Last week we held an event called DJ/VIDEO: A Night at CAMSTL. This was the second of these types of free events that we offer to the public. We had free food and drinks, the exhibitions running all evening, a DJ, and an “art experience.” People were able to grab a bite and hang out while listening to music and watching a stop motion video making in process by Tony Gaddis. Read more about that in an article from the Riverfront Times. Click here.

The Contemporary has a variety of opportunities for area artists, one being the Great Rivers Biennial. Every other year, up to three artists are selected by a jury of national art and museum professionals. Each selected artist is able to show work at the Contemporary as part of the Great Rivers Biennial exhibition and, this year, will be awarded $20,000. This will be the fourth year the Contemporary will dedicate its Main Galleries to area and emerging artists as part of the Great Rivers Biennial Awards Program. Not only does this program give artists funding and the incredible opportunity to show work at the museum, it gives the public a chance to see what area artists are doing, and feel more connected to the local arts scene. David Bonetti of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote this “…the Great Rivers Biennial, funded by the Gateway Foundation and hosted by the Contemporary Art Museum is at the top of the heap…” Find out more on the process and information on the call to artists for the GRB 2010 on the Contemporary’s website.

New Art in the Neighborhood is a program at the Contemporary for high school students. The students learn about contemporary art and ideas from museum professionals, artists, as well as their peers. The students meet every Saturday for a school semester or a year to create and learn about work in all types of media. Stan Chisholm is a recent graduate of the New Art program. He has gone on study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now has an exhibition at Laumeier Sculpture Park. Check out Stan and the other artist’s part of Built: Kranzberg Exhibition 2009 on The Empty Plate blog and the Laumeier website.

The Art and You Blog, “the art meeting place on the internet,” posted about the work of Chantal Akerman. Here is the introduction:

Born in Brussels in 1950, Chantal Akerman is the most important feminine director in film history. Discovered by the critics through her first Black and White film “Saute ma ville” (Blow up My Town), she explores personal and professional lifes of women, but also turns towards diverse topics such as romance, art, storytelling, drama, food etc. Since 1995, she melds documentary filmmaking techniques with video installations.

The rest discusses the works in the exhibition here. Click here to read about the works.

 Last week I let you know about a collaboration the museum did with local high school, Metro Academic and Classical High School. On Tuesday, May 19 this collaborative project was dedicated at the school. Students were able to hear a little bit of background on how the project came to be and the work that went behind it. The sculpture “Untitled” Gathering Place is a wonderful addition to the schools grounds, and from the excitement that I witnessed from the students during the dedication, it will serve its purpose well. Click here to read more on the project and see the images from the dedication below.
    

Opening Night of Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space and Carey Young: Speech Acts in the Main Galleries and of three artists in The Front Room was Friday evening. Everyone I talked to that night and everyone I have been corresponding with through emails about the shows seem to want to know more about the artists, and the “why” behind their work. I will see if I can be a good resource for that that on this blog throughout the time the shows are on view. Let’s start with a review by an critic in St. Louis that got picked up by the California Chronicle. Here is the introduction of the review:

There is a lot of history in the work of filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It’s right there in the title of this exhibition featuring five of her documentary works made since 1995: “Moving through time and space.” Isn’t that a way to define history?

Click here to read the full article.

The night of the Opening there were lines of people waiting for the chance to get to experience the work of Carey Young. Her exhibition is in a space we often do not use to show work; it is outside of our gallery space, in what is normally our education resource center and conference room. Click here to read more about what it is she is doing here, and here to see an article in Artforum. Keep checking back for more insight.

We are still in install mode, and on our way to being ready for Opening Night (which is in two days)! But, before we venture into the discussions of the new exhibitions, there is one more review of the Gedi Sibony show to share with you. First you saw one from ArtReview, then from a visitor who only could view the show virtually. Now read this one from a visitor who witnessed the show on one of the last days it was on view in the Contemporary.

My Arms are Tied Behind My Other Arms
The first piece I saw as I walked into Gedi Sibony’s exhibition, My Arms Are Tied Behind My Other Arms, was a yellow metal picture frame entitled Can It Can’t It. I was forced to respond, “I don’t know. I think I’m lost.”  Gedi Sibony’s works, created from found materials in a neutral color scheme of bare wood, nude carpet, and clear plastic, left me conflicted as I walked through the space. It was difficult, at first, to get beyond the boldly unchanged materials, but at the same time, I was drawn to the neat monoliths and anthropomorphic door frames. Part of me wanted to appreciate the clean lines and inventive familiarity of his work, as in The Tooth Finder. At the same time, there were pieces of carpet engaged in a very public kiss in the middle of the room (XXXX).

