markets and small, each with their own great riches. We all are connected on-line, but we only live in one place, and finding that form of groundedness is what makes a move both challenging and rewarding. I have found the center in the most dispersed places, each with its own gem artists and jewel institutions that give a place, and its residents, life and meaning. With my move to St. Louis, I am honored to enter into a rich and complex society that, while outward looking, takes great meaning from within as well.

Buzz Spector, an artist friend from my LA years and recently installed dean of the College and Graduate School of Art, part of Washington University's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, sent me the lyrics from Terry Allen's 1979 double album, "Lubbock (on everything)" in response to our burning truck picture:

Truckload of Art

Recitation:

Once upon a time…
Sometime ago back on the east coast
In New York City, to be exact…
A bunch of artists and painters and
sculptors and musicians and
poets and writers and dancers
and architects
Started feeling real superior
to their ego-counter-parts
Out on the West Coast…so,
They all got together and decided
They would show those snotty surfer upstarts
A thing or two about the Big Apple
And…they hired themselves a truck
It was a big, spanking new white-shiny
Chrome-plated cab-over
Peterbilt…
With mudflaps, stereo, tv, AM & FM radio,
Leather seats and a naugahide sleeper…
All fresh
With new American Flag decals and "ART ARK"
Printed on the side of the door
With solid 24 karat gold leaf type…
And they filled up this truck
With the most significant piles
And influential heaps of Art Work
To ever be assembled in Modern Times,
And it sent it West…to chide
Cajole, humble and humiliate…the Golden Bear.
And this is the true story of that truck…

A Truckload of Art
From New York City
Came rollin down the road
Yeah the driver was singing
And the sunset was pretty
But the truck turned over
And she rolled off the road
Yeah a Truckload of Art
is burning near the highway
Precious objects are scattered
All over the ground
And it's a terrible sight
If a person were to see it
But there weren't nobody around

(Yodel)
Yeah the driver went sailing
High in the sky
Landing in the gold lap of the Lord
Who smiled and then said
"Son, you're better off dead
Than haulin a truckload
full of hot avant-gárde

(chorus)
Yes…an important artwork
Was thrown burning to the ground
Tragically…landing in the weeds
And the smoke could be seen
Ahhh for miles all around
Yeah but nobody…knows what it means
Yes…a Truckload of Art
Is burning near the highway
And it's a tough job for the highway patrol
Ahhh they'll soon see the smoke
An come runnin to poke
Then dig a deep ditch
And throw the arts in a hole

(Yodel)
Yeah a Truckload of Art
Is burning near the highway
And it's raging far-out of control
And what the critics have cheered
Is now shattered and queered
And their noble reviews
Have been stewed on the road
(chorus)

Allen's lyrics were in protest of New York's attitude towards LA / San Francisco. Both cities are getting along quite nicely, thank you, and have developed rich communities outside the East Coast.

While I would never advocate burning truck loads of art, I do agree that great art exists everywhere, you just have to learn context and history to understand the specific Modernist nuances of each community.

I look forward to doing that in St. Louis.

Great Architecture into Great Museum Part III

2009-08-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is the final in a three-part series by architect Eddie Jones on the topic we’ve been debating for years: Has there ever been a museum with the courage and sophistication to combine both “great architecture” and “great museum”?

Eddie Jones:
In Fort Worth, Texas, you will find THE museum. There is a large, tree shaded, grass covered park. Crossing the park—soft steps, birds singing—you approach a gravel court, passing under a tree canopy and find a composition of sixteen large concrete vaults.

image courtesy the blogger

This is the Kimbell Art Museum, designed in 1972 by Louis Kahn. The Kimbell is considered the touchstone of art museums by which all others, new and old, are measured. The architecture is simple, repetitive, functional and most importantly, beautiful. People will go see the Kimbell regardless of the collection. No one can attend an exhibition and ignore the building. Generally everyone of any age, income, or education level will leave knowing they have had an unforgettable experience. The curators are happy, fundraisers never break a sweat, Fort Worth and Texas covet the bragging rights. Believe me, there is not an architect alive who would not honor this building.

