Bob McCabe, Morning Host for KWMU, reads during A Marathon Metamorphoses.

“…how does one communicate the experience of an ephemeral two day reading in our exhibition space?” our director, Matthias Waschek asked today in his very first blog post for the Pulitzer. He is, of course, reflecting on last year’s marathon reading of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which has so far been the only event of its kind in our building.

To capture the experience, a local videographer video taped the almost twenty hours of reading in the Lower Gallery. He then edited the footage down to eight minutes, which includes a shot of each of the seventy-four readers. You can now watch the video and read Matthias’ reflections on it on our A Marathon Metamorphoses blog.

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.

This in no way diminishes my excitement about our upcoming exhibition, Urban Alchemy / Gordon Matta-Clark, and the promise of the variety of interactions and opportunities the exhibition inspires. The work for Matta-Clark has already begun, as you’ve been reading about in this blog recently, but now you have a chance to come learn more about our upcoming exhibition, play with building a garbage wall yourself, and see the potential in trash by turning discarded newspaper into fun and functional items.

We will be hosting a table at the Earthways Green Homes Festival in Grand Center this Saturday, September 26. Our table will be open from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (the festival continues through 6:00 p.m.), and we are very excited to share with you information about Gordon Matta-Clark and our plans for the exhibition, including the Garbage Wall. So please come by and see us, say hello, and bring home a handmade kite, paper, or a seed planter as a souvenir and a reminder to come back and see us beginning October 30!

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.  

Amy Broadway: You’ve agreed to talk for 15 minutes about Wtewael’s Cephalus and Procris (The Death of Procris) on the Pulitzer’s last open Sunday for the current exhibition. What made you choose that painting?

Silas Ellis: During performances by the company of ex-offenders, who I thought were great, one of the actors lines was to this effect: “That’s why I stay by myself, I don’t get my feelings hurt by nobody and don’t have to worry about nobody but myself.” Another performer asked, “Is that really how you want to live?” That was the end of the skit for Cephalus and Procris. Even with the final question, which didn’t require an answer, I thought how selfish the previous comment was when much of the circumstances of the story involved unselfish acts. So for me, this is a chance to tell another side of the story!  

AB: What is the story behind the painting, and what do you think it underscores about the human experience?

SE: There is the coming together of two people in the name of love. Thereafter is temptation, jealously, infidelity and distrust which culminates in a tragic ending. Human beings are not gods, are not magical, and their unreasonable actions quickly identify their human frailties. Everyday, domestic, heat of passion responses are similar to the story of Cephalus and Procris. It’s an age-old painting with an age-old tale, descriptive of modern day broken relationships.   

AB: You are well-known at the Pulitzer as a superb singer with an extensive mental catalogue of song lyrics. Does Wtewael’s painting remind you of any songs, and if so, which ones?

SE: Three songs come to mind:          

1. “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, with the lines, ”Trust in me like I trust in you,” and “What good is a love affair if we can’t see eye to eye?”           

2. “Against All Odds,” by Phil Collins with, “Take a look at me now, there’s just an empty space.”            

3. “Dream Merchant,” by New Birth. “I didn’t realize our love, now I need her back so much,” and “Hey, hey, Mr. Dream Merchant, bring her back now. I need her, I need her, bring her back to me.”   

AB: Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers?

SE: Human beings make mistakes that are sometimes tragic, but the reality is life is a continuing cycle that offers the opportunity to improve and not make the same mistakes over and over. Cephalus never forgave himself for Procris’ death. Learn to forgive yourself for mistakes. When you do, it’s easier to forgive others and move forward! 

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. 

Once back at the Pulitzer building, our guests continued to converse, exploring the building and their personal convictions of likes and dislikes. However, most important to this experiment of the Pulitzer working with docents, we investigated how docents can be facilitators of conversations in Exploring Art. It seemed they helped the gallery conversations go deeper, encouraging visitors to look again at a work and perhaps see something new. Without labels on the wall, viewers can experience the works with no prompts. A docent can, though, simply provide extra questions or information like an encouraging professor. Their proddings may encourage deeper digestion of a visual image. And when I read evaluations of that day’s visitor evaluations of the program, their comments made clear their personal discoveries and the groups’ new incites.       

