The 10th iteration of Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB for short throughout)—which has now become a fixture on the art world’s calendar and another source of civic pride for a city better known for basketball teams and beaches—showed the fair settling into its status as the premier commercial exposition for contemporary art in the United States. Since its first appearance in 2002, ABMB has inspired the development of satellite fairs—among the most prominent being the NADA (New Art Dealers Association) fair. It has also been aided by various entities and individuals in Miami “stepping up their game” with the opening or expansion of public spaces devoted to private collections or curated exhibitions—the de la Cruz Collection, World Class Boxing, the Cisneros Foundation, and the Rubell Family Collection, among others—as well as museums and alternative spaces such as Locust Projects or the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, putting on more ambitious shows. Perhaps it was just me but despite the seemingly healthy business being done, one couldn’t help but feel that things were somewhat more subdued, with the fairs moving into their “mature” phase and, celebrity spottings of P. Diddy, Val Kilmer, A-Rod, and Owen Wilson aside, the context of a still uncertain economy made the carnival a little less … carnivalesque.

A shortlist of my picks that clicked:
• Los Angeles-based artist Ruben Ochoa’s dynamic, site-specific project at Locust Projects featured excised sections of the gallery floor propped up on precariously pitched steel beams.

• Larry Johnson’s presentation at Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, was one of numerous so-called “Art Kabinett” presentations at ABMB that featured in-depth mini-exhibitions of a gallery’s artist. I’ve admired his deadpan text-and-image-based photographic work since first seeing it in the 1989 exhibition The Photography of Invention and am glad to see him finally getting further exposure.

• Two Art Kabinetts for John Miller at Praz-Delavallade and Meyer Riegger (both at ABMB) were welcome presentations of another artist who’s quietly established a strong career for iconoclastic works that touch on the quirkiness, disposability, and abjection of American culture.

• Alan Reid and Michael Bauer both were represented with strong paintings at Lisa Cooley Gallery (NADA)

• The third floor at the de la Cruz Collection featuring phenomenal works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jim Hodges, and Gabriel Orozco. A welcome reminder of the Collection’s earlier days and a good counterpoint to the visual “maximalism” of the first two floors.

• Works by Jack Whitten and Hassan Sharif and an Art Kabinett for Joan Semmel at Alexander Gray Gallery, (at ABMB), a space that specializes in celebrating figures working somewhat outside of the art historical spotlight.

• I found the suspended sculpture by Alan Shields at Greenberg van Doren’s booth in ABMB very hard to resist.

• Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in a mesh-clad building but I was very drawn to Valerie Snobeck’s works incorporating plastic-scaffolding mesh at Essex Gallery (NADA).

• Mary Reid Kelley’s black-and-white video at Pilar Corrias (ABMB) made an indelible impression with its meditation on the plight of prostitutes during the First World War. The use of poetically dense dialogue and elaborate costuming and make-up—most unsettlingly Kermit-the-Frog-style eye coverings—makes the work that much more strangely affecting.

• Philip Hanson’s paintings at Corbett vs Dempsey were tucked away on a side wall but that positioning did little to diminish their compelling combination of stylized text and inspired handling of color and composition.

• Brendan Fowler’s maze of paintings and broken photographic wall structures at Untitled (ABMB) demonstrate a great sense of progression and ambition in this L.A. artist’s practice.

• Finally, something about Carissa Rodriguez’s ultra-subtle object-based sculptures at Karma International (ABMB) struck a chord with me …

Traveling to Miami in December was a whirlwind of a research trip/scouting expedition for CAM, involving seeing as much art as possible in a mere four days. During this frenetic visit, in which each new art experience threatened to overtake the one prior (in keeping with the old psychology adage about the “magic number seven,” or our ability to store seven chunks of information within our short-term memory), I took copious notes bookmarking what I found to be the most memorable booths and artworks, of which, for our curatorial purposes, there were fortunately many. Here is a shortlist that will surely inspire our work at CAM in the coming months and beyond.

