THEASTER GATES
Dry Bones and Other Parables from the North
A project of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts at Bruno David Gallery
Curated by Juan William Chavez
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 15
May 15 - June 5, 2010
Media Contact: Rachel Craft at rcraft@pulitzerarts.org or visit the website (Link)
(May 15, 2010 to Jun 05, 2010)
In conjunction with its current exhibition Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts has organized three artist-drive projects, one of which concludes with an exhibition that will be on view within the Bruno David Gallery. Chicago-based artist and 2010 Whitney Biennial participant Theaster Gates will exhibit "Dry Bones and Other Parables from the North," featuring a series of installations richly influenced by the Book of Ezekiel that address the future of the Hyde Park neighborhood of St. Louis. The Pulitzer's guest curator for this project is Juan William Chávez of Boots Contemporary Art Space.
This series of installations will be the culmination of Gates' work with students from Holy Trinity Catholic School in the Hyde Park neighborhood of St. Louis as part of the Urban Expression project, led by the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, is also in collaboration with Succeeding with Reading by ACCESS Academies.
In conjunction with Succeeding with Reading, photographer Stewart Halperin, poet Janie Ibur and artist Juan William Chávez guided students from Holy Trinity Catholic School in explorations of their daily lives through photography, writing and drawing. These workshops were in preparation for the project with Gates, who worked with the students to activate empty spaces, organize a town hall meeting, and create works of art responding to the neighborhood.
In this exhibition, Gates responds with his own artwork to Hyde Park residents thoughts and desires. These residents formulated a neighborhood "Master Plan" with the help of Chávez and Cujawa Architecture. Gates' project brings to the forefront the current state of cultural, spiritual, and familial life in the Hyde Park community while visualizing some of the residents' hopes for upcoming years. These installations at the Bruno David Gallery will spark new conversations regarding the present and future of this historic St. Louis neighborhood.
The projects will culminate in the Transformation Project Walk on May 15, 2010 from 3 pm to 7 pm at various sites. For information on these projects with The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, please contact Rachel Craft at rcraft@pulitzerarts.org or visit the website (Link)
Press Release (PDF)
CINDY TOWER
Decadense
March 19 - May 8, 2010.
Front Room: NANETTE BOILEAU: Heard but not Said
Media Room: DICKSON BEALL: Membrane Moments: Journey through Loss
OPENING NIGHT: FRIDAY, MARCH 19. 6-9PM
(Mar 19, 2010 to May 08, 2010)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Cindy Tower. "Decadense" [sic] includes recent paintings of decrepit, isolated and condemned architectural settings. A fully illustrated color catalogue with writings by Charlie Finch and Angela L. Miller accompany the exhibition.
Originally a sculptor and performance artist, Cindy Tower lets her creative background shine through in paintings that have become visual evidence of performance. Raw in spirit and conviction, Tower's highly articulated works engage the viewer in a visceral, otherworldly experience. Composite views of decrepitude become metaphors of bodily functions and reflect the political climate of our modern world. Wet, gloppy oil paint is applied in a loose yet precise manner in which subjects continuously dematerialize and reemerge. Tower's painting practice mirrors her concept of gradual accumulation that not only provides an exhausting, claustrophobic sensation but also raises questions regarding the complexity and level of exchange that occurs in our modern world. Presenting the themes of consumption, intimacy, obsolescence and loss, the paintings are an overwhelming celebration of materials and process.
Press Release (PDF)
BUZZ SPECTOR
SHELF LIFE: Selected Work
January 22 - March 6, 2010.
Front Room: SHAWN BURKARD: Phantasmagoria
Project Room: BEVERLY FISHMAN: Pharmako - Xanadu
Media Room: MAYA ESCOBAR: el es frida kahlo
(Jan 22, 2010 to Mar 06, 2010)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to present an introductory exhibit of the art of Buzz Spector. "SHELF LIFE: selected work" includes photographs, drawings, collages, and bookworks created over the past ten years. A fully illustrated catalogue with writings by Buzz Spector, Garrett Stewart and, Dora Apel accompany the exhibition.
