St. Louis Surprises With Art And Soul – Forbes

St. Louis surprises. No more so than at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation where intrigue begins before even entering the angular, concrete Modernist masterpiece from legendary Japanese architect Tadao Ando which houses it.

The Pulitzer campus is located in the Grand Center Arts District and includes the museum, the Park-Like garden–a fascinating reclaimed grass lot now bursting with native plants–a tree grove behind the museum–framed from inside by a central water court–and the forthcoming Spring Church, an adjacent 100-plus year old stone husk of a church burned by an electrical fire in 2001 which will open this fall as an installation space for artwork.

An exhibition on now through October 31 ties these areas together for the first time. “Chloë Bass: Wayfinding,” brings more than 20 site-specific sculptures installed across the Pulitzer’s outdoor spaces and neighboring areas. Each of these locations, or “chapters,” are anchored by a billboard with a question posed by the artist considering an aspect of the human condition including familial intimacy, desire, anxiety and loss.

Accompanying sculptures contain related texts and images encouraging private reflection and intensifying everyday moments. Through these meditations, the work engages the viewer in an exploration of both visual and written language. In addition to the sculptures, the project includes a site-specific audio artwork that grapples with notions of place, belonging, joy and risk.

“We’ve done some of these public projects in our neighborhood periodically over the last decade and the more we’ve done these temporary projects, the more we’ve realized that to be real stewards of the neighborhood, and as owners of land, we have to do something more intentionally… and more long-term with the community in mind,” Kristin Fleischmann, who organized the Chloe Bass installation, told Forbes.com.

Over the past couple years, a landscape designer has been enlisted to gradually transform Park-Like into one of the city’s most unusual public parks, a natural space for people and wildlife–walking paths placing neighbors among the area’s birds and pollinators.

“The ‘Wayfinding’ exhibition is the first time we’ve installed public art on the site and it actually feels like it’s now fully alive,” Fleischmann said.

“We try to think about art and architecture, which extends to both the built and the natural environment; we try to think about how we can use those to bring people together,” Tamara Schenkenberg, one of Fleischmann’s colleagues at the Pulitzer told Forbes.com. “Over the years–we’re turning 20–we’re thinking more ambitiously about the inside and the outside building; it’s an exciting moment where we’re expanding and thinking more broadly.”

Schenkenberg has curated the featured attraction inside the museum, “Hannah Wilke: Art for Life’s Sake,” the first major exhibition of Wilke’s (1940-1993) groundbreaking work in over a decade. One of the foremost American artists to emerge in the 1960s, Wilke developed an unabashed, boundary-crossing art practice that included photography, video and works on paper, as well as sculptures in clay, latex, chewing gum and other non-traditional materials.

“Materially diverse and formally experimental” is how Schenkenberg describes Wilke’s body of work which was highlighted by her signature feminist iconography—the abstracted vaginal form in clay. For Wilke, this was a means to affirming her body and validating women’s experiences.

Here, St. Louis surprises again.

Stereotypes of middle-America–and nowhere is more middle-America than St. Louis–as culturally conservative, dull, unadventurous, utterly miss the mark here. Culturally, St. Louis is consistently provocative.

“Art for Life’s Sake” would turn heads in New York or Los Angeles. Wilke is an artist who can still be considered cutting edge three decades after her death. “Wayfinding” was originally commissioned by The Studio Museum in Harlem to highlight a Black, female artist not yet 40-years-old. The Pulitzer’s astonishing building looks nothing like you’d expect to see in the home of Budweiser.

“The Midwest often gets marginalized and we have this bifurcated thinking of the arts and culture only thriving on the coasts,” Schenkenberg said. “The Wilke show clearly goes against that binary thinking. We’ve been really excited to present (this exhibition) and judging from how our audiences have responded to it, I do think there’s a great appetite and interest (in St. Louis) in feminist themes, in conversations around gender.”

“Art for Life’s Sake” concludes with Wilke’s affecting Intra-Venus series of photographs (1991–92) where she lays bare the changes to her body caused by cancer treatments. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma would ultimately claim her life.

“What I see across her practice is a desire to affirm life. You see that from the very early work in the 1960s all the way through the last body of work she took after she was diagnosed (with cancer),” Schenkenberg said. “(Intra Venus) is very provocative–which is also another aspect of her work–but it’s also life-affirming and she is documenting these changes to her body with honesty and humor and vulnerability, and I think it’s that mix between the vitality of her body and the vulnerability of her body that is really piercing and testament to the power of her images.”

Intra Venus is the rare, raw artmaking, universally stirring to audiences regardless of their familiarity with “fine art.”

“It really normalizes elements of our bodies changing over time. Women, we grow up with a certain way our bodies should look and be and we don’t talk about illness, and we don’t talk about death in American culture and normalizing this as much as it should be,” Fleischmann adds. “So many women go through this and there’s a lot of shame that can be involved–or hiding–and I think Wilke’s unflinching honesty–there’s a ton of beauty and power in it–so it’s very emotionally challenging to experience, but at the same time, it’s very life-affirming and powerful and beautiful.”

Since opening 20 years ago, the Pulitzer, where admission is always free, has revitalized the neighborhood it calls home, bringing new energy and interest to an area which, like many in St. Louis, had long since seen its better days after the city’s mid-20^th century population peak. Making a similar impact across St. Louis are the city’s Black owned businesses, another surprise to discover.

Gourmet Soul Restaurant is reinventing traditional soul food while Turn does the unimaginable, offering “health centered American comfort food.” Turn’s Sunday “Slow Jams Brunch” deliciously combines chef and owner David Kirkland’s love for food and music. The former DJ’s biscuit flight with four different biscuits and seasonal house made jam demands a visit. For treats, Pharaohs Donuts serves up old school favorites while La Patisserie Chouquette indulges with sumptuous cakes and macarons. At Prime 55, Orlando Watson and Tony Davis, co-owners and childhood friends, offer an urban infusion on the classical steak and seafood fine dining experience with a dash of Creole.

Diversity Gallery jewelry or a title from EyeSeeMe African American Children’s Bookstore makes for the perfect gift or souvenir and on that weekend visit or longer vacation, Central West End Bed and Breakfast puts you minutes away from the city’s top attractions.

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