This past December, local architect John Pankey and I led a writing workshop for literary center StudioSTL, using the setting of Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark as our muse. It was the second time the Pulitzer and this Grand Center neighbor have come together.

Over the summer, StudioSTL’s director, Beth Ketcher, read for A Marathon Metamorphoses and wrote on the event’s corresponding blog what she felt the marathon was about. Her attitude reflected a principle StudioSTL and the Pulitzer share: the arts are for everyone.

The goal of December’s workshop was not for the participants to produce refined art reviews but to get them to think comfortably, descriptively, analytically, and creatively by jotting down verbal sketches of what they saw in the galleries. Given optional cues in a worksheet, the young authors were asked to investigate the space, write down what they thought, and read their writing to everyone as a conclusion to the session.

Below, one of StudioSTL’s mentors reflects on the workshop.

Paula Davis is an Engineering student at Washington University and a mentor for StudioSTL.

On the twelfth day of the twelfth month, a few young writers–high school students–and a number of volunteers from StudioSTL, sat holding gray pamphlets, on the gray concrete floor of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, in its gray concrete building, under St. Louis’ cold gray sky. It was quiet. Read the rest of this entry »

Crew members from Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit pose with their produce.

So my personal Detroit visit included conversations with Matt Sikora, head of evaluation at the DIA, and Jennifer Czajkowski, Direct of Interpretive Programs at the DIA. For those of you into evaluation, the DIA conducts what I consider to be an unprecedented amount of formative evaluation, or evaluation that is done during the formation of an exhibition (like market testing), which dovetails nicely with their strong commitment to innovative interpretive strategies, an effort in which Jennifer is highly instrumental. These interpretive strategies, the incorporation of which is based on the theoretical work of Abigail Housen and stages of aesthetic readiness, include thematic curation of exhibitions, specific language in wall text that isn’t necessarily rooted in art history, and other assistive devices, such as “I Spy” plaques and, my personal favorite, the table in their Fashionable Living exhibition that shows pieces on display being used in an 18th century dinner. The truly innovative model of how learning and interpretation (formerly, education) and curatorial interact to create one type of “optimal visitor experience” is somewhat antithetical to our approach, yet both of our institutions are striving toward the common goal of supporting the relevance of art in everyone’s lives. Read the rest of this entry »

At this time of year, it’s easy to wax poetic about reconnecting with old friends and family and the joys of the season, but hopefully we can avoid falling into over-sentimentality while still recognizing how important it is to take time to see old friends again and maintain relationships that have made an indelible impact on one’s life. It is in this spirit that we joyously reunited with the actors who participated in Staging Old Masters to see how everyone is faring and to make sure that the bonds of a company that are built through rehearsal and performance aren’t lost in the midst of the trappings of daily living. We were fortunate to be joined by a little more than half of our company last Tuesday evening, and I’m happy to share that all of those in attendance seemed happy, healthy, and doing very well.

One of them, Naheem Houston, is diligently pursuing his dreams of helping youth avoid the path he once followed while finishing up coursework at Florissant Valley Community College. The following are words from Naheem.

Naheem Houston describes what he likes and what he doesn’t really like about Urban Alchemy.

Naheem Houston:

I was looking forward to last Tuesday night since the Pulitzer sent me the invitation. I love and appreciate everybody that had anything to do with the success of the Staging Old Masters ensemble. The experience was truly a blessing that I will forever cherish, and the food was always a plus. I enjoyed meeting up with old friends and conversating about how life has been since we went our separate ways. I wish all the actors and staff could have made it out, just so I could see the look on everyone’s face in unity. We were the first in the pilot program, so we made history.

Director of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Matthias Waschek, introduces Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark and describes how the exhibition fits with the Pulitzer and St. Louis.

Nicole Stevens, Gallery Assistant, talks about Gordon Matta-Clark’s Splitting.