Buzz Spector is best-known as an artist for his work with books, but his studio practice also includes photography, collage, installation, and drawing. This introductory exhibit covers the past eleven years of Spector's work. The selection reveals the material diversity and intellectual coherence of an artist concerned with memory, perception, and desire. It is no coincidence that Spector is also a writer; he is constantly crafting a poetry of things. Spector comes to St. Louis as the new Dean of the College and Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University.
Press Release (PDF)
CHRIS KAHLER: Hybrid Dynamic
Front Room: Dionna Raedeke: The Addition
Project Room:
Heather Woofter & Sung Ho Kim: Per.For.Mance (Exhibition closes Saturday, December 12, 2009)
Media Room: William Morris: 8 ms
(Oct 30, 2009 to Jan 09, 2010)
Bruno David Gallery presents Chris Kahler's third solo exhibition, Hybrid Dynamic, a body of work painted over the past two years. A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by James Yood accompanie the exhibition.
With their dense and layered compositions of vibrant, abstracted subjects, Kahler's new paintings explore dualities. There is a collision of intuitive and rational thought, conflict and order, evoking both the macro and micro sides of the natural world. Synthetic and natural colors collide to create a hybridization of variations of pattern and form that in turn create mutations on multiple levels. Not only biological in nature, these new works explore the fields of architecture, ecology, network theory and cybernetics.
Chris Kahler is an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Eastern Illinois University. He received his BFA at Ohio Wesleyan University and MFA from Northwestern University.
Press Release (PDF)
LESLIE LASKEY: Tango
Legacy: the Work of Laskey's Former Students (Front and Project Rooms)
DICKSON BEALL: Frames and Movements: The artist in Society (Media Room)
(Sep 11, 2009 to Oct 24, 2009)
Leslie Laskey is presenting a series of paintings and drawings inspired by the Argentinean dance. Tango has been a great inspiration for artists, whether they are musicians, filmmakers or visual artists. His fascination for Tango isn't surprising, when one looks at his previous work. Leslie Laskey has already explored the subject in 2006. His series of flower digital prints evoked the sensuality of the dance with hot colors and powerful graphic gestures. Laskey has now chosen another media to further investigate his passion for a dance he has practiced himself.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
OVERVIEW_09
(Jul 30, 2009 to Aug 29, 2009)
A Group Exhibition with
Margaret Adams,
Todd Anderson,
Laura Beard,
Elaine Blatt,
Shawn Burkard,
Bunny Burson,
Carmon Colangelo,
Alex Couwenberg,
Jill Downen,
Yvette Drury Dubinsky,
Corey Escoto,
Beverly Fishman,
Damon Freed,
William Griffin,
Joan Hall,
Takashi Horisaki,
Kim Humphries,
Kelley Johnson,
Chris Kahler,
Bill Kohn,
Leslie Laskey,
Sandra Marchewa,
Peter Marcus,
Genell Miller,
Kathryn Neale,
Robert Pettus,
Daniel Raedeke,
Frank Roth,
Chris Rubin de la Borbolla,
Frank Schwaiger,
Charles Schwall,
Thomas Sleet,
Lindsey Stouffer,
Cindy Tower,
Mario Trejo,
Brett Williams,
Ken Worley, and others.