Art Basel Miami Beach

• Overduin & Kite’s gorgeous, pastel-hued booth — one of my absolute favorites across all the fairs — featuring a theatrical multi-part installation by France-based British artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Los Angeles-based painter Dianna Molzan’s ebullient, bunting-like shaped canvases

• Japanese minimalist (and one of the founders of Mono-ha) Nobuo Sekine’s fluorescent infinity-shape pencil drawings from 1968 at Blum & Poe

• The text-based prints of Luis Camnitzer, the éminence grise of Cuban conceptualism, at Alexander Gray’s terrific booth

• Trevor Paglen’s surveillance photographs of near-imperceptible predator drones against a wash of pink and blue sky at Metro Pictures

• Ross Knight’s precarious sculptures made of paper-like rawhide and other delicate materials at TEAM Gallery

NADA

• Tokyo-based Take Ninegawa gallery’s booth was fresh and lively all around, particularly Shinro Ohtake’s kaleidoscopic dime-store assemblages and young painter Shinpei Kagashima’s rich abstract landscapes

• Sigmar Polke’s suite of performative lithographs from 1968 at Leo Koenig and a giant new painting by the reliably cunning Nicole Eisenman

• Most everything at the booth of San Francisco gallery Altman Siegel (who represent current CAM exhibiting artist Emily Wardill in the United States); standouts were Will Rogan’s documentary-like black-and-white photographs and Devin Leonardi’s nearly all-black portrait painting

SEVEN

• Winkleman gallery featured a suite of William Powhida’s cranky yet hilarious (and oh-so-accurate) drawings lamenting the artist’s co-conspiracy with the art world itself; also of note were Christopher K. Ho’s abstract walnut box framed paintings

• Ronald Feldman Fine Arts’ juxtaposition of British-Israeli artist Yishay Garbasz’s photographic series detailing the landscape along both sides of the Israel/Palestine border against another series, Becoming (recalling Eleanor Antin’s own Carving: A Traditional Sculpture, 1972), depicting the artist’s sex change over the course of two years; the overt political tones in both series could not be more different yet at the same time were equally compelling

PULSE

• A minimalist black-and-white painting from 2008 by Israeli artist Michal Rovner (best known for her haunting films) at Los Angeles’s Shoshana Wayne gallery

• Orly Genger’s Brice Marden-esque oversized drawing at Larissa Goldston’s booth, which provided a nice foil to her labor-intensive practice involving large-scale painted and crocheted/knitted ropes

Bonus acknowledgments to Los Angeles/Chicago-based Intelligentsia coffee, which provided much-needed caffeinated fuel at NADA, as well as the be-hammocked lounge area in the courtyard outside of Pulse, which offered a different kind of respite: impromptu r&r after epic days of art viewing.

Congratulations to Toky Branding + Design on yet another recognition for the amazing work they did on branding CAM’s Misterios de Mayo event series. This time their design genius was featured in the December issue of Print as one of the top 421 pieces from the past year.  Every year since 1981, Print has taken a snapshot of American design with the Regional Design Annual. For the 31st edition, they assembled a team of judges—Kim Bost, of The New York Times; Brigitta Bungard, of the Museum of Modern Art; Joshua Darden, of the Darden Studio; Michael Freimuth, of Sagmeister Inc.; John Kudos and Kiki Katahira, of Studio Kudos; and Pum and Jake Lefebure, of Design Army—to sort through 2,536 submissions from every corner of the country. They chose the 421 best pieces and TOKY’s Misterios de Mayo branding was one of them!  ”Gathered together, the work offers a portrait of American design today, in all its messy brilliance,” said Print Magazine.

Thank you TOKY for the continued design genius you provide CAM and our exhibitions, public programs, and special events.

Congratulations to CAM’s architect, Brad Cloepfil, on the opening of his newest architectural endeavor – the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, CO. Cloepfil, Founding Principal of Allied Works Architecture, designed a big, horizontal concrete box with a cantilevered entrance and a glass-walled first floor for a cost of $15.5 million. Click here to read an article from The Kansas City Star for more information about Denver’s newest art museum housing some of the greatest and least-known American paintings of the post-World War II era — big, craggy, all-over abstractions made by Clyfford Still (1904-1980), perhaps the most cantankerous and original of the abstract expressionists.