Fortunately there are other excellent examples of architecture daring to be great, yet not at the expense of art exhibition. Many of the best museums are from the hand of Renzo Piano--The Menil Collection and Twombly Gallery, Houston (Texas again!); the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; and the Chicago Art Institute expansion.

Typically a new museum is commissioned by a municipality, foundation, institution or private patron. Apparently, there exists a misconception one has to make one of only two choices: between iconic, knock-your-socks-off architecture, or a program which recedes so the art projects. Frankly I am all for diversity! America is defined by diversity and we can never have too many museums, and we are in no danger of too much architecture. So bring it on!

Perhaps the rarity of another Kimbell makes the accomplishment that much more valuable. However, the aspiration remains the worthiest of goals, one to which I am intellectually aligned.

Marilu response:
Eddie raises some really important issues for me. What is the niche, core business of a museum in today's multi-media world? How do museums become as dynamic and interactive as the other entertainment options available to us today? How do new theories in visual literacy help our field understand our changing role within our communities?

When I visit museums I have many experiences, intellectual, physical, emotional, aural. How does the space embrace or reject me; what decisions have they made to foreground free, public access versus an immediate jump into the business end of the place, the galleries? How do all the art forms work together, or are traditional material separations kept in order? The answer depends on the type of museum you have, but often, non-aesthetic concerns swamp the delicate nature of space and art so that both seem compromised.

I was at the Kimbell in the spring for my first visit. After everything I had hear and read about the building I was somewhat disappointed--I've been trained to want bigger and better, shame on me!

While it was clear the space was elegant and well calibrated, I found the spaces overhung and ticky-tackied up with temporary panels holding one work each. I was thrilled to see the "new" Michelangelo panel, and loved the "for adults only" section of the "Love in the Renaissance" show (I had never heard of a birth tray before). Overall, however, the museum building should work on concert with the art works contained therein, and even the Kimbell felt pressed upon to give the appropriate honor to its objects. Even a glorious building can fail if its primary function--to celebrate and frame art--is overwhelmed by other issues.

This, ultimately, is the crux of my point with Eddie--the museum building still must serve its intended purpose, or it might just as well be a hotel or supermarket. While the other museums he mentioned have many great works of art and real iconic presence, they seem beholden to the Kahn.

Which museums, then, DO I like, for their chaos or control, their illumination or their modesty?

The Beyeler Foundation in Basel. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit. The Louvre, Paris. The Coptic Museum, Cairo. The Broad Foundation, Santa Monica. A fancy one in Seoul whose name I can't remember, and I imagine the new contemporary space in Beirut is crisp in its elegant simplicity. Each is what it truly is, a product of its place and time.

Great Architecture into Great Museum Part II

2009-08-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

image copyright: Kevin J. Miyazaki

Part Two of Eddie Jones's discourse on museums we like / don't like:

Eddie Jones:
Sometimes cities will commission an art museum prioritizing tourism over serious art education.

Consider Milwaukee, Denver and the poster child of civic transformation, Bilbao.

All three of these recent blockbuster museums have been extremely successful. Clearly the goal focused on dynamic urban form, assuring the city an elevated position in the cultural pecking order. In exchange, logical, conventional, flexible, economical and curator-friendly public exhibition space is relinquished.

Even I, who will confess to value architecture over any other art form, finds these new museums to be a curatorial nightmare and programmatically deficient! However, given the goal, these museums deliver.

On the other extreme, one can exalt Dia: Beacon’s old box factory and the Judd Foundation’s converted railroad and munitions buildings in Marfa, Texas. Simple, elegant and originally designed for other purposes, these buildings enclose spaces any curator or artist would happily embrace. Paintings and sculptures soar in their unassuming day-lit rooms.

Although they do not care to represent state of the art architectural possibility, I would say the small towns of Beacon, New York and Marfa occupy a unique place on an elite list of art-oriented cities.

Marilu's response:
I was in Bilbao just after the new Guggenheim opened, and was surprised by how little activity there was around the building. No doubt this one of the most spectacular sites for a museum, which seemed like an alien ship landed from the future. I was in Bilbao again, ten years later, and met the director of the new museum in Vitorio-Gastiz, the provincial capital; he lived in Bilbao.

