When your museum is part of a university, you occasionally encounter matters beyond your control that nonetheless have an impact on your life. Consider, for example, the case of MOCRA’s front lawn, a courtyard shared with the rest of the Fusz Memorial building. Several weeks ago, we noticed that a section of the lawn was not draining as well as usual. In fact, it was coming to look alarmingly like a wetlands, and was becoming quite popular with the campus bird and squirrel population.

After some intramural attempts at remedying the situation failed to dry things out, our facilities crew called in some reinforcements. I looked out MOCRA’s lobby doors on Monday morning to see …

... a backhoe at MOCRA's door.

I popped outside, camera in hand, to document the proceedings.

No, MOCRA is not under renovation.

The suspected culprit was a water line feeding from a city main that runs down the campus mall. First, a precautionary shut-off of the water to the building.

Don't you hate it when you drop your keys?

Then the digging began. Early estimates were that they might have to go down as far as 18 feet to find the pipe, which would result in a terraced series of cuts into the lawn.

The first cut, contrary to popular song, is not the deepest.

It was starting to act like quick-mud. I watched a worker from the grounds crew sink in up to his knee a few days prior to the dig.

Still haven't found those keys.

Fortunately for all concerned, the pipe was encountered less than 7 feet down. Even at that depth, the crew had already had to cut through some stubborn Missouri clay.

Wait, there they are!

The pipe indeed had a break in it. In short order they replaced that section and filled everything back in.

Almost as if they were never there ... almost.

Now we wait to see if the problem is solved or if there are additional cracks in the pipe. Our thanks to the grounds and facilities crews, and to the contractors, for their efforts to rectify the situation. Although we’ll miss the spectacle of squirrels floating in the puddles with their water wings, we’ll be glad to look out our door onto good solid (and dry) ground.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

Our appreciation for MOCRA’s erstwhile fridge is growing:

• A 1950s commercial promises “years of trouble-free service.” That’s a promise that the Fusz Frigidaire lived up to!

• Solidarity: We’re not the only ones who neglected to defrost the freezer compartment.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

An essential element of MOCRA’s personality as a museum is the building itself. It began its existence in 1954 as a chapel, part of the Fusz Memorial complex  that included dormitories and dining facilities for Jesuits studying philosophy at Saint Louis University.

By 1990, the Jesuits had relocated to a different building nearby, and the University acquired the Fusz Memorial. The dorms and dining hall were quickly repurposed for student housing, but the chapel remained vacant until University President Rev. Lawrence Biondi, S.J., accepted Rev. Terrence Dempsey, S.J.’s  proposal to use the space for a museum of contemporary interfaith art.  The transformation of Fusz Chapel into MOCRA was soon underway.

Fusz Chapel prior to the MOCRA renovation.

Installation view, Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, at MOCRA, 1993.

Much about the chapel has changed over the years, but for MOCRA’s first fifteen years there has been one constant anchor to the building’s history:

The venerable Fusz Chapel Frigidaire refrigerator

We don’t know exactly when this General Motors Frigidaire was installed in the chapel sacristy. It’s quite likely that is was chugging away for over fifty years without complaint. (Although, we might have neglected to defrost the freezer compartment as frequently as we should have — the frost free models apparently did not show up until 1958).

The GM Frigidaire crest

A cursory glance at the history of the Frigidaire refrigerator is enough to set one thinking about the way that technological innovation and the forces of consumerism carry us from a product that meets a basic need (preventing food spoilage) in a rudimentary fashion, to the sleek, convenience-encrusted appliances of today.

Recently we gave in to the inexorable press of progress. Last week the venerable GM Frigidaire was defrosted for the last time and its plug pulled (likely the first time that has happened since it was first put into service). Its place has been taken by a new Frigidaire, one that is more energy and space efficient and several decibels quieter — yet rather generic in its lines.

The new Frigidaire

The new Frigidaire crest, though it strives to evoke a retro space-age feel, loses any panache when expressed in plastic.

The new Frigidaire crest

So we bid a fond farewell to our old Frigidaire as we begin stocking the new one (and enjoying the luxury of frost-free living). It’s another little mile marker as we continue into our sixteenth year at MOCRA. It’s also a prompt to pause and remember all who, like that old refrigerator, have labored reliably and consistently, often underappreciated, over the years.

For all who work to fulfill society’s basic needs, and do so with quiet determination, we say thank you. And to all who live with uncertainty in this patch of economic quicksand, we offer support and hope.

Happy Labor Day. May you and yours have a restful holiday. We hope to see you on September 13 for Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

Michael Byron, Cosmic Tears No. 12, 2003.

MOCRA’s next exhibition, Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears, opens on September 13, 2009. See the end of the post for opening reception particulars.

In the evocative paintings of the Cosmic Tears series, Mr. Byron explores the relationship of the individual to the universal. The works are based on a text by the artist that meditates on the inevitable mix of emotions that accompanies the act of creation; pain and joy together elicit a “cosmic tear” that is the “womb of our psyche.” Yet the paintings themselves attest to the potential of art to “shape that tear into Meaning.” (The full text on which the works are based will be on view along with the paintings.)

The abstract works simultaneously suggest both microcosmic and macrocosmic perspectives, with forms that suggest continents or constellations. In a number of works, the artist introduces trompe l’oeil images of water droplets; this effect recalled for MOCRA Director Terrence Dempsey, S.J., the opening lines of William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence“:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

Michael Byron, Cosmic Tears "C", 2009.

