As we usher out the grand ol’ paintings and think forward to Gordon Matta-Clark, the focus of my preparations involves deciding what type of staffing the new exhibition will need. With a new exhibition, everything changes. The way that we discuss the exhibition changes. The approach to visitor education and programming changes. So there’s a lot of flurry of information swirling around me in the office right now, but it won’t be until the works are installed that the true sense of what our Visitor Service roles will be.

Gallery Assistants will be studying up on the artist’s work and biography as well as the sort of ideas present in 1970s New York and how they may or may not relate to our own city in the current time. Gallery Assistants are here for the public, and this won’t change–answers to the questions of visitors will be readily accessible from the gallery staff.

The dialogue between art and architecture will continue, but in what way will the Pulitzer perform social and political roles as Gordon Matta-Clark did? And for that matter, how will someone who visited us for the first time during Ideal (Dis-) Placements now come to understand the work of Matta-Clark in our space?

During last Sunday’s Frame of Reference, interesting dialogues surrounded the works of Old Masters. Five Pulitzer volunteers stepped fearlessly into the gallery for a rare opportunity at public speaking. These docents discussed with viewers what it was that kept them looking at their chosen work. From ideas of love and chivalry to discussions of the emotive side-effects of diagonal lines chosen by Tintoretto, docents explained things from their unique perspectives. (We had in our midst a couple artists, historians, a social worker, an engineer and a police officer.) And so too did our visitors; some already had a keen interest in the subject, while others happened by and caught an earful. Sometimes the earful developed into a paused moment to look again at the paint inside the frame and allow the ideas to dance around outside of it–giving new meanings to the original artist depictions.

We thanked our docents for their time and research, and I was baffled that they kept thanking me. An interested audience, eager to see things from a new perspective, found the Pulitzer this past Sunday. On behalf of ourselves and our docents, we thank those visitors for sharing their ideas and thoughtful conversation.  

Friday, August 14, I tagged along for the first experimental run of the Pulitzer program Exploring Art: Ideal (Dis-) Placements. Exploring Art takes the idea that people come to art with different personal backgrounds, and placed within a facilitated group setting, their ideas about a work can be brought forth to show its value for them individually. Sometimes within the context of the group’s discussion a work can take on completely new meanings. This is a program that the Pulitzer has tried before but this time is monitoring closely through evaluation and also an added component of facilitation training. 

It’s my duty to schedule group tours, and Exploring Art workshops usually include free cookies, but this was the first time we started with lunch down the street at the Best Steak House, one of Grand Center’s notable eateries. Dining there might be the perfect way to start an Exploring Art session. People in the group were from wide-ranging organizations in St. Louis, and they and their docents for the day, Hannah and Christina, were able to introduce themselves over steak burgers and A1 sauce. It was really an inviting way to begin talking about the Old Masters we would experience next.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tour (noun): a long journey including the visiting of a number of places in sequence, esp. with an organized group led by a guide.

At the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, we don’t give tours, and this isn’t meant as a way to leave our viewers in the cold, instead it is to allow them the freedom to experience an exhibition on their own time. Now granted, there is a sort of sequence that the space of our building allows, but it is up to a visitor how long they will spend in front of a work of art. Do they wish to see what happens to the shade of blue on Mary Magdalene as a cloud passes across the sun? Or rather has the song they are singing in their head caused them to stop and look at Saint Jerome just a bit longer to ponder his more contemporary meanings. Or forget the artwork. Does the 3^rd hole from the northwest corner of Ando’s concrete match that of the 15^th hole on the north side of the building? (Some architects can tell you.) As gallery staff, we don’t have those answers for each viewer, the truth is that each viewer, whether in a group or solo has some personal interest that has brought them to our space. Since the Pulitzer is meant to be a laboratory and a sanctuary, it is our hope to allow each space to flesh that out for each visitor.

We have a bulk Read the rest of this entry »

The Staging Old Masters weekend performances are over at the Pulitzer, and I’m feeling more rested without the hectic work week it involved. Yet, somehow I felt healthier from the energy that came with each of those shows. 

As Visitor Services Manager, I had many roles before, during, and after each performance, but my favorite one was holding the doors open at the beginning of each performance. It was at this moment I could smile and participate with my loudest “boya, boya, yo!”–joining in the procession of actors’ chant and smiling with each performer as they entered the door. 