YVETTE DRURY DUBINSKY
Dividing Time: New Work on Paper
Frank Roth: Narrative Patterns (Project Room)
Van McElwee: Alternity (Media Room)
(May 14, 2009 to Jul 25, 2009)
Yvette Drury Dubinsky's recent and very large chromogenic prints show a continued fascination with the lines, textures, and colors found in natural forms. By enlarging and isolating what there is to see in common and less common vegetables and fruits, Dubinsky shows in a simple way why artists and designers throughout time have used the natural world as inspiration for making art, whether it is abstract or representational, sculptural or two-dimensional. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
JILL DOWNEN: Hard Hat Optional
Chris Rubin de la Borbolla: there was a silent tinfoil rapping against the front door (Project Room)
Brett Williams: Things You Will See (Media Room)
(Apr 10, 2009 to May 09, 2009)
Jill Downen's latest installation, "Hard Hat Optional", resembles a construction site, filled with anatomical forms reminiscent of sensual bodily elements, pockets of empty space, and areas of densely packed material. She stacks, leans, and places sculptural and architectural forms to be seen not as individual pieces, but rather as a complete installation.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
DAMON FREED: Calm, Cool, Coherent
Larry Torno: When is a Doll not a Doll? (Project Room)
Mario Trejo: Catharsis (Front Room)
Tiffany Shlain: The Tribe (Media Room)
(Mar 05, 2009 to Apr 04, 2009)
Damon Freed belongs to a new generation of landscape artists whose work combines abstraction with explorations of the connection and interaction between man and nature, mind and spirit. Damon Freed's work investigates the relationship between soft and hard edges and an ordered way of seeing shape and form.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
BEVERLY FISHMAN: New Paintings
Genell Miller: Memories (Project Room)
Todd Anderson: The Nearest Faraway Place (Front Room)
Maya Escobar: You and Your Friends vol. 1 (Media Room)
(Jan 23, 2009 to Mar 01, 2009)
Fishman's latest work is a vibrant barrage of information derived from and alluding to charted systems and functions of the natural universe. Fishman utilizes materials from paint and silkscreen, to polished and powder-coated metal to manipulate light and color, illuminating themes addressing abstraction, technology, medicine, and the body.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
CARMON COLANGELO: Big Bang to Big Melt
Sandra Marchewa: Work (Project Room)
Kathryn Neale: Recent Paintings (Front Room)
Eleanor Dubinsky: New Videos (New Media Room)
(Dec 05, 2008 to Jan 17, 2009)
Carmon Colangelo's new exhibition explores ideas about the creation of the universe and man-made changes in the in the environment-from the Big Bang to the Big Melt. This paradoxical relationship expands on Colangelo's investigation of the biological aspects of evolution and takes a closer look at the physical environment.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
LAURA BEARD: New Paintings (Main Gallery)
ROBERT PETTUS: 8 min. 20 sec. (Project Room)
MARTIN BRIEF: Artforum Series (Front Room)
CHERIE SAMPSON: River of Spirit of Life (New Media Room)
(Oct 31, 2008 to Nov 29, 2008)
This exhibition titled New Paintings shows the ways in which Laura smoothly integrates influences of painterly abstraction with a distinctly modern and inventive style.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
WILLIAM GRIFFIN: Recent Paintings (Main Gallery)
PATRICIA OLYNYK: Probe (Project Room)
MARGARET ADAMS: Blindness (Front Room)
JESSICA ROGEN: Let Me Entertain You (New Media Room)
(Oct 03, 2008 to Oct 25, 2008)
William Griffin's most recent work blends the traditions of Old Masters with 21st century sensibility. He paints human figures as forms and shapes, touching and reacting in sensual gestures. By using the figure's power to express strong physical and emotional content, and by reducing the informational material, Griffin abstracts his images - much as a photographer or filmmaker crops and frames observed phenomena and concepts.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
HOWARD JONES: Memory and Refraction
PETER MARCUS: Untitled 1972 (Project Room)
IAN WEAVER: Artifacts From the Black Bottom (Front Room)
NANETTE BOILEAU: White Woman (New Media Room)
(Sep 04, 2008 to Sep 27, 2008)
Howard Jones was an intensely brilliant artist and even in the rambunctious 1950s, '60s and '70s a maverick and an innovator. He was part of the Art and Technology Movement along with Nam June Paik, Le Parc, Takis, Uecker and others. He worked through various artistic phases, including abstract expressionism, op and pop, but settled finally on creating work that harnessed technology for genuinely authentic artistic ambitions. Jones' use of light and sound, separately and simultaneously, was far in advance of his time.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
OVER_VIEW 08
(Jul 11, 2008 to Aug 23, 2008)
OVER_VIEW 08 sums up the works of artists who are affiliated with Bruno David Gallery. The exhibition features a host of both local and international talent, exploring a variety of themes and ideas concerning issues such as the distinction between self and identity, reality and unreality, and humanity and technology. From escapism into the subconscious, to the very tangible exploration of materials, this exhibition of works describes art at its best: an investigation of what we observe.