While several of the Cosmic Tears works have been exhibited previously, this is the first exhibition focusing just on this series, and it includes a number of recently completed works. You can read reviews of Mr. Byron’s work, including the Cosmic Tears series, here (scroll almost to the bottom of the page and look for the heading “The Outlaw Printmakers and Michael Byron”).

Mr. Byron is Professor of Painting at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. In his distinguished career he has exhibited throughout the United States, as well as in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and Mexico. He was selected for the 1989 Whitney Biennial. His work is included in many public collections including the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen (Rotterdam), and the Tamayo Museum (Mexico City). See his resume and a sampling of his work from the Philip Slein Gallery.

Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears
September 13 – December 13, 2009

opening reception Sunday, September 13, 2009, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m.*

If you’re in the St. Louis region on September 13, please stop by and see the exhibition.

* the artist is unable to be present at this event, but he will be giving a talk on November 15, 2009, followed by a reception.

– David  Brinker, Assistant Director

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

MOCRA is one of a number of arts organizations located in St. Louis’ Grand Center district. Over the past few years, we’ve been working together with the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, and the Sheldon Art Galleries (all in Grand Center), along with the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Kemper Art Museum, Laumeier Sculpture Park, White Flag Projects, and Boots Contemporary Art Space, to promote awareness of and participation in the visual arts community in St. Louis.

One recent result of this collaboration is the Saint Louis Art Map blog. Here’s the current mission statement:

This collaborative blog aims to fill a void in the online art world by becoming a place for information and critical discussion about the non-profit visual fine arts in St. Louis.  Topics are focused on art and institutions with a national and international emphasis, and places them within the local context of St. Louis’ thriving and diverse visual arts community.  Through partnerships with guest bloggers, as well as behind-the-scenes posts from institution curators, directors, staff members, visiting artists, etc., the combination of first-party and third-party sources provides information from a wide range of viewpoints.

In a world where cultural coverage continues to shrink, this collaborative blog hopes to inform visitors – both in and out of town – of our activities and to foster discussion in and about our city.

It’s a work in progress, to be sure–take a look and give us your feedback.

Meanwhile, you can also read a blog post by our Museum Assistant, Bob Sullivan, reflecting on the resonances between the current exhibitions at MOCRA and the Pulitzer. It’s on the Pulitzer’s blog (2Buildings1Blog), which also features posts from the Contemporary.

– David Brinker, Assistant Director

In response to numerous requests from visitors, MOCRA has extended the exhibition Good Friday through May 17, 2009.

MOCRA’s hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Don’t miss this additional opportunity to experience one of MOCRA’s most popular shows ever!

More info about the exhibition is available here.

The walls don’t move themselves, of course. Relocation involves a careful coordination of muscle, carpet scraps, shims, and (of course) at least a couple of staff members to supervise and offer helpful comments.

Once the wall was in place this time, it certainly shook up the typical MOCRA floor plan. Though the giant nave is now split, I can’t say it feels fractured. It serves a great function by creating a line between stages of the Passion of Christ.

A frequent visitor comment about MOCRA, is how distinctive a venue it is for the display of art: the lofty 30-foot ceiling in the nave gallery, the twelve intimate side-chapel galleries, the hints of stained glass color that leak out from behind the window shades. It is as if the building has a memory of its previous incarnation as a chapel, a memory that imbues the space with an inviting atmosphere of contemplation and calm.

From a curatorial perspective, the space is a mixed blessing. There is a surprising amount of running wall space, yet the chapel’s configuration lends itself to some exhibitions but not others. For instance, a natural approach to organizing our upcoming exhibition would be to install the works following the sequence of events of Good Friday. But the side chapel galleries will not accommodate works larger than 6 feet wide — and one of the first works in sequence is nearly 7 feet wide!

What about grouping works by theme? This show naturally includes quite a few works that reference the Crucifixion. Should they be grouped together to allow easy comparison, or should they be distributed throughout the gallery to avoid monotony? Here again the sizes of the works provide a partial guide, as larger works had to be installed in the nave gallery. Style and media also play a role — we seek a visually harmonious installation as well a logical one.

We have made one significant adjustment to the nave gallery which will come as a surprise to visitors familiar with the museum: there is now a wall bifurcating the central gallery, effectively creating two galleries out of one large space. It takes some getting used to, but also offers a whole new way of conceiving an installation at MOCRA. Just to give you a little taste of the effect, here is a picture of the wall — sans artwork — along with a similar view from our 1994-95 exhibition Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS:

A new wall inhabits in MOCRA's nave gallery. The lift at right is not an installation piece.

You are seeing a glimpse of Doug DePice’s Jesus in Central America – First Station of the Cross there on the left.

Installation view, "Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS" (1994-95).

Stop by this Sunday, February 15, and see for yourself how we installed this exhibition. Do you agree with our choices, or would you have approached things differently?

–David Brinker, Assistant Director

MOCRA’s fifteenth-anniversary exhibition Pursuit of the Spirit was featured in the Sunday, December 7, 2008 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Reviewer David Bonetti praises MOCRA’s “vigorous program” and highlights a number of works in the exhibition. At the same time, he voices some common questions and objections about what MOCRA aims at in presenting contemporary art that engages the religious and spiritual dimensions. For instance, how does one identify the “spiritual” in art if a traditional iconography is lacking?

We invite you to read Mr. Bonetti’s review and then share your own thoughts about the questions he poses. Have you visited MOCRA to see Pursuit of the Spirit? How does your experience compare with his?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Read David Bonetti’s review of Pursuit of the Spirit.