I asked him if the Guggenheim had any affect on the arts community in Bilbao and he said no, it did not. Yet the waterfront was bustling with activity, new restaurants had opened up around the Guggenheim, small b & b's had popped up, the government had a new underground system. The Bilbao effect continues, but not for the local art scene.

What could the museum have done to embed the museum more effectively into the life of the city the way they got the politicians to pay for the thing? If there is no ripple effect outward for the arts community, what are we, as professionals, demanding of our profession?

Compare and Contrast: Museum vs. Casino

2009-08-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

both images copyright: Potawatomi Bingo Casino

The post by Eddie Jones has brought to mind a conversation I've been having with architect Will Bruder, who, in addition to creating glorious, green buildings around the region and the globe, studied sculpture at UW-Milwaukee. Will and I have talked about the impact of buildings on a city's pride of place, and the intriguing comparison between the aesthetics, ethics and economics of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Potawatomi Nation's Bingo Casino.

Briefly: The Milwaukee Art Museum's delicate Santiago Calatrava addition budget started at $35 million and ended up at $120 million (they added the brise soleil, parking lot and formal gardens). It took years to pay off the debt, there's been great turnover in staff, and in the meantime, caused great financial stress on other non-profit organizations in the city, whose own donations dropped as a result.

While everyone might agree that the building has become the spectacular icon as intended, the "Bilbao" effect (iconic building drives economic prosperity in the region) came to life in the U.S.

But some larger questions remain: what is happening inside the building, is the space used effectively enough, has this landed spacecraft had a ripple effect in the arts community, etc...

By contrast, when the Potawatomi Nation was allowed to build a casino in the Menomonee river valley, a former industrial site used by tanneries in the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a sense that the tribe was getting bum land. People fought against the Casino in downtown Milwaukee, couched in anti-gambling rhetoric but often with a soupcon of something else. An article in the local weekly paper had an interesting observation: We have taken from the Native Americans what is most important to them--their land--and they are taking away from us what is most important to us--our money. The history of treatment of Native tribes in the state became an issue in this building.

Once the Casino was up--$120 million of their own money--the city realized how in-fill in the valley would connect the disconnected parts of the commercial corridor of the city. All of a sudden, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson wanted to up the taxes on the casino, beyond what had been negotiated before and with other Casinos. When in-coming Governor Jim Doyle, however, was willing to renew, and renegotiate, the Tribe's compact on the land, the Potawatomi announced they would double the space of the casino, another cool $120 million from their own coffers. The Tribe handled their own resources and has played a leading role in the revitalization of the entire area.

What struck me in this story was the similar budgets between the high-end, arch modernist building of the Calatrava addition and the for-profit, low-end, also modernist block of the Casino.

Is MAM suffering an "edifice" complex (I used this phrase well before the book came out): gorgeous exterior, empty interior? (In my medieval art history class they called this the butter tax, and affected buildings such as Notre Dame--the wealthy would give for above-ground building, not for substructure construction, which is why the church has had foundation problems). Despite a constant stream of good shows, the program has never been able to get out from under the shadow of the shell. Should architecture dominate what art museums do?

The Potawatomi Bingo Casino, on the other hand, has lots of content--gambling, restaurants, entertainment, and has continued as a hot bed of economic activity and tax dollars for the state.

Ultimately, what is intriguing in this building comparison is the schism that exists in public dialogue about the role buildings play in our image of self and community, and how people with different concerns and goals try to control that image. We, as citizens, typically have little to say in what is built in the environment, but we have a lot to gain or lose if we aren't more vocal in issues concerning our urban environment.

Great Architecture into Great Museum

2009-08-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

As part of my on-going series where I invite friends to write about contemporary art, I have invited architect Eddie Jones to finally put into writing the discussion we’ve had over the years regarding museums we like / don’t like, and why Frank Lloyd Wright made it tough for curators to work with spaces (this, you must understand, is blasphemy here in Phoenix.)

This is the first in a three-part series “Has there ever been a museum with the courage and sophistication to combine both “great architecture” and “great museum”?” completed by Eddie on a flight between New York and Charlotte on August 5, 2009. To his notes I will append a few thoughts.