My least favorite part of Staging Old Masters was Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings from a recent trip to Philadelphia, where I and several other PFA staff members attended the annual American Association of Museums Conference.  It was a typical conference complete with educational sessions, networking, and expo-walking.  However, it was special in that it was a time and place that I decided–museums are for me. 

The talks I went to ranged from the Public Relations aspects, finance, volunteer services, etc.  I covered multiple topics and found out more than I probably ever need to know on running a museum.  I also learned about wonderful experimental programs being developed at museums around the United States.  In fact the theme of experimentation was wound throughout the conference and I found myself feeling like the Pulitzer isn’t the only Laboratory in the world.  

It wasn’t all seriousness though–there were museums a plenty to visit! The Mütter, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art were all wonderful and made me have those great moments that only art provides for me.  Each is a very different type of institution and each shows a very different type of art or artifact–but each is reliant upon ideas and viewers to witness them. 

In a full wall at the PMA, I discovered the brother to one of the current paintings at the Pulitzer.  St. Sebastian, off his tree stump and being healed by St. Irene, opened my eyes to the rest of the story presented on our walls.  Art is a dialogue and museums are necessary to house the story. It was a wonderful treat to hear so many other stories and ways of making them available. 

St. Sebastian cured by St. Irene, by Luca Giordano at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, by Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Harvard Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Pope, Edward W. Forbes and Paul J. Sachs, 1924.31, Photo by Imaging Department, President and Fellows of Harvard College

The first weekend of Staging Old Masters performances were not without sleepless nights, with busy thoughts running through my head.  After the opening night performance, multiple concerns had arisen. Were we clear on how to maneuver the public within the Pulitzer space while still making the performances enjoyable? Yet the thing that captured my attention most on Sunday morning, as I got out of bed, was the line “St. Sebastian, what’s up?  I ain’t got no drink in my cup.  Aigh. Aigh.”  This line, with its catchy rap beat, had gnawed its way into my head after only two performances and multiple dress rehearsals. It wasn’t until after the Sunday performances that Gallery Assistants and Security said that they, too, had been singing the lines to the St. Sebastian rap in their heads. I never thought I would find myself with an Old Master work triggering catchy lyrics, but here we are–Staging Old Masters has made the old new again. 

And now for the regret: the space we have to offer for this unique opportunity is limited, and I have the awful task of turning interested parties away. Once a show is at maximum capacity, I have to say that we are dreadfully sorry, that you will not experience the rap today. We do have many opportunities for viewing, and with luck and flexibility, you can come to experience Mr. Sebastian in a brand new way. Show times are Saturdays, 6:30 and 7:30pm.  We will open doors at 6:30, and it is at this time that you can reserve a spot for one of the two performances. Only 30 are allowed in for each performance, due to the constraints of space. Sundays, our show times are 1:30 and 2:30pm.  Our doors will open at 1:30 on these days (except our first Sunday in May, when our doors will be open Noon to 5pm), and tickets will again be first-come-first-serve at the door. The tickets are free but are not reserve-able, except day of show and in person.

From Courtney, who’s busy working on the Community Light Project:

Many things go on behind the scenes at Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. If you were to visit us on an open gallery day, you might say, “Hey, what’s behind that door? What’s at the end of that hallway?” I’m here to tell you that we are bursting at the seams in our Ando building. There is not enough concrete for the work we are doing now, so we have to take space at local schools!

Rainer and Sebastian, thinking that the lamp roof of the Spring Church was not enough to bring our community into the light, have helped us with the Community Light Project. With their artistic guidance, myself and many other artists, volunteers, and social workers proceed in compelling local students from Cole Elementary, Loyola Academy, Cardinal Ritter College Prep and Metro High Schools to build light works of their own.

The groups will not get to come together fully until the Street Festival and opening of the Community Light Project on October 3. At that time, they will get to see the full reality of all their hard work. That has been the most difficult part of all this project-for people to realize that this is all part of something much larger. It’s worth participation, because something big is brewing.

I invite everyone in the community to come and see all the efforts of these schools and countless educators, volunteers, artists and social workers. It will be big and it will be worth experiencing, and it will show you a little of what goes on behind the walls of the Pulitzer, or in this case, behind the walls of Grand Center schools.

To follow along with the development of the Community Light Project, visit the webpage here. Similar to the Light Project, we’ll be posting updates, videos, interviews, and behind-the-scenes info leading up to the October 3rd Street Festival.