Feast Your Eyes
Saturday, December 3
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Tasting: 12:30 pm
Tour: 1:00 pm

A new month means a new round of programs and within CAM’s lineup of amazing monthly programming is one that will satisfy that rumbling stomach of yours – or is that just me? Join CAM this Saturday, December 2 for Feast Your Eyes – CAM’s monthly foodie event that connects a delectable tasting menu with the art currently on view. This Saturday, Chefs Dave Owens and Margaret Kelly from Bissinger’s will be whipping up a tasting menu that will make even the biggest chocoholic go into a sweets coma. We will also be serving mixed drinks provided by Pearl Vodka and wine provided by Chandler Hill Vineyards.

Bissinger’s Tasting Menu:

Sugar Plum
Apple Ghost Chili Salt Caramel
Raspberry Truffle
Chocolate braised short rib on crostini
Blue cheese/wine grape chocolate cups

Afterwards, stick around for the final Feast Your Eyes tour of our current exhibitions by David Noonan and Emily Wardill before they close on December 30.

See you Saturday!

In conjunction with World AIDS Day, CAM is pleased to present Untitled by Jim Hodges. With a run time of 60 minutes, the film will start every hour on the hour.

Untitled is a non-linear montage of archival and pop footage recalling the passionate activism sparked by the early years of the AIDS crisis. Un-spooling at multiple levels, the narrative flies between scenes of tragic brutality to kitschy humor, arch clips of laughter and ironic surprises while shredding traditional chronology. Many references — the title, short excerpts from Golden Girls and Dynasty, popular songs, and contemporary issues — nod towards Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s oeuvre, but the film is not an attempt to portray the artist; rather, it places the viewer “in his room.” In this way, the framing of the artist becomes a means to project any number of people, endlessly.

Click here for more information.

Over the past year we have been working with TOKY Branding + Design on the launch of our new identity – CAM.  With this new identity you might have noticed a new logo, a new, brighter color scheme, and a completely revamped website.  Now, we’re proud to announce an even bigger addition to the new CAM identity – the CAM St. Louis iPhone App.

The CAM App is the first of its kind and functions on a local, regional, and national level. Utilizing the GPS of the iPhone, the CAM App provides users with a unique experience each time they launch the App. If launched within the museum, the interface is designed to act as an accessible tool that will help visitors navigate the aesthetic and conceptual landscape of contemporary art. With this App, users will be able to embark on a self-guided digital tour of CAM’s exhibitions currently on view. With each visit, the user will be able to move around the space, watch a video tour with architect Brad Cloepfil, listen to the Director speak about the history of the museum, and explore the mission and nature of CAM as a non-collecting institution with Chief Curator Dominic Molon. Continuing the self-guided tour, users can also listen as CAM curators introduce the work on view. As visitors explore the artworks, they will actually be able to see and hear the artist(s) talk about specific pieces featured in the current exhibition.

Users launching the CAM App outside of the museum will be informed as to about how many miles they have to go before reaching the museum doors. Within the same screen an option exists that links users to an online map and directions to CAM from their current location. Those within a regional (50 mile) radius will also see an entire calendar including scrolling featured events and programs hosted by the museum year round. If a user is over 100 miles away, the App functions as an engaging well-designed mobile interface for online museum visitors that represents and enhances the museum’s brand nationally and internationally. Users are introduced to the CAM mission and programming via several avenues including: access to a shared blog with the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the ability to connect with CAM’s social media platforms, and access to the CAM Channel which contains a wealth of educational and interpretative content focusing on the current exhibition. Watch artist interviews, listen to discussions with curators and educators, or view performances and public programs that occur in the museum’s Performance Space.

As one of the first museums to launch a fully customized App in St. Louis and nationally, CAM continues to be a technological leader in the museum and art fields. In an effort to better serve the local and international community, CAM hopes that this resource will further connect visitors to the museum, its programming, and contemporary art.

Join CAM as we continue to push the boundaries and explore the most innovative and relevant art being made today…coming to you now on your mobile device!

