The fourth iteration of the Great Rivers Biennial opened Friday night, April 30. The Biennial is a collaboration between the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Gateway Foundation designed to strengthen the local art scene in St. Louis. This innovative program identifies talented emerging local artists and mid-career artists whose work explores new directions, and provides them with financial support as well as local and national visibility.

This year’s Great Rivers Biennial 2010 artists, Martin Brief, Sarah Frost, and Cameron Fuller, each received $20,000 to help support their practice, in addition to the opportunity to mount an exhibition in the Contemporary’s Main Galleries. The Great Rivers Biennial is one of the most widely anticipated exhibitions presented by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. The energy it has generated has galvanized the arts community in St. Louis, contributing to an enhanced quality of life for St. Louis area residents.

This year’s exhibition includes the following:

Martin Brief’s suite of twenty-eight new drawings, collectively titled Amazon God, appear at first glance to be seismographic in nature, the recording of tectonic shifts. In fact, they meticulously inventory the results of a search for “God” on Amazon.com. Brief records the thousands of book titles his search unearthed on scroll-like sheets of paper with a Rapidograph pen.

Sarah Frost’s installation, Arsenal, had its beginnings on the internet, too, though YouTube provided the impetus. Frost found there a community of young boys who self-publish instructional videos for making elaborate paper guns. Guided by the boys’ videos, Frost fashioned a paper cloud of weaponry suspended from the gallery ceiling, which shares the space with YouTube stills.

Cameron Fuller’s The Institute for the Perpetuation of Imaginal Processes reveals his interests in folk art, Native American artifacts, and the natural history museum. Upon entering his “museum within a museum,” you’ll encounter As It Is, a life-size diorama, and then, in adjoining rooms, Remembering Washington, The Guidance of Disaster, and Where My Heart Will Lead Me, an allusion to the itinerant tinker.

The Great Rivers Biennial 2010 runs through August 8. For more information, visit www.camst.org.

Artist Sean Landers, whose work is in the Contemporary’s current exhibition, Sean Landers: 1991-1994, Improbable History, recently led a New Art in the Neighborhood session. His workshop focused on self exploration and expression through artistic writing, as he led the twenty students in a stimulating narrative exercise.  Landers first asked the students to write three personal truths about themselves or the world around them.  The artist then collected the statements and read them aloud to the class without revealing their authors.  The truths were poetic reflections, frank observations, and deeply personal secrets.  The thought-provoking workshop provided an opportunity for the students to express their most direct thoughts and create a picture of their identity.

 The exploratory workshop was a great segue into a NAN session led by local artist Kit Keith.  Keith, an accomplished mixed-media artist, began the workshop with a discussion of her earliest artistic influences and the lessons she learned from her father, who worked as a sign painter.  She shared with the students a history of her artistic voice, emphasizing her fascination with 1940s imagery and use of found objects, two constants in her work.  Keith brought several unfinished works with her, and worked on her art alongside students as she challenged them to make collages with found objects, found imagery, paint, and illustration.  The resulting collages were extremely diverse and channeled Keith’s techniques through pastiche and careful composition.  Students crafted their collages using newsprint, personal photographs, magazines, and textiles, and other fascinating materials. 

 Not only did these two artists share stories of their efforts to create self-reflexive artwork, but they also gave the students precious insight into their personal methods and aesthetics.  After two fun and challenging NAN workshops, the students will surely be inspired to continue creating art that gives thought to personal narrative and honesty.  It was great to see their processes develop through these two workshops.  Thanks again to Sean Landers and Kit Keith!  And thanks to the NAN students for their consistent dedication, talent, and enthusiasm!

The Contemporary’s new shows open tomorrow night (Friday, January 22, 7-9pm) and things are busy around here! The artists have been in town all week, working closely with our installation crew to hang the show. We got a staff preview today and it is looking really great. The rest of the museum staff and interns are hard at work preparing for tomorrow’s Opening Night Reception…making welcome signs, arranging for photography and valet, printing and folding the gallery guides, and all of the other little things it takes to get the Contemporary ready to welcome the thousand people who will visit us tomorrow night.

I hope you will join us at the Opening and bring a friend. These exhibitions feature photographs, drawings, watercolors, videos, paintings, music, and even some literature, blurring the boundaries between artist, author, and musician. Both artists use all materials at their disposal to express themselves and create their artworks. Even though the exhibitions are separate solo shows featuring artists who have distinct and unique processes, we’ve observed some parallel concepts running through both. I encourage you to visit the museum to explore these exhibitions for yourself and respond to this blog post. What parallels do you see?