ELAINE BLATT: Natural Phenomena
JILL DOWNEN: Hybrida Drawings (Project Room)
WYNE GELEYNSE: Kit 1A: Collected Book (Project Room)
(Jun 06, 2008 to Jul 05, 2008)
As a photographer working for 25 years, Elaine Blatt has explored the globe while documenting sights seen by few people. In this latest show, Blatt is presenting a series of work depicting the dazzling natural light show, aurora borealis (the northern lights) from Reykjavik, Iceland. Also included are the incredible rock formations of the Antelope Canyon in Arizona and the sandstone Hoodoos of Bryce Canyon in Utah.
Press Release (PDF)
ALEX COUWENBERG: Working Space
SHAWN BURKARD: Over and over and over (Front room)
JILL DOWNEN: Cornerstone (New Media Room)
Project Room: CONTROLLED CHAOS: Laura Beard, Joan Hall, Kelley Johnson, Cindy Tower and Chris Kahler
(Apr 25, 2008 to May 31, 2008)
Alex Couwenberg has forged a unique reputation in California by producing a distinctive body of work that is a product of his obsession with the process of painting. Born and raised in Los Angeles and Orange County, Alex Couwenberg was exposed to many of the visual elements that create the So Cal terrain. The subject matter in his work comes from a deep appreciation of the aesthetic associated with the Southern California culture.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
LESLIE LASKEY: WORK
(Mar 14, 2008 to Apr 19, 2008)
In the hit-or-miss world of contemporary art, longevity in itself is a virtue. Leslie Laskey's lengthy biography can at times read like the artistic history of the 20th and 21st century. Leslie Laskey demonstrates again that working in the studio is crucial to a creative mind and longevity. His new work explores and engages us in images found in things and places. Showing us how they work, finding sensuality in surfaces and rich mystifying colors. Laskey never separates his art from its viewer as he always engages them in the process of his work.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
FOUR ACES: Large-Scale Prints from Four Universities
(Feb 01, 2008 to Mar 08, 2008)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit FOUR ACES: Large-Scale Prints from Four Universities. The works exhibited are from 48 graduate students and faculty members of Washington University in St. Louis - Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts; Louisiana State University College of Art and Design, University of Texas - Austin; and University of Wisconsin - Madison.