Eddie Jones is the founding principle of Jones Studio, Inc., and together with his rakish brother Neal Jones and a staff of smart, funny architects and designers, have created elegant, soaring public and private buildings.

I did a project, one of my favorite ever, with Jones Studio at SMoCA, several years ago. When Jones Studio came to visit SMoCA for a site visit I remember saying to them that we'd love to do a show with them but I disliked architecture shows, they are rather dull, and a museum needs to be about life.

The entire studio moved into the gallery and worked for four months, during which time they engaged with the deliberate, and hapless, audiences who wandered in. I've never seen a museum space so energized and vibrant, and together we tried to understand what this experience meant for museum practice as it intersects with architectural practice.

This series is a result of our talking about what we like about museums, and whose fault is it if they don't work.

image copyright: http://museumarchitecture.org

Eddie Jones:

“Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul.” – Ernest Dimnet, The Art of Thinking

Yes, my art buddies, architecture is art. In fact, only when a building achieves the elusive quality of art can it be described as architecture. If I really want to piss you off, I can argue it is the most difficult of art forms because it necessarily involves the responsibility of human habitation and, as it has been said, “Architects have to leave their work out in the rain!”

Therefore, I find the programmatic intersection of art and architecture, i.e. the art museum, to be a fascinating challenge and an opportunity to explore the relationship of museum visitor, curator, artist and architect.

The Guggenheim Museum is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, appropriately with a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition of drawings and models. Much has been written about the extraordinary original drawings and the buildings, which changed the course of American architectural history.

The Guggenheim, like it or not, remains a remarkable and unique way to experience a one-of-a-kind art museum. Study the circulation diagram: few remember Wright’s intention to take people to the top level, allowing a slow, thoughtful decent along the famous spiraling ramp. As of this writing, it was only a few hours ago I spent the morning reveling in the drawings and exhilarating space of Guggenheim.

However, the curating was weak and uninspired. For example, upon entering the rotunda, people were immediately directed “up” the ramp opposite to the architect’s intention.

Hence a dilemma: are curators unable or unwilling to cope with a unique exhibition space OR are architects making the art secondary to a dominant form?

I believe Wright sincerely aspired to connect the act of viewing art with the form of the space to the point that the physical form was a direct result of the exhibition experience. Not only was the circulation augmenting and simplifying movement, it was balanced with a central day-lit point of reference, allowing visitors to see where they had been and where they were going. The display walls were tilted outward and lit from above, not unlike the painter’s easel.

Marilu's counterpoint:
I didn't see the Wright show at the Guggenheim, but like architects, some curators get it, some don't. I am often shocked at curator colleagues who think two-dimensionally about space, where objects are little toys moved around inside a maquette of the space, not taking into account the other elements that come into play between works and between work and audience.

When I moved to New York in the 1980s I visited the Guggenheim and went up to the top and worked my way down, as Wright intended. I felt a little nauseous the whole way, as if I was being sucked into a giant drain. One of my first internships was for Tom Messer, where I did some office work for the reinstallation of the Guggenheim's Justin K. Thannhauser Collection. The space was cramped and dingy, but that is being corrected now.

What we need to consider with the Guggenheim, however, is that Wright was first contacted about the commission in 1943 and the building completed in 1959. The world--and the art world--changed totally in that time, and despite its modern feel, the museum has limitations a Beaux Art classic like the Met does not have. (And no way he could have predicted Museum's extreme fascination with the new).

Still, I always have the feeling while in the museum that Wright preferred small, obedient art works, nothing fussy, nothing dramatic--no scratchy detritus from World War II, no Abstract Expressionism, no Bay Area Funk--just the jewel-like objects in the Guggenheim's vaults.

Frank Lloyd Wright was the first starchitect, the one whose overarching design sensibility freed architects to dominate the discourse about art--a domination many museum curators have to deal with every day.

