Art under the Arch - revitalized art scene in St. Louis, Missouri

Art in America, July, 2001 by Ann Wilson Lloyd

Some members of the city art community say, off the record, that the poor maintenance is due in part to a convoluted institutional structure that disrupts the flow of authority, operations and funding. Laumeier is owned and maintained by St. Louis County, and the director works for the county. But a private, nonprofit board owns the sculpture and raises money for it and for exhibitions. This split in responsibilities has taken its toll on the park's operation in recent years, but a turnaround seems at hand. This spring, director Beej Nierengarten-Smith left after a 25-year tenure, and a search for a new director is in progress.

New members have been recruited for the board, including people who are seriously involved with the arts. One of them is SLAM's Homburg. She says a new funding structure is being discussed, maintenance issues are being addressed, and the board has a refocused vision. "We don't think it should be all outreach; we will push very hard for high-profile important projects. If Laumeier is to be known for the quality it started with, we should be working with artists of international stature," she says.

Art on Campus

Both St. Louis University and Washington University sponsor significant art venues. Tucked into the manicured, self-contained campus of S.L.U. (and worth the effort to find) are two of the more unusual contemporary-art sites in the city. The Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) resides in a deconsecrated modernist-style chapel of a former Jesuit study center. Father Terrence Dempsey, a Jesuit scholar who had written a dissertation on the spiritual in art, was granted the space eight years ago, after the Jesuit population on campus dwindled. MOCRA's programming is ecumenical, and catholic in the lowercase sense of the word. In 1994 Father Dempsey organized the traveling show "Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS." It featured 28 artists (among them Ross Bleckner, Nancy Fried, Juan Gonzalez, Tobi Kahn and Joseph Raffael) who, according to Dempsey, represent the full demographic range of the art community, from sexual orientation to race and religion. "It was a tough show, but full of hope, the first national group exhibition that put AIDS in a religious context."

More recently, the former church's nave provided sanctuary for Lewis DeSoto's Paranirvana, a giant, inflatable sleeping Buddha. This fall, some 80 Warhol Silver Clouds, borrowed from the Andy Warhol Museum, will drift through the tall chapel, possibly even bumping into the huge, dark Michael Tracy assemblage/triptych painting that hangs at the altar end of the nave, titled The 11th, 12th, and 13th Stations of the Cross for Latin America: La Pasion. On long-term loan to MOCRA and combining aspects of Arte Povera and Latin American folk art, Tracy's work consists of three door-size panels of unstretched, earth-color canvas embedded with hair, nails and broken glass, suspended from an embossed metal corona.

Dempsey says he sees the silver clouds as an antidote to MOCRA's usually more serious presentations. While acknowledging that Warhol was a devout Catholic, he doubts that the clouds were meant to be a religious work. Yet "they are very uplifting. They're kind of a childlike view of a heavenly realm." He always asks living artists for permission before acquiring or showing their works, since some might not want their art shown in a religious context. But the response, he says, is usually enthusiastic.