Wednesday afternoon, I borrowed Gallery Assistant Nicole Stevens, last on our blog with Cephalus and Procris, to continue “From the Galleries” with Urban Alchemy. In the video above, Nicole talks about Splitting on the Mezzanine while referencing two documentary photographs of the monumental piece. (Do the images seem familiar to you?) In the Pulitzer’s Cube Gallery, you’ll find Splitting: Four Corners and a print, Splitting, which artfully reveals the interior of half the house that Matta-Clark bisected and that Four Corners was taken from.

As I’m sure all of you already know (because you follow our blog, facebook and twitter accounts faithfully) our Urban Alchemy / Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition opening took place last Friday from 5pm to 9pm. Admittedly, scheduling a 4 hour opening did seem like a long amount of time and we therefore planned to evaluate the visitor attendance flow every hour to figure out if, for future openings, we should open later or close earlier. Much to our excitement, we found that our 900 visitors came in a steady stream – showing up on their way home from work or arriving after a dinner on the town for a glass of wine on our mezzanine. It certainly didn’t hurt the event when the skies cleared just hours before we were slated to open, giving our guests an amazing view of a setting sun against a St. Louis skyline.

Read the rest of this entry »

Art handlers move a re-creation of Gordon Matta-Clark’s Garbage Wall from a construction space into the Pulitzer galleries, before adding the final touches of trash to its exterior.

Finally, here’s a glimpse at the Garbage Wall we’ve been blogging about for several weeks. Look closely at the video of it being moved into the building, and perhaps you’ll see a sneaker you threw out during bulk trash week.

Visit Transformation’s landing page for a video of the initial assembling of the Wall, which features Jane Crawford talking about its history.

Art handlers install Gordon Matta-Clark’s Wallspaper.

With titles such as “Pier In/Out” and “Reality Properties: Fake Estates,” Matta-Clark is known for his fondness for word play. “Wallspaper” is another example. Wallspaper consists of photographs of the interior walls of dilapidated buildings, which have been reproduced as colored prints and stapled to a wall, playing with the idea of wall paper.

Art handlers install Gordon Matta-Clark’s Bingo for Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark.

Above is a preview to one of Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark’s star pieces, Bingo. In 1974, Matta-Clark severed these hunks of facade from a condemned house along the Love Canal, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY, which became environmentally infamous for 21,000 tons of toxic waste that was buried beneath it by a chemical company. Matta-Clark moved the facade to Artpark, an important space for the Land Art movement and the site of a previous industrial waste dump.

You can view Matta-Clark’s documentary video of Bingo on UbuWeb Film.

You can view Bingo in person this Friday for our exhibition’s opening reception, 5-9pm.

From an e-mail yesterday:

“Hi Amy…!!!!

I was getting coffee this morning, and I saw one of your wooden screen printed ads for the Gordon MC show. It looked really cool!”

Those exclamation points make me happy.

Since last Wednesday, after a trip to All Along Press, the Pulitzer’s communications team has been Read the rest of this entry »

Tomorrow is the last day for the Old Masters exhibition – which means the works of art we’ve been living with for about a year will be heading home.  This also means that next week we begin the installation for Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark.  As has been well-documented here in the past, install is my favorite blogging time of year.  And with these works, I know we’ll have lots to talk about.

New exhibition season really kicked off today with the Citygarden’s newest installation on their video wall, featuring two works chosen by our Senior Curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, for their relation to the exhibition.  The videos are shown in tandem, and in both, the abandoned and the discarded are transformed into art.  First is Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1975 film Conical Intersect in which you see him literally carving out circles in an abandoned Parisian house.  This film will also be on view in our exhibition, after it opens on October 30th.  The second is called The Way Things Go by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss and features a 100-foot long chain reaction they created out of discarded and common items inside a warehouse.  You can also see more of their works on view right now in the Contemporary’s current exhibition.

We took a field trip down to Citygarden this morning to check it out:

A few young kids were sitting close-by, completely wrapped up in the action of Conical Intersect. As Gordon took the first chunk out of the wall one of them squealed in excitement, “He’s cutting through the building!”.  Stay tuned kids, it only gets better from there.