The Face of Grain

2009-08-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

two pictures from the drive between Detroit and Milwaukee

This grain elevator in Chelsea, Michigan reminded me of my first apartment in New York, my bad cooking, my first efforts from the "Joy of Cooking" (that brownie recipe was wrong I tell you!) I started using simple boxed foods like this corn muffin package, luckily, I've moved on to making things from scratch, growing fresh vegetables when I have access to a garden, and so forth.

I took this second image at the Oasis on the Illinois tollway north of Chicago. Ritz has really snapped up its graphics!

I feel conflicted: if corn is the source of our fast-food obesity, why haven't we outlawed it, controlled it, regulated it? Nature is just doing what she does; it's up to us to be mindful of it.

Although there is so much high and low-level dissension over farm subsidies and the calories in packaged food, we must remember how important advanced food distribution and preservatives have been to preventing widespread hunger in the US. The bounty that faces us now needs to be recalibrated. Farming has been an honorable and critically important job to every society; how can we encourage organic, local farming practices while feeding the country? I suspect I'll learn more about this living back in the mid-west.

Modern totems

2009-08-04T06:31:00.001-07:00

all images, unless otherwise noted, courtesy the author

I was in Washington in mid-July to participate on an NEA panel (doing "the people's work," as Kevin says), and had the chance to see lots of art in different museums. New Orleans artist Ron Bechet and I got our exercise by running to and from the Mall every day at lunch, seeing the National Gallery West, the National Museum of African Arts and the Hirshhorn Museum. It was great to share the pleasure of being in big buildings full of cultural richness from around the world.

On Friday, after the panel, I walked to the National Museum of American Indian that featured an exhibition of the artist Fritz Scholder (1937-2005). I'm not a fan of Scholder's work--although much of what I read makes me understand how his work broke through the cliches of "native" art--but I was struck by his obelisk from 1987, somewhat hidden in the garden outside the museum.

This work seemed to throw out a real challenge to the culture that has suppressed Native peoples in the US, represented by the thrusting Washington Monument nearby. (Begun in 1848, the Washington Monument was intended to be the largest structure on earth. Construction halted during the Civil War, but was finally completed in 1885.) That Americans would commemorate their new republic with a cultural form borrowed from an ancient, "pagan" culture is interesting--why not borrow the indigenous American form of a totem?

Fritz Scholder Obelisk, 1987, bronze, detail bottom

Unfortunately, however, Scholder's obelisk also looks Egyptian, influenced, no doubt, by the time he spent in Egypt. I never found a didactic panel that explained the work. The Museum missed the opportunity to toss out a social bomb in the form of an art object, but they are right to avoid the kind of controversies caused when Museums look at history through different eyes.

The Native American artist who does artistically bridge the death-defying gap between white and Native cultures is Brad Kahlhamer. His obelisk, Waqui Totem, 2007, below, is sharp edged, sarcastic and penetrating. Kahlhamer embraces and challenges both Western and indigenous artistic forms, creating vibrant, sex-death-and-rock 'n roll odes to finding identity and spirituality in contemporary America.

images courtesy of Brad Kahlhamer

Kahlhamer's totem was built of cardboard then cast in that uber-art material bronze. It's a bird of prey / nightmare head, tree limbs stripped of leaves by rapacious industry and a provisional base suggestive of the persistence of the ancient myths of Native spiritual systems.

Kahlhamer's totem would be a spectacular apparition on the mall in honor of the millions of Native peoples who lived in North America upon first contact. His work reclaims not only the physical shape of Native American art, but some of its psychic space, too. This work would be a testament to the persistence of indigenous peoples and their evolving cultures long lain dormant underneath the self-aggrandizing myths of the American conquest of a wild but empty paradise.

I think the issue of internal diaspora or exile is a compelling and urgent one for Native artists, and deserves much broader discussion in the art world.

lions and tigers and cars, oh my!

2009-07-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

All these pictures are from a recent trip to Detroit, where I saw the following:

The fabled murals by Diego Rivera (above) and a coffered ceiling at the Detroit Institute of Art (below).

A carousel at the Detroit waterfront (above) and an oddly deflated yet violent sculptural memorial to Joe Louis by Robert Graham downtown (below).

A tale of two modes of transportation: GM headquarters (above), and the old Union station (below).

A tale of two mansions: The Whitney restaurant above, and another, nearby, below.

