Day With(out) Art 2009 … join us in remembering

December 1, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of Day With(out) Art (DWA). Over those twenty years, this annual day of mourning and action has metamorphosed from emphasizing loss (signaled by removing artworks or draping them, or dimming the lights in galleries) to encouraging the creative energy and insight that art can bring to a devastating and demoralizing situation. As the Visual AIDS website notes:

… Day With(out) Art has grown into a collaborative project in which an estimated 8,000 national and international museums, galleries, art centers, AIDS Service Organizations, libraries, high schools and colleges take part.

MOCRA has participated in DWA regularly since 1994. In addition to highlighting particular works of art, three times we have hosted and helped organize observances involving members of the wider arts community. For instance, in 2000 we hosted a DWA observance in conjunction with the exhibition Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985-1995. We were joined by members of the theater community, two local gospel singers, members of the Gateway Men’s Chorus, and local visual artists, in dramatically memorializing those we have lost to HIV/AIDS. In 2006, during an encore presentation of Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds, we subdued the Clouds and put the focus on photographer Carolyn Jones’ exquisite Living Proof, a series of portraits of people living — thriving — in the face of HIV/AIDS.

Adrian Kellard, "The Promise," 1989. Latex on wood. Courtesy of the Estate of Adrian Kellard.

This year, we observe DWA by exhibiting The Promise, by the late Adrian Kellard, a rising artist in 1980s New York. His large-scale carved wood block panels evoke both medieval shrines and the woodblock prints of 20th-century German Expressionists, but their bright colors and folk-art quality make them accessible to a wide range of audiences.

The Promise riffs on images of St. Christopher, the legendary giant who unwittingly carried the Christ child across a river. The image expresses endurance and perseverance in the midst of suffering. Its enigmatic text, “I will never leave you,” seems to assert love, hope, compassion, and loyalty. It is an especially poignant message when we consider that Kellard’s own life was cut short by AIDS. He died in the fall of 1991 at the age of 32.

The Promise was included in the 1992-93 international traveling exhibition From Media to Metaphor: Art about AIDS, and in the 1994 exhibition Art’s Lament: Creativity in the Face of Death (organized by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston).

MOCRA is pleased to be able to share The Promise with St. Louis audiences for this year’s Day With(out) Art.  MOCRA will have the work on display beginning Tuesday, December 1, through December 13. Find more information here.

I’d like to note also that the current exhibition at MOCRA, Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears, though not directly connected to HIV/AIDS, does speak to the ambiguity of suffering and the challenge it poses to us as a fact of our human existence. I suspect that Byron’s works speak to many of our visitors of the ways in which we can creatively elicit meaning out of all of life’s experiences, both the joys and the tears.

In whatever fashion makes sense to you, we hope you will join us in observing World AIDS Day and Day With(out) Art.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

On the air with Michael Byron and Fr. Dempsey

Yesterday afternoon I sat in on an interview with MOCRA’s Director, Fr. Terrence Dempsey, S.J., and Michael Byron. We were at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, and host John Lanius was recording the interview for the Saint Louis Art Map: On the Air podcast (available on iTunes or as XML).

The conversation was wide ranging, from broad questions about the potential for art to lead the viewer to an encounter with mystery, to specific questions about the genesis of the Cosmic Tears series and the interplay of text and image in Michael Byron’s work. I was particularly intrigued by Byron’s observations about the transition from the solitary environment of the studio to the public display of work in a museum, and the effect the public setting has on the art and the artist, as well as how he sees his work situated in the grand terrain of art history.

The podcast will be available online early next week, and we’ll have links to it from the MOCRA website…but I encourage you to subscribe to the Art Map podcast and stay up-to-date on the contemporary art scene in St. Louis. It’s an important contribution to the St. Louis arts scene, especially given the increasing paucity of print media coverage, and a great complement to the Saint Louis Art Map blog.

Sitting in on the interview whetted my appetite for Michael Byron’s talk at MOCRA on Sunday, November 15, 2009, at 2 p.m. I’m looking forward to hearing him expand on some of his comments from yesterday, and to hear what questions audience members want to pose about his work. More details about the talk are found here. We hope to see you there.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

MOCRA Director to deliver 2009 Dillenberger Lecture at GTU

MOCRA’s Director, Rev. Terrence Dempsey, S.J., is honored to deliver the 2009 Dillenberger Lecture at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California, this Thursday, October 22, 2009.

