When entering into our current exhibition by Ann Hamilton, there are many different sounds that confront the visitor, emitting not only from the speaker system in the building, but also from live elements in the space. One of the noises coming from both of these sources is a steady, rhythmic crackling. When you walk up the stairs to the Mezzanine level, you encounter the source of this sound: a population of small dark beans reverberating against a steel table. These elements, magically moving of their own volition, are the famed Mexican jumping beans.

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In this day and age, everyone is looking for ways to be more environmentally responsible. Whether it’s recycling, buying locally grown foods, switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, or using mass transit, “going green” is the way to conserve energy, save money, and reduce one’s carbon footprint.

At the top of the list is investigating alternate energy sources–namely solar, wind, and thermal. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and EarthWays Center are offering you a low-cost opportunity to take this important step towards energy efficiency. The solar panel system that once powered Spencer Finch’s The Light Project installation, and is now in use at the Missouri Botanical Garden, could soon be yours for only $100!

Throughout the month of June, you’ll have the opportunity to purchase raffle tickets to win the entire system: eight 195 watt panels (1.56 kW), six 235 amp/hr 12V batteries, inverter, charge controller, and mounting hardware. The system is valued Read the rest of this entry »

Seven months after the close of The Light Project, the solar energy system used for Spencer Finch’s installation Sunset (St. Louis, July 31, 2008) is on view once again! This time, the system is on loan to the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT), powering an interactive exhibit in EarthWays: Living the Green Life. The eight solar panels are mounted on the roof of the Brookings Interpretive Center, adjacent to MOBOT’s famous Climatron:

The rest of the system–including batteries, inverter, and charge controller–is on view within the Brookings building.

The system is fully installed and functioning at the Garden (in fact, it’s running the nearby vending machines as well as a misting fan). It serves as a concrete example of how solar power can be used as an alternative energy source. All in all, the MOBOT exhibition is designed to help visitors learn about the various green products, ideas, and technology that will help protect the Earth’s future.

This show is just one of the many activities organized to celebrate MOBOT’s 150^th anniversary. Further information on related exhibitions, lectures, concerts, and events can be found on their website. Also, be sure to check out yesterday’s Post-Dispatch article highlighting the Garden’s 150 year history.

COMING LATER THIS WEEK: COULD YOU BE THE NEXT OWNER OF THIS SOLAR SYSTEM???

This is how the cover of the Prospect 1 map describes the city-wide exhibition on view in New Orleans. Only three years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina hit the city, the biennial aims to revitalize New Orleans and affirm it as a vibrant locale for the arts. I was lucky enough to view the exhibition in person and experience not only the impressive array of works, but also the efforts of the people of New Orleans to rebuild their homes, neighborhoods, and lives.My trip to the Lower Ninth Ward had most profound effect on me. Here are a couple of highlights:

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Never did I think that my Pulitzer registrarial career would involve extensive research on soft-serve ice cream machines. Nevertheless, I have recently found myself scouring the internet and speaking with a variety of distributors for just this purpose: to secure the best possible commercial grade ice cream machine that can function on the lowest possible energy requirements. No, the Pulitzer is not adding a cafe to its repertoire. The ice cream machine will be used by one of the artists in our upcoming Light Project, the four-part outdoor installation which opens in Grand Center on September 4th.

There are many, many more details that will soon follow when the LP website catalogue launches (look for it in early August), but as a teaser, I’ll offer you this: renowned Brooklyn artist Spencer Finch will be presenting a new installation that uses solar panels to transform sunlight into ice cream. The panels will power a soft-serve machine, and the ice cream will be given away to visitors at no cost. The color of the ice cream will play a key role in the conception of the piece, but you’ll have to check back in to learn more about those details!

In the meantime, feel free to admire the machine that we have selected:

And, coincidentally, find time this weekend to celebrate National Ice Cream Day (July 20th). Who knew such a holiday even existed? A special event detailing the history of the ice cream cone will be held at the Missouri History Museum this Saturday, along with free samples!

As you know, we recently changed the color of a number of Flavin lamps in our galleries, thereby creating “Phase 2″ of Dan Flavin: Constructed Light. You may have noticed, however, that several of the works remained the same color, including the piece installed in our first floor corridor. This work is an impressive, staggering display of overwhelmingly green light (96 two-foot green lamps tend to dominate a space!).

Despite the fact that the color of these lamps hasn’t changed, the lamps themselves are soon to be replaced – with brand new versions of their former selves (still green!). We noted that over time, some of the lamps in this work were beginning to blacken on the ends. On certain lamps, dark spots (almost like thumbprints) began to form, and a few lamps quit working altogether. The manager of the Flavin Studio indicated that this is a phenomenon that sometimes happens with Flavin’s work, especially when you get a whole bunch of tubes together in a tight space. The massing of fluorescent light can create strange effects on the lamps themselves – in this case streaking, darkening, and black spots.

As a result, we have decided to do a mass replacement of all of the lamps in this work. New two-foot green lamps will soon be installed (look for them within the next week). We’ve been told that since this blackening phenomenon happened once, it might eventually happen with the new lamps as well. However, we are expecting that this mid-exhibition replacement will give the piece a rejuvenated look, one that will hopefully last through the extent of the show.

Have you had a chance to look more closely at our latest publication, Joe? If for some reason you do not have a hard copy at arm’s length, you can simply visit our website catalogue and flip through the pages online (just click on “The Book”). Published in conjunction with the Pulitzer exhibition, this book features 40 photographs taken by Hiroshi Sugimoto of Richard Serra’s sculpture Joe, as well as a prose-poem by novelist Jonathan Safran Foer (Foer is the much acclaimed author of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close).