What did I learn from these disparate images and experiences?

Detroit is rich and devastated, the "first" car city in America (as said to me by Greg Wittkopp, director of the Cranbrook Art Museum) with Phoenix the last. There are many small businesses popping up in town, signs of the grass roots growth that creates communities--the top down, one company / one industry town is what leads to this kind of economic collapse (Phoenix, are you listening?) The early industrial leaders invested in the arts, but new multi-national corporations are not invested in place in the same way. How can we in the arts protect our institutions from the vagaries of institutional raiding?

Many of the people we encountered in Detroit said there are many valuable, interesting things and people in this diverse town, and perhaps as Detroit redefines itself, we'll learn more about how America will reinvent itself over the next 20 years. Artists like Rivera and Graham are witnesses to our communal hopes and dreams--what will this generation of artists say about this time of crisis?

I'll keep looking, let me know when you see signs of that vision.

Hi ho, off to M.O.

2009-07-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

truck on 10 freeway east, Tempe, Arizona, on my way to Austin, Texas

It's official: I am moving to St. Louis, Missouri, to become the Executive Director of the Laumeier Sculpture Park (see why I included the picture above? I think about Johnny Sokko's episode about the giant flying eyeball as well).

I am thrilled. I'm joining a great board and staff, a culturally complex and rich community. I've just gotten my two amazon.com purchases--"Hidden Assets: Connecting the Past to the Future of St. Louis", edited by Richard Rosenfeld and "Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City" by Colin Gordon--to become more knowledgeable and grounded in the city's past. I want to be able to clearly articulate, and activate, the next phase of the LSP's contribution to the region's visual future.

I've already gotten lovely notes from board members, staff, colleagues and artists (both in St. Louis and across the country) about their great enthusiasm for the Laumeier Sculpture Park--I think I'm going to have a great time, and isn't that ultimately why we do what we do?

In addition to a great new challenge, I am also going to be nearer to Kevin and my pals in Milwaukee (plus my Milwaukee family Lou and Carmel), my mom in Kansas City and water. This last word is so meaningful. As much as I have had many great experiences and opportunities in Phoenix, the biggest question I have had for urbanists, architects and city people concerns the sustainability of post-industrial cities. Are any of them sustainable at their current rate of growth and our economic collapse?

Jack Becker speaking in Milwaukee, July 16, 2009

Last night I went with friends to a Public Art Symposium at Cardinal Stritch University, Milwaukee. Jack Becker, founder and executive director of Forecast Public Art, St. Paul, spoke about the evolving field of public art. We met for breakfast the next morning to speak more fully about the field, opportunities, the new amendment to the Minnesota State constitution that dedicates funds to arts, parks and legacy projects like public art--inspiring. Art in the public realm--not plop art, mind you--is a compelling area of contemporary artistic production that I've been dealing with for a decade, and I think the Laumeier Sculpture Park will continue to play an important role in creating opportunities for artists testing new media and materials.

And since I am technically on vacation, I include a picture of Lou Miyazaki's garden in Wauwatosa. She, Kevin and I have been working on this for a few years now, and with all the rain this spring, the garden has popped. We love the fresh produce and cut flowers, and with almost all perennials, the garden is self-sustaining (Dutch iris, anyone?). I've got some more mulch to put down but I will wait until fall to move and plant some things. I'll stop by Starbucks for a sac full of coffee grounds, great for the tomatoes. How can a family plot yield more food--that's next on our agenda; amending the soil and encouraging worms comes first.

Happy summer everyone!

Public space, public speech

2009-07-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Scott Illman on Gormley's Plinth, 2009

I am amused, captivated and mortified by Anthony Gormley's Fourth Plinth project "One & Other."

Amused because it's a simple gesture, harkening back to soapbox preachers and, as more morbid commentators have noted, the prisoner's walk to the guillotine in history past. Amused because it's officially sanctioned anarchy. Anything could be said, although I suspect anyone willing to sign up for the computer lottery is less nutcase than media hound.