Titled “The Wounded Body of Christ and the Modern Social Conscience,” the lecture will offer an overview of how images associated with the suffering and death of Jesus still have vitality, even in a pluralistic world. Images referring to the events of Good Friday have been employed by the artists of our time not only to manifest an expression of faith but more frequently to address life and death realities such as war, bigotry, poverty, oppression, genocide, sickness and pandemics in order to stimulate empathetic responses within the viewers.

Among the modern artists to be discussed are Georges Rouault, Kathe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, and Graham Sutherland, as well as contemporary artists such as Michael Tracy, Juan Gonzalez, Eleanor Dickinson, Stephen de Staebler, Daniel Goldstein, Luis Gonzalez Palma, Adrian Kellard, Dinh Q. Le, and James Rosen.

The lecture takes place on Thursday, October 22, 2009. A reception precedes the lecture at 5:00 p.m., followed by the lecture at 6:00 p.m.

It will be held at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU)
Dinner Board Room, Flora Lamson Hewlett Library
2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA

For more information, click here.

The Art of Dancing in the Street

For folks in the St. Louis region (or who might be passing through), there is a plethora of activity going on near MOCRA this Saturday, September 26, 2009. Most significantly for us, the museum will be participating in a gallery walk from 1 to 4 p.m. (Click here for a map of participating galleries.)

The gallery walk coincides with the third annual Dancing in the Street Festival, a celebration kicking off the fall arts season in the Grand Center Arts District. This event, featuring more than 50 dance companies and 700 dancers, runs from 1 to 9 p.m.

And, if all of that hasn’t exhausted your feet or your appetite for culture, you can round things off with the Midtown Alley Street Fest, held on Locust Street just to the east of Grand Center, running from 4 to 10 p.m.

More info about the gallery walk, and how to get to MOCRA, is on the MOCRA website. We hope to see you on Saturday.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

Updated MOCRA website

Several of our summer projects at MOCRA have focused on internal improvements — behind-the-scenes tweaks and improvements that visitors won’t ever see directly, but hopefully will result in better exhibitions and better service to our visitors.

One of our projects, however, is one that we hope many visitors will experience directly. We’ve launched an updated and expanded MOCRA website.

Among the notable features are improved navigation (including a left-hand menu bar and cookie trails); more robust visitor information; and an expanded selection of related links and resources.

It won’t win any Webbys, to be sure, but we hope visitors will find it to be a welcoming and useful site. It is a work in progress, so please send us your feedback…do you have suggestions on the organization and layout of the site? Any broken links we need to fix? Related links to recommend? Let us know!

–David Brinker, Assistant Director

Good Friday on Good Friday

It seems that every time I post I’m explaining the infrequency of our updates. But I’m pleased to say it’s just because we have been so busy.

The “Art and the Religious Imagination” conference was well received. Pamela Ambrose and Gerald Bolas gave distinct but complementary reflections on the way art museums can present the religious art in their collections in innovative ways. Charles Bouchard used the works in Good Friday to examine theological thought on the question of human suffering. (Sadly, Kevin Burke had to cancel due to a family emergency, but we anticipate inviting him back next spring.) A dynamic question-and-answer session followed, with some excellent insights from audience members.

A few pictures are included below, and we’ll try to have summaries of the talks available soon.

In the meantime, we are preparing for Good Friday on Good Friday. MOCRA’s Easter weekend hours are:

Friday, April 10, 2009 (Good Friday)		9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 11, 2009		11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m
Sunday, April 12, 2009 (Easter)		closed

To our readers observing Pesach or Holy Week, we wish you a season of peace and holiness.

Pamela Ambrose speaks at MOCRA’s Art and the Religious Imagination conference.

Pamela Ambrose speaks at MOCRA’s Art and the Religious Imagination conference.

Gerald Bolas speaks at MOCRA’s Art and the Religious Imagination conference.

Gerald Bolas speaks at MOCRA’s Art and the Religious Imagination conference.