CAM supports local artists through programs like Great Rivers Biennial, City-Wide Open Studios, Flat Files, and now the CAM Shop. Each month, CAM will feature a new local artist ranging from printmakers, writers, photographers, painters, and more. Each artist will be asked to create work that will only be available at CAM. Every piece a work of art; every artist from St.Louis.

Here’s a local artist you should know about!  This month CAM’s Shop will be featuring the work of local artist Travis Lawrence.  Influenced by the subtle use of symbol, Travis uses the art of printmaking to convey subconscious imagery through the form of multiples. Pulling inspiration from Jungian psychology and mythology, Travis presents iconic visuals shrouded in simplistic mystery.  Infinity Prints was created as an accessible form of sharing prints on paper, t-shirts, etc. Travis works as a Press Assistant at Evil Prints here in Saint Louis, Missouri and has recently been enlisted as a new member of the Dirty Printmakers of America.  Check out Travis’ webpage by clicking here.

Photos by Jaffa Aharonov.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) is proud to announce the three local artists chosen for the Great Rivers Biennial 2012. Designed to recognize artistic talent in the greater St. Louis metro area, the Great Rivers Biennial program, funded generously by the Gateway Foundation, awards each selected artist $20,000 and a major exhibition in CAM’s Main Galleries during the summer of 2012. The three artists chosen for the Great Rivers Biennial 2012 are David Johnson, Asma Kazmi, and Mel von Trad. The exhibition will open at CAM on May 11, 2012, and run through August 12, 2012.

GREAT RIVERS BIENNIAL 2012 WINNERS

David Johnson is an artist and educator based in St. Louis, MO. He received an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007 and earned his BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, in 2005. His current research involves the relationship between the built environment and its inhabitants. By focusing on small mundane objects and the quality of lighting, his abstracted photographs of office spaces and domestic environments highlight the strained relationship between self and place. Currently, Johnson is an Adjunct Lecturer at Saint Louis University and is also a founding member of the RAD LAB studio space in downtown St. Louis. His photographs have been exhibited nationally, including at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, Los Caminos, and Boots Contemporary Arts Space, all in St. Louis; La Esquina, Kansas City, MO; Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, OR; and Maps Contemporary Art Space, Belleville, IL.

Asma Kazmi is a performance artist and sculptor born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, and currently based in St. Louis, MO. She received an M.F.A. in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007, and a B.F.A. in Sculpture and Film/Video from the Massachussetts College of Art in 2002. Kazmi approaches her practice from a post- installation-/object-centric position, which allows her to create transdisciplinary, relational works where people, media, and objects come together. Kazmi is currently a part-time lecturer at the Kansas City Art Institute. She is the recipient of the Rocket Grant, Charlotte Street Foundation and the Spencer Museum of Art at Kansas University; the At the Edge: Innovative Art in Chicago Award, University of Illinois at Chicago; and the Creative Stimulus Award, Critical Mass for the Visual Arts, St. Louis. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as H&R Block Space and Grand Arts, both in Kansas City, MO; University of Missouri and Boots Contemporary Art Space in St. Louis; The Guild Gallery, New York; Galerie Sans Titre, Brussels, Belgium; Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago; and the Boston Underground Film Festival and the MassArt Film Society in Boston, MA.

Mel von Trad is a sculptor and installation artist born and raised in St. Louis, MO. Developing abstract relationships with found materials, wood, steel, and plaster, von Trad redrafts the art object. Her arrangements function as objects of study, performing a spatial investigation into the visual nuances of the objective and non-objective, domesticity, and the history of classical modernism. Studying sculpture and photography, von Trad received her B.A. of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California in 2009. She has presented her work at Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts, Pig Slop, and 1948 Cherokee, all in St. Louis; and at Under the Bridge Gallery and H. Kazan Gallery in Los Angeles.

Three distinguished jurors selected the three artists from more than 120 submissions representing a wide range of media including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, video, and new media. The jurors for the Great Rivers Biennial 2012 are Lisa Dorin, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at The Art Institute of Chicago; Jeffrey Grove, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art; and Lydia Yee, Curator, Barbican Art Gallery, London.

