“It appears that cultural organizations, in comparison with other agencies, might be uniquely positioned to act as catalysts for community involvement and as agents for capacity building. Cultural initiatives are inclusive, and have an unsurpassed capacity to open dialogue between people and engage their enthusiasm and commitment to a shared redevelopment process.” -Richard Sandell

On my second day as a Brown School social work practicum student at the Pulitzer, I found myself in the art room at Cole Elementary working with fourth- and fifth-graders to create a light installation piece. This was a decidedly atypical social work task, but I was excited to learn things that I couldn’t necessarily glean from textbooks.

The Cole students were instructed to pour paint in glass ornament balls and swirl the paint around to create marbled patterns. The ornaments were to fill a 6-foot tall clear tube to be displayed in Grand Center. We quickly realized that we’d have to ban the glitter and strongly encourage the “less is more” approach to painting so that the balls would dry in time. 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???

On Tuesday, Assistant Registrar Elise Hall and Community Engagement Manager Lisa Harper-Chang spoke to an Art and Civic Engagement class, at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. In addition to sharing their work experience and how they got their start in the art world, Elise and Lisa explained ways in which the Pulitzer reaches out, not only to its community partners but also to general Grand Center visitors. Although they mentioned Staging Old Masters and Let’s Look, they centered on the The Light Project and The Community Light Project as examples of community engagement.

The class professor, Mel Watkin, had e-mailed Visitor Services to see if a staff member could speak to her class about specifically The Light Project. The class was made of Seniors, with specializations in areas such as Library Science, Art History, Graphic Design, and Theater.

“They were very enthusiastic and asked a lot of really good questions,” said Elise. 

With a PowerPoint presentation of around 100 images, Elise reported working behind the scenes as a registrar, noting chief details such as the selection of artists and art sites, the insourcing of workers, and the securing of equipment (scaffolding, fencing, projectors, wiring, solar panels, an ice cream machine, sprinkles, etc). Can you imagine keeping track of that? She also emphasized the importance of working with a variety of local consultants: structural engineers, ironworkers, projection specialists, and dairy experts among others.

“I didn’t know anything about solar paneling, so I had to find the best possible authority on that topic.”

Lisa described the public’s overall reaction and the implementation of The Community Light Project. The latter involved partnerships with four neighborhood schools, Washington University, and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Elise said the UMSL experience was positive for her; it gave her the opportunity to teach as well as to reflect and process all that went into that massive enterprise in the fall of 2009.

A photo from Elise’s PowerPoint presentation

My coworker Elise was looking through old photos taken of the neighborhood during the construction of the Pulitzer building, and came across a photo of the Spring Avenue Church – roof intact! The church burned in early 2001, before the Pulitzer opened.  Here it is, pre-2001:

Here’s another image she came across – the church immediately after the fire:

And here it is last year during The Light Project,when the roof was recreated with donated lamps as a part of the artwork CHORUS:

Click here for a refresher on the church, its history, the neighborhood, and CHORUS.

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:

Read the rest of this entry »

Art:21’s blog today featured part 2 of a post by Hrag Vartanian about Prospect.1, a city-wide biennial in New Orleans.  Read the first part here, the second part here, with more to come tomorrow.

These posts are especially timely around here – two of our staff members just got back from visiting the exhibition.   They’ll be giving us all a presentation on their trip at lunch on Thursday (exciting!) and Elise (who coordinated The Light Project) promises a post about what they saw, and how this might figure into our future plans at the Pulitzer.

Sorry in advance for today’s short post – I’ve been finishing up my guest blogging stint at Art:21 with not one – but TWO – exciting posts today. Click here to read all my posts from the last two weeks. Regular 2buildings1blog posting resumes Monday, and it’ll be non-stop Old Masters. It opens one week from today!  And speaking of exhibitions, tonight’s the last night for the Light Project.  It’s a little rainy (which is oddly appropriate – it rained on the opening night too) but I think it’s letting up.  Stop by one last time. We’ll also be wrapping up the Light Project web catalogue over the coming weeks with concluding posts from the artists and curators. Have a great weekend!

We’ve updated our Flickr pages today with some of the final photography for the Light Project. These images are the ones that will be featured in the upcoming (very soon!) print catalogue. We’ll be uploading these, along with the cell phone tour audio files, to the “Completed Works” section of our web catalogue shortly. UPDATE: It’s live.

I have also started a Light Project group on Flickr. I’ve noticed a lot of people out and about, taking photographs of each artwork. Being our first outdoor exhibition, this is new for us – photography isn’t allowed during indoor exhibitions (for artwork rights and reproduction reasons). I thought this was a perfect chance to start a Flickr group where you can share the photos you’ve been taking of each Light Project work. I’d like to highlight a few of the best submissions over the coming weeks on this blog – so sign up, and share your photos!

Today, we’re sending the Light Project booklet to the printers.  Like all of our exhibitions, our booklets always include installation photography – which means, that the design can’t begin until after the photography is ready to go, which can’t begin until after the exhibition opens.  I’m actually thinking of writing a blog post about this process in the near future – I think it’s a practice that’s pretty unique to our institution.  More to come on that.
In addition to that, and all the Old Masters exhibition prep happening, yesterday I met two artists who will be opening exhibitions in town this weekend (more to come on why later – like all the teasers today?).  Serkan Ozkaya’s A Sudden Gust of Wind opens tonight at Boots Contemporary Art Space (if you haven’t seen it, this video of him working on a collaboration with the New York Times is fantastic) and Pepe Mar’s Who Needs Guitars Anymore? opens tomorrow night at White Flag Projects.  And next week, I’m meeting with a neighbor who’s lived across the street from the Contemporary and the Pulitzer for many years (even before our buildings were here).  What about?  Yep, that’s right, another teaser.

One of my favorite interviews from the Light Project –

Janese has lived next door to the Spring Avenue Church for many years.  She was remembers the congregation that used to call the church home and remembers the fire.  Here she is in her living room, talking about how she chose the house and how the view onto the church was integral to that decision:

More videos from this interview will be posted throughout the week on the Light Project’s web catalogue.