Charles Bouchard speaks at MOCRA’s Art and the Religious Imagination conference.

Charles Bouchard speaks at MOCRA’s Art and the Religious Imagination conference.

Art and the Religious Imagination panel discussion. From left: Charles Bouchard, Pamela Ambrose, Gerald Bolas, Terrence Dempsey.

We’ve been busy: Part 1

It’s been another busy stretch at MOCRA. The response to Good Friday has been tremendously positive, with a higher-than-usual number of groups scheduling visits. We’ve also been busy with two projects:

MOCRA's "Good Friday" booklet

The first, supported by a grant from the VOICES project at Saint Louis University (funded by the Lilly Endowment), is a booklet of reflections on the artwork in Good Friday for use by visitors who wish to approach the exhibition in an attitude of meditation or prayer. The booklet takes a different approach from our wall texts/didactics. While those provide relatively “neutral” information about the iconography of the work or the artist’s expressed intent, the booklet explicitly puts the works in a (Christian) faith context. You can see a sample page on the MOCRA website.

This is something we’ve been interested in trying for a while now — bridging art appreciation with theological reflection and catechesis (religious education) — and this exhibition presented an excellent opportunity to experiment. So far feedback has been encouraging.

The challenge ahead will be to develop similar resources for future exhibitions (which may not have such clearly religious themes) and for visitors of other faith traditions. Also, we will be exploring what sorts of activities are “appropriate” in a museum setting–either sponsored by the institution, or simply permitted?

We’d welcome feedback from our blog readers. If you would like a copy of the booklet, send us a message with your snail mail address and we’ll send one your way.

[contact-form]

–David Brinker, Assistant Director

Body and Soul

MOCRA’s second exhibition, Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, opened on October 24, 1993, and ran through the end of the year. Some audiences may well have been asking, why was a contemporary art museum featuring a retrospective of a dance company?

Installation view, "Body & Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater," at MOCRA, 1993.

The key is in the company’s namesake and founder, dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey. “It is evident that religion had a profound impact on Alvin Ailey’s life,” MOCRA Director Terrence E. Dempsey, S.J. wrote in a press release for the exhibition. “Spirituality is pervasive in his work. Some of Ailey’s greatest dances were his spiritual dances.”

Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was organized by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts with the cooperation of the Dance Theater Foundation, Inc., and private collections. The exhibition was a celebration of (then) 35 years of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and its exceptional contributions to contemporary culture.

Ailey and his dancers have entertained and educated the public by bringing to the stage lyrical and energetic works inspired by the African American experience. He saw his company not only as a place in which to present his own works but the works of other aspiring African American choreographers as well. Furthermore, he felt an urgency to create a permanent company so that the great dances of earlier African American choreographers could be preserved.

Installation view, "Body & Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater," at MOCRA, 1993. Note the famous dress from "Cry" at left.

Above all, Alvin Ailey affirmed the dignity of all humanity. Dempsey told The University News, “One of the reasons for bringing this show here is that Ailey was one of the great bridge builders between the various races.” “Ailey celebrated the Black heritage, but his dances are not exclusive. He wishes to include all of humanity, and somehow we are all touched by the power of his dances.”

At the time of the exhibition, Ailey’s company had appeared in over 65 countries and performed before 13 million people. Now in 2008, as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary, that number has grown to 21 million people. The anniversary has been an occasion for reminiscences about Ailey, and for a gala tribute performance.

Ailey died in 1989, but his rich legacy lives on in a vibrant company that continues to thrive under his successor Judith Jamison, one of America’s greatest dancers.

The exhibition traced the development of one of America’s most important dance companies through the costumes, original drawings by Romare Bearden, videotapes of the major dances (including Cry, Blues Suite, and Revelations), and over 200 archival photographs.

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Along with the exhibition, MOCRA offered a number of related programs. Performances were given by the St. Alphonsus Rock Choir and the Katharine Dunham Junior Dance Company.

Panel discussion titled, "I Remember Alvin Ailey," at MOCRA, 1993. From left: James Truitte, Patricia Jacobs, and Danny Clark.