Now, what is a prose-poem? The term actually defines its own meaning: a poem without rhyme. Foer created a text in different strophes that neither illustrates nor comments on the photographs, but, in juxtaposition with the images, allows for the projection of different meanings onto the photographs and the story. Presented by one of the most distinguished designers in the business, Takaaki Matsumoto, the book is itself a work of art.

Just by looking at the finished product — whether it is the hard copy or online version — it is hard to tell exactly how much time and effort went into its creation, but here is a sampling:

• Time: 35 months (from June 2003 when Sugimoto took the photographs until May 2006 when the book was actually delivered)
• Working hours: if you count everybody involved, easily a couple of thousand hours
• Travel/transport: via plane (for Sugimoto to get to St. Louis; for our Chariman and Director to get to New York for planning meetings; for an accelerated delivery from Italy); via boat (the books were shipped from Genoa, Italy to New York); via truck (from Turin, Italy to the harbor of Genoa; from the harbor of New York to St. Louis); via manpower (I “got” to help carry the boxes to storage once they arrived at the Pulitzer. They are heavy.)
• Emails: about 1500
• Letters (including Federal Express shipments): countless
• Tranquilizers: nobody admitted to taking them

Joe is available for purchase for $80 (plus $15 for shipping and handling within the U.S.) Please contact Tim Reichman (treichman@pulitzerarts.org) if you are interested in obtaining a copy. This publication is ONLY available through the Pulitzer — hurry, they are going fast!! (Elise, Foundation Coordinator)

Today the blog From the Floor had a post about our recently launched web catalogue, and in particular, the time lapse photography on the site. I thought this would be a good opportunity to provide some background information on how this came about. Here’s a post by Elise (Foundation Coordinator) who worked closely with our web company and photographers on this project. (Rachel)

Rachel told you in her last blog about our newly launched website catalogue for the Sugimoto exhibition. In addition to background info, an interview with the artist, and a variety of images, one special feature of this catalogue is a segment of time lapse-photography taken in our Main Gallery.

To capture the necessary images, our photographer set up a camera (looking south in the gallery towards Blue Black) that had a timer feature. Every five minutes, the camera automatically took a picture. After 24 hours, we had collected a total of 288 images that were then strung together in a time progression. We eliminated the nighttime images that we pure darkness (lucky for you!), but keep the ones that showed the sunrise and sunset. Of course, we faced a couple of challenges in this project, including determining the perfect placement of the camera, and keeping people (mainly our staff) out of the gallery for a full day (yellow police tape did the trick!). We also, unexpectedly, ran into a problem of security lights in some of our galleries. At night, these lights come on in our Cube and Lower Galleries, and they ended up disrupting sunset images. Some adjustments of the lights and an extra day of photography took care of this problem.

The resulting video segment helped me realize just how critical Ando’s use of natural light is to the Pulitzer’s architecture and to the experience of the artwork in the galleries.

As Rachel discussed in the blog last week, the Pulitzer hosted a Minimalism Symposium this past weekend. The program was a great success, with approximately 15 scholars, artists, and writers flying in from across the country to participate. I had the opportunity to listen to the walk-through of both the Pulitzer and SLAM’s exhibitions, and to hear the ensuing discussions that took place among the participants.

One of the issues that arose was the physical presentation of Minimalist works in the gallery spaces, and the unique challenges that come with the territory. Minimalist art is by definition simplified to essential elements of content and form — artists try to present their work without any distractions, including those of composition, theme, etc. Thus, curators must carefully take into account small details in the galleries (architectural and otherwise) that may interfere with how a viewer perceives a work of Minimal art.

For example, in this picture of the Symposium walk-through, you can see extraneous (but NECESSARY) elements of the architecture that could impact a visitor’s experience of the Gober sinks: floor grates, a fire alarm announcer, an exit sign, and a square plaque on the wall that is used to monitor gallery temperature.

In this image, you can see how the lines in the concrete floor pavers could affect the view of Roni Horn’s Gold Mats Paired (for Ross and Felix).

Similar challenges were noted with installing SLAM’s galleries, including working around baseboards, air vents, and ceiling beams.

This is just one example of all that curators must take into account when planning and installing a show — and it was not something I had thought about until our own Minimalism exhibition came about.

This blog will occasionally feature posts called, “A Day in the Life of…”. Elise, the Pulitzer’s Assistant Registrar, writes today about the installation of a work of art:

How many museum officials does it take to install a Roni Horn gold piece? In our case, it took seven: a registrar, a chairman of the board, a director, two art handlers, a courier from the lending institution, and a photographer/assistant registrar (me). Actually the process was just so interesting that a crowd seemed to gather at installation time.

The work is comprised of two sheets of pure gold, each of which has the qualities of a thick piece of foil.

The first sheet was placed on the ground (on top of a protective sheet of Mylar) and was smoothed as flat as possible. The second sheet, which has the same dimensions, was placed on top of the first.

The courier then lightly grasped one corner of the top sheet and, pulling upward, created the undulations in the gold. This process was repeated at each corner–all the while the bottom sheet remains flat on the ground. It is an inexact process, and a slightly different composition is created each time Gold Mats, Paired (For Ross and Felix) is installed.

The work is an interesting piece to view on the Mezzanine level where there is lots of natural light, and where the adjacent bamboo garden and watercourt can be seen. Although visitors can walk around the piece, PLEASE BE SURE TO KEEP A SAFE DISTANCE AT ALL TIMES. I wouldn’t be a registrar if I didn’t put that in all capital letters!