I love this image of Scott Illman dressed as a town crier; it makes me think of the diaries of Samuel Peyps, a 17th century London merchant who chronicled London's great fire, the exile and return of his King, and his personal picadillos. LA-based artist Monique Prieto brought his writings to my attention; her recent work uses phrases from his diaries to comment on our own time, giving voice to the human concerns that return over and over. I think Illman understood the possibilities and responsibilities of the Plinth opportunity to disseminate news, release decrees or plea for mercy.

Captivated because there is no public space anymore, every nook and cranny of the streets and public plazas are controlled and corporatized--the arts may be one of the few places where embarrassing, angry dialogue can flow (well, outside of the tight control the market has).

Mortified, and this is why I have such respect for artists: what would you (me) do if you were given such an offer? What makes performance transformative is not just an artist's depth of historical knowledge or years of practice, it's the spark of a unique mind which cannot be scripted. This is when their magical spark lights your own, this is what art can do.

It's possible that most of the people who signed up for Gormely's Plinth are egotists, trained perhaps by reality tv that their every inanity is a meaningful as my every inanity--and why not? But this is where a range of people can have a voice. And not all reality tv is bad of course--competitive shows like Project Runway, and even the Antiques Road show, show off forms of expertise and critical judgement so that the use of a ruche front or square-headed nails separates the women from the girls. Enlightening.

© Sam Durant, This is Freedom?, 2009

The Plinth project makes me think of LA-based artist Sam Durant, who has been exploring public speech and its manifestation, and suppression, in American public life over the past half-century. Durant's sign in lower Manhattan is poignant and distressing--indeed, what is freedom in the face of official speech?

The Prince is Dead, Long Live the Prince

2009-06-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson is dead.

I am quietly, surprisingly, sad.

The Jackson 5 made pop-y, danceable music, breaking out of the music ghetto that bound artists to genres and audiences. Living in Canada I heard in their music the sounds of African Americans taking their rightful place in mainstream culture. They were cute, scrubbed boys, representing the up side to the social strife taking place in the US to our south.

Of course it was not easy for the break-through. The Jackson 5's contemporaries, the devout Mormon Osmonds, represented the mythic side of America, the side that today still thinks in polarized racial terms, even in the face of a mixed-race President. Generations of kids around the globe were entranced by Michael Jackson, and he set the stage for other artists of color to hit the big time.

But there was a price Michael Jackson paid for his incredible, shape-changing work.

A few years ago I curated a show called "Celebrity," which began as a discussion about celebrities who make art work. Once I dug into the research and realized that that would be an awful show (and I am not going to curate a show to mock amateurs), I turned instead to exploring the relationship of the fan to the unknowable star. I included work by Todd Gray, an LA-based artist who was Jackson's photographer from 1979-1984. Todd was allowed to keep copyright, something that would never happen now, and the pictures are from before the Jackson identity train ran off the tracks.

I wanted to include Todd's images of Michael Jackson in "Celebrity" because he was an emblem of the self-mutilation performed by celebrities in service of their fans, or to create some image known only to Jackson himself.

Jackson was unparalleled in his influence, breaking through racial and cultural barriers through his being and lyrics. But I just reviewed Jackson's video for "Black / White" from 1991, where women meld into men, blacks meld into Asians into whites...where it seems the message of equality is tinged with a hint of Jackson's continued erasure of his own cultural identity. Did living inside celebrity his whole life allow him to believe his dreams of reinvention, or was his idea of self simply perverted beyond recognition? But this is America, and he could do what he wanted with his money, fan expectations be damned.

I've been singing "ABC" in falsetto the past few days, much to Kevin's chagrin. Any normal singing voice makes the angelic sounds of Michael Jackson even more remarkable. But I never bought any of the music--I still don't collect music, I had no player when "Thriller" came out, and a few years ago, when I wanted to download some songs, none of the play list was available on itunes. The music lives only in my head, with snippets of memories alongside the notes.

I won't call Michael Jackson "King"--that label is taken, and recalls the bloated social body of Elvis's America in the 1950s. Jackson moved beyond the notion of America as King. Instead he induced many races of kids from around the globe to play with him. And while Jackson died at 50, which is old to some, he retained the endless potential of a Prince waiting for his rightful throne.