Two special evenings featured people closely related to the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. The first, “I Remember Alvin,” was an evening of reminiscences about Alvin Ailey with Patricia Jacobs, Director of the Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey; James Truitte (d. 1995), choreographer and original member of the Ailey company; and Danny Clark (d.1997), a dancer with the company at that time.

Katherine Dunham reflects during her lecture at MOCRA, 1993.

Most wonderful was “An Evening with Katherine Dunham,” on November 5, 1993. This a dance legend discussed the famous “Dunham Technique.” She provided valuable insights into Ailey the man, and her influence on his career. Dunham, who died in 2006, moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1969 and founded the Dunham Dynamic Museum, through which she brought the power of dance to the children and adults of the community. Dunham’s life and work are chronicled in the exhibition Katherine Dunham, currently on display at the Missouri History Museum.

Katherine Dunham and a young admirer, at MOCRA, 1993. Dunham's legacy lives on in new generations of dancers.

The Artist and Sacred Space

Yesterday we looked briefly at how MOCRA came to be. Today we continue the story with some of the surprises that come with renovating an older building, and the encouraging response to a pre-opening conference.

Several months prior to MOCRA’s official opening in February 1993, St. Louis Post-Dispatch cultural news editor Robert W. Duffy reported on the “race to finish” the gallery prior to a November 7, 1992 meeting of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture (ARC) to be hosted in the new museum.

Asbestos! MOCRA gets a new ceiling.

Construction had begun in the spring of 1992, and with the target of a completion date of early September 1992, everything seemed on track for the November 7 opening conference with plenty of time to install the art. Then, in late August, asbestos was discovered in much of the museum’s ceiling, and all construction stopped until it was removed and a new ceiling installed. To describe the abatement process as messy would be a severe understatement. By the time the project was completed the museum had a new ceiling and new drywall around its whole circumference.

Just days before the conference, Fr. Dempsey and the installation crew consider a work by Michael David.

Undaunted, Fr. Dempsey and the small MOCRA staff turned their energies to the ARC conference. The last of the scaffolding was removed on November 4, and the entire inaugural exhibition (which was to be previewed at the conference) had to be installed in two days. On top of that, there was an overlap between the installation completion and the arrival of the artists, speakers, and guests for the conference. Adrenaline and frayed nerves were in evidence—but it happened, and the museum was ready for the conference.

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The program, titled The Artist and Sacred Space, featured lectures and reflections from a number of distinguished speakers (titles and institutions are given as at the time of the conference):

Dr. Jane Daggett Dillenberger	(Professor of Art History, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA)
Dr. John Renard	(Professor of Theological Studies, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO)
Rev. Terrence E. Dempsey, S.J.	(Founding Director of MOCRA and Assistant Professor of Art History, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO)
Doug Adams	(Professor of Art History, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA)
David Miller	(Watson-Ledden Professor of Religion, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY)
Rev. Maurice B. McNamee, S.J.	(Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of Samuel Cupples House, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO)

These presentations were followed by a panel of 12 artists participating in MOCRA’s inaugural exhibition:

Seyed Alavi (Oakland, CA)	Charlotte Lichtblau (New York, NY)
Lita Albuquerque (Los Angeles, CA)	Stephen Luecking (Chicago, IL)
Craig Antrim (Los Angeles, CA)	Bernard Maisner (New York, NY)
Frederick J. Brown (New York, NY)	James Rosen (Augusta, GA)
Eleanor Dickinson (San Francisco, CA)	Thomas Skomski (Chicago, IL)
Tobi Kahn (New York, NY)	Daniel Ramirez (Madison, WI)

The artists and the audience engaged in an animated conversation on why many of today’s artists were addressing the religious and spiritual dimensions in their work.

The conference and its discussions reflected the excitement among the participants about the imminent launching of MOCRA. Artist Eleanor Dickinson remarked, “Art of the spirit and the soul is not very saleable. This museum is something we’ve needed for a long time to counter the excessive commercialization of art.” Over 120 people from across the country—St. Louis, New York, Washington, Chicago, Syracuse, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston—attended the conference, including about 30 members of ARC.

After the excitement of the conference had subsided, it was now time to attend to the final preparations for MOCRA’s grand opening.

–David Brinker, Assistant Director

• Tomorrow: A new sanctuary opens