And remember, The Front Room is back! Xavier Cha and Torbjørn Rødland present their work in this fluid space dedicated to creative experimentation. Cha’s work is performance based so be sure to come on Opening Night to experience her performances first hand.

Click here to read an article that was featured in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

What’s all the excitement? On Sunday, January 3, the CAM hosted the Piñata Closing Party for the end of the exhibition, For the blind man… For my first event with the CAM, I was intrigued to discover the large community involvement and the amazing amount of excitement that unfolded. People of all ages came out to take a swing and enjoy complimentary appetizers. After an hour of blindfolded people at bat, the piñata busted and kids, teens, and parents rushed to gather the hidden goodies. With tons of energy and laughter filling the museum, this was truly a great way to begin my internship.

After the cleanup and all the goodbyes, I gathered with Cole and a few others to start the removal of the exhibition. The prep work, organization, and the art removal itself, all has to be done with such intricate details. We started section by section, removing pieces and collecting evidence for the condition reports. Handling the art in such an intimate, delicate fashion gave me the chance to interpret each piece on an individual basis. Though I didn’t have a chance to stay to help finish up that evening, the next experience will be just as interesting and exciting.

Tabitha Schnurbusch is an intern in the Exhibitions Department

The Museum is closed for installation until January 22 which is Opening Night of Sean Landers: 1991-1994, Improbable History and Stephen Prina: Modern Movie Popin the Main Galleries and Xavier Cha in The Front Room. You can stay connected to the Contemporary by visiting this blog, social networking sites, and the Museum’s website. Click here for all the ways to stay connected while we are closed.

Read the blog posted on saintlouisartmap.org. Find out about the Piñata Closing Party, the event to mark the end of the exhibition For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there.

Mariana Castillo Deball / Tessa Rehkop

Mariana Castillo Deball was born in 1975 in Mexico City, and she currently lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin. Her Klein Bottle Piñata (2009) is being presented as part of the current exhibition For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there. The gigantic, blue, Klein bottle-shaped piñata hangs over the Contemporary’s performance space allowing viewers to examine the curious object. It is made out of paper máché and is larger than life. A Klein bottle is a non-orientable surface, meaning the inside and outside cannot be distinguished. This is similar to a Mobious strip, except that a Klein bottle has no boundary. What’s inside the Piñata is a mystery and will be revealed the last day of the show at the Piñata Closing Party held at the Contemporary on Sunday, January 3 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm. Guests will be allowed to take swings at the piñata to break it open!

Falke Pisano / Tessa Rehkop

Falke Pisano was born in 1978 in Amsterdam, where she currently lives and works. Her work, Chillida (Forms and Feelings) (2006), is being shown as part of the current exhibition For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there. It consists of a video projection of the artist looking through a book photographs. These photographs are of sculptures by Eduardo Chillida captured by amateur photographer David Finn, who travels all over the world to find them. He eventually publishes the sculptures in a book in the late 1990’s. Using two separate projections, Pisano flips through Finn’s book of photographs while providing her commentary. The artist believed it was important to describe what she felt the moment she first looked at the photographs and their descriptions. Some of the sculptures Pisano views with appreciation because they are what she describes as “strong and natural” just as she herself would like to be. Pisano begins to draw lines and create her own shapes using images of the sculptures, so the viewer doesn’t just hear her interpretation but can now see it also. Click here for the gallery guide.

For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there is on view for only a short time longer. It closes on Sunday, January 3, 2010. You can read a review of this major group show that was published in the December issue of Art in America here!

Rachel Harrison / Tessa Rehkop

Rachel Harrison was born in 1966 in New York City, where she currently lives and works. Her work, Voyage of the Beagle, is named after a journal by Charles Darwin and is currently being displayed as part of the current exhibition For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there. It consists of fifty-eight photographs of a wide variety of characters. Lining the length of two entire walls, Harrison’s images range from 5000-year old stone figures to a Barbie doll to a figure of Elvis. The series seems to be a playful, humorous way to represent gaps in culture from the past and present but also holes that exist between cultures even today. Along with these images Harrison presents three abstract sculptures that are coated with the artist’s signature pearlescent paint.