THOMAS SLEET: Traces
INGO BAUMGARTEN: untitled (ohne titel) (front Room)
ISLAND PRESS: selected prints (Project Room)
ELLA GANT: mother choo choo (Video Room)
(Dec 07, 2007 to Jan 12, 2008)
Thomas Sleet's work is enigmatic as it weaves themes of organic structure, migration, infinite multiples, and primitive culture with systems of individual marks. Sleet engages a new vernacular of style by combining the purification of form with the merging of organic structure and geometry.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
CHRIS KAHLER: VIRAL
COREY ESCOTO: Global Repair Service (Front Room)
ISLAND PRESS: Selected Prints (Project Room)
MAYA ESCOBAR: Acciones Plásticas (Media Room)
(Oct 19, 2007 to Dec 01, 2007)
Chris Kahler harvests biological systems for images and patterns that describe the symbiotic synergy and infection that exist between microscopic organisms and their host. Capitalizing on a process of risk and fluidity, of plan and accident, his work explores the growth, energy, interdependence, and mortality of invented organic forms. His paintings blend and fuse colors whose flow and growth, though controlled, though yielding carefully rendered forms graced with gestural movement, create a web of paint that is as unpredictable as it is elegant. The resulting images are skeins of networks and clusters of colonies that evoke macroscopic tissues with expressionistic nuance.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
JOAN HALL: From Whence We Came
CARMON COLANGELO: Pharmland Series (Front Room)
ELEANOR DUBINSKY: Short Forms (Media Room)
(Oct 07, 2007 to Nov 06, 2007)
Joan hall's recent large-scale, sculptural prints are thickly layered with handmade paper, pulp, and printing ink. The process of addition and subtraction, cutting out shapes and painting with paper creates a deep and complex surface that reveals new images as we look deeper into the work, as though the viewer is diving through the surface of the ocean. Implicit natural phenomena, such as water, wind, currents, and waves not only show the artists long fascination with the sea, but also portray the permeability of human beings basic structure from part to whole; we are of and by the sea.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
FRANK SCHWAIGER: Mythologies
(Jul 20, 2007 to Aug 25, 2007)
Frank Schwaiger latest works are not quite sculpture; these forms are more in touch with the presence between what is real and what is not. The things we might have forgotten, the things we never knew or noticed--the shadow that follows us, the light that warms us, the basic aspects of existence.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
ERNEST TROVA: Insinuations
BUNNY BURSON: Consequences (Project Room)
CHARLES GICK: Flowers From The Mouth (Media Room)
(May 25, 2007 to Jun 30, 2007)
The technique of collage is one of modernism's earliest tools, and "Insinuations" finds Ernest Trova fully immersed in all of its disjointed, comedic potential. The unifying thread in this new body of work are found photographs of meat, reorganized into a world populated by devilish silhouettes of raw beef and greasy sausages, a world where lamb chops enjoy their afternoons on sunny park benches, and where womens blouses are only as ruffled as the sliced ham from which the artist has constructed them. Trovas new imagery is at once grave and playful, violently drawing the viewers attention to both the beauty and fragility of our corporeal existence.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
YVETTE DRURY DUBINSKY: Cité des Arts: Mixed Media
(Apr 20, 2007 to May 19, 2007)
Yvette Dubinsky presents monotypes on paper, large chromogenic prints of organic forms and a new multi-media installation of photographs (and music) made in France on the Paris Metro. All three bodies of work were inspired during her three months in France. The musical collaboration was done with Axel Singer, a composer from Munich, Germany while Dubinsky and Singer were both residents at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in the Spring of 2006. This collaboration was initially presented in a concert at the Cité des Arts in Paris in October.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
PETER MARCUS: Horsehead Series
CHRIS RUBIN DE LA BORBOLLA: la entrada (Project Room)
DICKSON BEALL: 500 Billion Plastic Bags (New Media Room)
(Mar 16, 2007 to Apr 14, 2007)
Peter Marcus creates large-scale experimental prints inspired by and based on architecture. His innovative technique of bonding coated paper to canvas permits his large-scale presentation without the distortion of glazing, a technique that challenges the distinction between printmaking and painting. Complex patterns and textures draw the viewer into his work, with space-defining areas of color applied over primarily black-and-white collagraph, a form of intaglio printing related to engraving and etching. Marcus pieces are about combining opposites, being large while, at the same time, intimate and geometric while organic.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
KELLEY JOHNSON: Recent Paintings
CHARLES SCHWALL: Recent Paintings (Project Room)
LISA K. BLATT: 24 hours in Venice in 24 seconds (New Media Room)
(Feb 09, 2007 to Mar 10, 2007)
Kelley Johnson experiments and explores the possibilities within the confines of oil paint. He creates paintings that can be read as figurative or abstract. Some of the paintings look like images from fantasy books and comics others look like childrens books while others resemble figures from popular myths.
Press Release (PDF)
Essay (PDF)
JENNA BAUER: Thunder Fields
(Jan 05, 2007 to Feb 03, 2007)
Bruno David Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibit: Thunder Fields by Jenna Bauer.
Press Release (PDF)
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