I have to believe that this dual response is Sibony’s intention. There is an optimism and lightheartedness to the space that encourages viewing the work with good humor. His work is representative of a generation with renewed vigor for conservation and nostalgia for reality. My Arms are Tied Behind My Other Arms is about as real as you can get, to the extent that, at times, the gallery seemed to be under construction, with whitewashed panels leaning against the walls (Duck Dive). The choice to re-use construction materials without much alteration extends the exhibition space into the outside world, either making it current and relatable, or confusing the hell out of visitors. 

Still, by the end of my visit, I was fully on board with Sibony’s work. I unabashedly buy into his simple materials and shapes. It is refreshing to view an artist who is both playful and idealistic, who can both recycle planks into an intricately beautiful still life (Probably Eight or Half of Each) and make scraps of carpet kiss.

The last review was by ArtReview, this one is by a visitor. This is not your typical museum visitor, as she has never once set foot inside the Contemporary. She instead, viewed the exhibition virtually by looking through the museum’s website pages, watching videos, and reading blog posts. Here is what she had to say:
My Arms Are Tied Behind… My Computer

For those of you who had the opportunity to see Gedi Sibony’s exhibition My Arms Are Tied Behind My Other Arms, consider yourselves lucky. I, unfortunately, was unable to visit the Contemporary during the exhibition; however, I was inspired by Sibony’s work after simply viewing the links on this blog.

While unable to fully appreciate the way Sibony uses space, angles, light and shadow, I was struck by the concept of the work. This exhibition was created from useless, discarded waste. Things that were originally thrown out as trash were reinvented and reshaped into something so much more. Sibony did not “create” art, but rather, he maximized things that were already there.

Another thing I loved about this exhibition was the idea that you don’t have to do something for it to become done. By not doing it, you end up doing it. This reminded me of a project I was assigned in eighth-grade art class. I was painting a landscape, and I wanted it to be perfect. I painstakingly dabbed for just the right amount of paint, playing with colors and brushes and blending techniques until I finished the work. Then I stepped back and saw, not my finished painting, but the scrap of paper I had used to swipe off my brushes. I saw beauty in the mess of colors carelessly blotted on an unremarkable background. It was that scrap, not my actual painting, that I hung on my wall at home. And that’s what I think is illustrated in Sibony’s exhibition: The art finds the artist. You just have to be ready to see it.

As the show Gedi Sibony: My Arms Are Tied Behind My Other Arms came to and end, reviews began. Look for these reviews here. Here is the intro of one that was published in ArtReview.

Much of what Gedi Sibony has done in this radiantly beautiful exhibition is so subtle, it almost escapes notice. In one gallery, for example, he shortens a black curtain to reveal two panes of a clerestory. And throughout, he installs his pieces so that correspondences between material and form – remnants of carpet or shoddy plasterboard doors, say – create triangular relationships across the exhibition space. Such moves pull the eye away from his own work and lead it around the broad proportions of Brad Cloepfil’s much-praised architecture – which to Sibony’s credit comes off as sublimely balanced rather than elegant and cold.

For more of this review, visit our website here.

The exhibitions in our Main Galleries, Gedi Sibony: My Arms Are Tied Behind My Other Arms and Bruce Nauman: Dead Shot Dan are just about to coming to an end (this Sunday, April 19!). The show has received much attention and has produced much discussion. See below for just a sample of what has come out of the exhibitions.

There will be a “Last Chance Tour” of the exhibitions at the museum on Saturday, April 18 at 12:00 pm. The public seems to be incredibly interested in what others think about the work on view, and taking a tour is a perfect way to get a little more of that insight. During tours, connections through the two exhibitions are made by just discussing the work, or walking through it a new way, or hearing someone new talk about it. For example, Nauman introduces the idea of laughter, and since his show is located in the first gallery, maybe visitors will go on to see humor in Gedi Sibony’s work as well…”Kissing Carpets”  for example. Also, “behind-the-scenes” information is often revealed on tours, such as why a piece was placed a certain way and how. For example, when Sibony came to the museum to install his work and saw the giant, thick pieces of plywood that blocked the museum’s wall-to-wall windows for the previous exhibition, he decided to re-position them in his exhibition.

If you have been on a tour of these exhibitions or have viewed any of our video tours, share what you have gotten from your experience. (Or watch and read now and come back to share).

Clip of first walk-through of Gedi Sibony’s work

Clip of first walk-through of Bruce Nauman’s work

Video podcast on work of Gedi Sibony

Gedi Sibony and Bruce Nauman on STLToday.com

Bruce Nauman and Gedi Sibony in St. Louis Beacon

Chief Curator, Anthony Huberman talks about work of Gedi Sibony on KWMU

Gedi Sibony on ARTINFO.com

Bruce Nauman in Art Knowledge News

Bruce Nauman on Artdaily.org