The Great Rivers Biennial Visual Arts Awards Program, established in 2003, is a collaboration between the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and the Gateway Foundation, with a mission to strengthen and support the local artists of St. Louis. The goal of this program is to identify talented emerging and mid-career local artists, provide them with financial assistance, raise the visibility of their work in both the Midwest and national arts communities, and provide them with the professional support of visiting critics, curators, and dealers.

The Great Rivers Biennial is generously supported by the Gateway Foundation. To date, the Contemporary, with the Gateway Foundation’s financial support, has given $290,000 directly to local artists.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) announced today that Director Paul Ha has been selected as the new Director of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) List Center for the Visual Arts in Cambridge, MA. Ha is expected to begin his new position on December 1, 2011.

“What an honor it is for Paul to have been chosen to lead the List Center at MIT,” said David Obedin, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Board Chairman. “For the past nine years, Paul has taken the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis to a new level of excellence and international prominence. We will miss his vision and leadership, but wish him well in this exciting new opportunity.”

Ha arrived in St. Louis in 2002 to oversee the construction and opening in September 2003 of the organization’s new facility designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. Ha quickly positioned CAM as a leader in the field of contemporary art, garnering national and international recognition for its exhibitions. He also initiated programs to appeal to broader audiences in the St. Louis community. His major accomplishments for CAM include raising an aggregate of over $40 million and initiating and creating a $5 million endowment, the institution’s first. During Ha’s tenure, a number of artists received their first major museum exhibition at CAM including Laylah Ali, Lutz Bacher, Yun-Fei Ji, David Noonan, Alexander Ross, Aida Ruilova, Gedi Sibony, and Carey Young. Other artists exhibited include Polly Apfelbaum, Richard Artschwager, Slater Bradley, Jim Hodges, Maya Lin, Yoshitomo Nara, William Pope. L, and Cindy Sherman among others. Under Ha’s leadership, CAM produced 92 exhibitions and brought 223 artists to St. Louis since opening its doors in 2003.

“It was an incredible privilege to be the inaugural Director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis,” said Ha. “I am thankful to those who brought me here and introduced me to a terrific city, and I am grateful to the tremendous staff members who helped build this institution. I am also thankful to the active board I was fortunate to have the support of, and of course all the extraordinary artists I was privileged to exhibit and support. I leave this organization knowing that I am leaving an institution that is fiscally sound, staffed by incredibly talented and dedicated individuals, and has tremendous leadership from committed board members. CAM is respected and loved by the community. My family and I are thankful to the St. Louis community and to those who reached out and welcomed us. We have made lifelong friends here.”

“Having been involved from the beginning with the predecessor institutions of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, I can say how rewarding it has been to watch the organization’s development over the last nine years under Paul’s leadership,” said Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Founder of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. “He has brought a broad spectrum of contemporary art to St. Louis and an increasingly widely involved community. It has been a pleasure for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis to share a courtyard and many interests and programs.”
The List Center for the Visual Arts is known internationally and nationally for its cutting edge exhibitions and its oversight of MIT’s world-class public art collection. “What excites me about the List is that the arts at MIT are rooted in experimentation, and the List excels at that mandate,” said Ha. “My goal is to try to build on the List’s strong reputation in the field while also expanding its role in the lives of students and the greater MIT community. Just as the MIT Museum explores the foundations and frontiers of science and technology, the List Center for the Visual Arts explores the foundations and frontiers of the visual arts, being a laboratory for forward thinking and experimentation for the visual art world.”

“In Paul, the List is gaining a well respected and proven arts leader that has earned the admiration of his staff, the communities in which he has lived and worked, as well as the international art community,” said Philip S. Khoury, Associate Provost and Ford International Professor of History who oversees the List Center for the Visual Arts. “We are excited that he is joining MIT and look forward to collaborating on ways we can further solidify the List’s standing among students, faculty, visitors, and the international arts community.”

A search committee has been formed to name Ha’s replacement. Specific plans for the transition will be announced in the coming weeks.