Whew.  Our posting on 2buildings1blog this month has slowed, but our overall blogging activities are currently at full steam.  We’ve launched a website for Transformation – the community programming organized in conjunction with the Matta-Clark exhibition (which you can also explore online here).   A few highlights:

The Panel Series:  We’ve organized a panel discussion each month to explore topics related to Matta-Clark’s work within the context of St. Louis.  The key question we’ll address in each panel: “How do communities evolve and in what ways can their members guide the process?”  Within this online section we’ll feature interviews with the panelists, research info related to the topic, and full audio from the discussion shortly afterward.  I also attempt (key word) to live tweet each panel (http://twitter.com/thepulitzer).  The next panel just happens to be tomorrow (Oh! You’re in luck! And it’s free!).

Local Artists:  This is where the bulk of the blogging happens.  We’re documenting the three artist-run projects throughout the course of Transformation – hear updates from the artists, watch videos of the classes, even watch DIY videos to learn some of the skills yourself, and generally stay up-to-date as each project evolves.

Your St. Louis:  Definitely the most interactive of all the sections.  We’re posting candid interviews with St. Louis residents, to help paint a fuller portrait of the community.  Show us your St. Louis by adding photos to our Flickr group.  Show off your favorite route, by creating a custom Google Map for others to use.  We want to showcase what St. Louis means to those of us who live here.

Forum:  We’re hoping this section will grow into a place for discussion.  Want to expand on ideas you heard in the panel?  Want to ask an artist a question about their project?  This is the place to do it!

This website will continue to grow and shift as the programming grows and shifts, and as always, we’d love to get your feedback.  Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Besides the generous publicity from media outlets, the blogosphere really helped broadcast Urban Alchemy’s opening and often gave insight into the exhibition and Matta-Clark’s work. Here are several blogs linked to relevant posts: Read the rest of this entry »

As you can see in our recent upload of Flickr photos, a throng of art viewers circulated the galleries last Friday for the reception of Urban Alchemy. Equipped with the Flip camera and a tripod, I petitioned a few attendees to share their thoughts on this new exhibition.

Pulitzer visitors talk about Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

A little treasure hunt, a little Archeology, a little Anthropology.

Jenny scavenges. I lend a hand.

I’ve tried potato chips taken (still packaged) from a Trader Joe’s dumpster. I’ve hauled faded chairs out of alleys and chipped window frames out of garages, and in the middle of a college school night, I ransacked a Goodwill dumpster, amazed at the junk people were dismissing, but I’ve never given a hard study to what goes into the practice of scavenging and am glad to say I can do that now and say it’s job-related.

On September 1, Jenny Murphy, who is leading garbage collection for the Garbage Wall, invited me to go to her first official dig. Before picking a dumpster, Jenny called around town to different thrift stores, asking for permission. Only one gave it, but we won’t say which, in case you dear readers decide to pillage all at once—the staff there might not like that. Read the rest of this entry »

In the video above, Director Matthias Waschek describes how community engagement is incorporated into the Pulitzer’s primary identity as an arts institution. This is the first in what we plan to be a series of “From the Director” clips in which Matthias presents topics unique to the Pulitzer.

If you have a question, please feel free to leave it in a reply. We want to know what you want to know.

Yesterday was the day we published Post 1 and 2 of the A Marathon Metamorphoses blog-have a look please. The notes consist of a welcome from Hannah Fullgraf and, along with a little reiteration on my part, a video of Director Matthias Waschek, explaining the Pulitzer perspective behind the mega-read.

The basic strategy for this blog is to offer some background information and updates related to the event at this month’s conclusion. Throughout August, we’ll sprinkle a few words on Ovid here, some on Wtewael there, and tie everything together with the narration of Hannah, as she’s the event’s manager. But like other aspects of the laboratorial Pulitzer, the blog doesn’t have a cookie-cutter recipe, which makes me, as a web communications assistant using an ever-changing form of documentation, wonder what exactly this web page should be made of.  

The Pulitzer has a few other web sites/blogs with the same layout, such as Let’s Look, Sorrento Springs, the French Program, but if you look at those pages linked to on our Collaborative Programming page, you’ll see that the events or programs are different from one another and have been documented in diverse ways. The French Program, periodic visits from Lindenwood, can be posted about per visit. The Sorrento Springs trip was a one-time occurrence and written about from various witnesses’ perspectives.

Now when it comes to A Marathon Metamorphoses, an event which will last just one weekend but include people from all over St. Louis and span art forms and areas of study, we’re working with a whole other animal. What should be recorded in the event planning? How do we make the page worthy in itself aside from the event? Does that matter? How do we tell people about Ovid et cetera without becoming too “educational” and departing “blog”? What will readers want to know? What will the pace be?

Art:21’s blog has been running a fantastic series over the past few months called “Flash Points”.  They present topics related to contemporary art and ask a variety of guests to write about it from their perspectives.  In my opinion, it’s one of the most interesting and well-presented contemporary art discussions happening online.  Currently, the series is focusing on themes within their upcoming 5th season, the first of which is “Compassion“.

I wrote a post on one of their featured artists, Doris Salcedo, whose work Atrabiliarios is one of the few owned by the Pulitzer.  To me, Salcedo goes beyond compassion to fully envelop herself in the reality of her subjects.  Check out the full post here.

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 »

Two great posts I just finished reading about social media (which reminds me that I still want to do a major recap of what I’ve learned from Museums and the Web…).

This article from NPR discusses the shift from the web being page-based (and focused on displaying past information) to a constant stream of active information (a la Twitter) and what that says about our society today.  The Pulitzer has a Twitter page and participates in this “stream” – do you?  And do you think this type of constant information will eventually replace static information on the web?  Which also ties in with something else I heard on NPR this morning – will these musings online have any hope for longevity?  What will our version of Shakespeare’s sonnets be?

The other piece I just finished reading was by Kimberly from the Kemper.  She wrote about social media and art on the Saint Louis Art Map and discussed how what we do on the web as museums needs to relate back to our mission and audience.  It reminded me of the paper Nina Simon presented at Museums and the Web, which takes this idea one step further.  She discussed how our approach to an online presence – with it’s emphasis on accessibility and the interactions with Web 2.0 – and how we should bring these ideas back inside the galleries.  As she calls it, “going analog”.  It’s an interesting read -check it out here.