Groups (8 people or less) can contact chenson@pulitzerarts.org to schedule their own Exploring Art experience.   

Special guests tonight include our very own Senior Curator Francesca Herndon-Consagra and Kress Interpretive Fellow Hannah Fullgraf as well as St. Louis Poetry Center Consultant Lorin Cuoco. They, along with Haubrich and Ellen Ibur, will read sections of the Classic and talk about next weekend’s A Marathon Metamorphoses. 

Ann Haubrich will be reading at the marathon, so you might think of the show as an auditory preview. If you haven’t checked out the A Marathon Metamorphoses blog lately, read today’s slant on Ovid from St. Louis Magazine’s Culture Editor Stefene Russell, who will also be reading next weekend and has helped host Literature for the Halibut in the past.

In the text below, Roman Beuc talks about the work he chose for September 6 and what it’s like being a docent.

The Pulitzer requested me, as a museum docent, to provide a personal view of a single work in the exhibition, Ideal (Dis)-Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer. While the Pulitzer currently does not utilize docents, it formerly did, and I was among that group. 

I am still a docent at the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM). Half of the works in this show are on loan from there, so all of those works are familiar. Museum docents are typically volunteers that function as knowledgeable “tour guides,” leading museum guests through the works on display. They lead one-on-a-few, face-to-face discussions of the works. These discussions use narratives and docent-guest interchanges that enhance the guest’s knowledge of a work. Information exchanged may include the work’s possible meaning or message, its artistic, political, or social context, background of the artist and in some cases the physical processes used in its creation. A key objective is to engage the viewer and initiate a docent-guest dialogue.

The work from the show I chose to discuss is the painting titled The Crucifixion, by Giambattista Tiepolo. Tiepolo (1696-1770), a Venetian, was one of the last great Baroque painters, and is most remembered for this style, even though he was at his artistic peak during the 18th century Rococo period and actually worked into the early neo-classical period. Some considered him the greatest painter of the 18th C. He received major commissions for religious and secular works and painted in both oils and fresco. His theatrical-like style is noted for its dynamism (a trait of the Baroque in art and architecture) and its brightness or luminosity. By 1750, he was recognized as a master throughout Europe. Besides Italy, he executed commissions in Germany and the royal palace in Madrid (1762-1766).  

Let us turn to Tiepolo’s The Crucifixion and discuss what the artist has provided. The subject of Jesus’ crucifixion is one of the most widely presented in the history of art. The brightness of the painting is outstanding, although Tiepolo uses somewhat muted non-primary colors. Also, what is compositionally unusual is that, instead of face-on, the axis of the three crosses has been turned. They are no longer shown symmetrically across the picture plane but almost in profile. This makes the scene more dramatic. Most figures witnessing the crucifixion seem to be in dynamic motion and agitated. This excitement is felt by the viewer.

Another striking feature is that instead of the typical classical Roman legionnaire in the crucifixion scene, there is what appears to be a mounted Turkish lancer and others in eastern Islamic style turbans. It must be remembered that, even as late as 1745, the imperial clash between the Christian west (the Habsburg Austrian Empire, the Papacy and Venice) and the Islamic Muslim eastern Ottoman Empire was still ongoing, as it had been for many centuries. The Roman’s were long gone but the Turks were still a powerful and threatening presence (I.e. “the bad guys”) and reminds us of today’s renewed clash between the West and certain segments of Islam.   

I often use this work when giving docent tours at SLAM as a superb example of the artist’s use of a fundamental technique toward inducing in the viewer a sense of pictorial motion and agitation. Besides drawing the figures directly in dynamic poses, Tiepolo makes extensive use of diagonals. It is well known that diagonal lines in a painting create a sense of instability, tension and subliminal unease in the viewer. Lets look at the many diagonals – the two logs at lower left, the drum, the body of the a turbaned man in red, the horseman’s lance, the ladder at the right and even the crossbars on two of the crosses. Finally,the feeling of dread and uncertainty is also supported by the approaching storm clouds in the sky.

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?