The Luminary Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the second installment of our residency retrospective exhibition, Something Happened, which opens on Friday, February 24th from 6-9PM. Something Happened will feature work created by our artists-in-residence throughout 2011 as a way to create a dialogue between our studio and exhibition programs and further the engagement of the public in the process. The exhibition captures the explorations and experimentations that took place throughout the year, resulting in new work from each of the artists. The artists in the program represent some of the most exceptional artists working in the region and include Aaron Bos-Wahl, Jessi Cerutti, Alex Elmestad, Kristin Fleischmann, Dani Kantrowitz, Katie McCullough, Daniel McGrath, Ann-Maree Walker and David Weinberg.

Note: Ann-Maree Walker’s project, Generate, may be viewed online here.

Something Happened will remain on view Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 12-6PM and Thursdays from 11AM-6PM each week through March 31st, 2012.

The Luminary’s exhibitions are generously supported by the Arts and Education Council and the Missouri Arts Council.

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On Friday, November 4th from 6-9pm, Brett Williams will open FeedBack, a new site-specific sound installation in the Installation Space that utilizes vocal microphones and an oscillating fan to create undulating feedback and percussive effects in the reverberant arched room. FeedBack is a self-replicating system that shifts over time as it filters the sound of the microphones through effects processors and guitar amplifiers, which in turn is picked up again by the microphones.  The installation continues the artist’s fascination with technology’s ability to stand in for individual shortcomings. In this case, the fan and microphones create a performance that the artist himself is incapable of, substituting its own strums, stutters and tempos to fill the space.

FeedBack will remain on view Wednesday-Saturday from 12-6pm through December 2nd, 2011.

Artist Bio

Brett Williams is concerned with the pleasures and absurdities of communication by using and subverting the conventions and techniques of stage, film and television. His earlier projects made use of television commercial formats and the look and feel of Reality TV, while more recent work features animated motion graphics that deal with visual and sonic abstraction. Whatever form Brett’s work takes, whether it’s single-channel video, site-specific installation, or performance, he constructs a setting of fantasy and play through the lens of dark humor.

He received his BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Brett’s videos, performances, and installations have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Williams’s work appears courtesy of Bruno David Gallery.

Press

Riverfront Times

Arched Art Now

Recently Possible: Objects of the Future

November 4th-December 2nd, 2011

Opening Reception from 6-9pm on Friday, November 4th

Recently Possible: Objects of the Future, The Luminary’s final exhibition of the 2011 season, explores the concept of ‘new media’ from a literal perspective of technological development, innovative concepts and radical consumer products primarily drawn from the past year. New media has been shorthand for all art that engages technology since at least the video experiments of the 60′s and has been omnipresent since the emergence of interactive technologies of the 90′s. Recently Possible explores the concept from a step outside of the fine art discipline in order to expand and challenge our concept of new media practice, placing products and experimental research alongside the work of new media artists.

The exhibition focuses on projects and products that would not have been possible to create beyond the past several years, from 3D printers and visual synthesizers to robotic lifeguards and electronic cigarettes. By placing restrictions on the exhibition’s timeline to the immediate past, we are questioning the relevance of the language of new media and the contemporary, which encompasses fifty years of artistic practice as it mentions Nam June Paik and Bruce Naumann together with artists pushing today’s technological boundaries.

Artists and projects include Art404, Teenage Engineering, Yamaha/Tenori-on, Ryan Hendrickson + Arch Reactor Hackerspace, E.M.I.L.Y./Hydronalix, Sugru, Russell Davies, Emmett Lalish, Peter Coe and more.

Press

Arched Art Now

Riverfront Times 

Photo by Jason Gray

On Friday, September 9th, from 6pm-9pm Ann-Maree Walker will open Almost like being there in the Installation Space.

The new site-specific installation, Almost like being there, is a series of small architectural
interventions situated within the Luminary’s Installation Space- a former meditation chapel. The engagement between the viewer and the work creates a choreographed performance that  humorously explores the rituals of conforming one’s body to an environment in order to achieve a higher state of experience.  The installation will remain on view Wednesday through Saturday from 12-6pm each week.

On view September 9th-October 21st, 2011

The opening reception for Almost like being there will be held in conjunction with FORMAT, a themed group exhibition exploring the malleability of material and experience emerging from online culture.

FORMAT

September 9th-October 21st

Opening Reception from 6-9pm on Friday, September 9th with an artist talk by Paul B. Davis

On September 9th, The Luminary opens its fall season with an exhibition exploring the malleability of material and experience emerging from online culture. FORMAT features some of the most prominent and engaging artists working with the particularities of web aesthetics, forms of online experience and the interaction between the physical and digital environment.

A new site-specific installation by Ann-Maree Walker, Almost like being there, will open simultaneously in the Installation Space. Almost like being there is a series of small interactive installations situated within the space that will create a kind of choreographed performance exploring the ritual of conforming one’s body to an environment.

FORMAT artists include:

Greg Borenstein and Scott Wayne Indiana

Greg Borenstein and Scott Wayne Indiana’s Physical GIF’s have quickly gained attention for their unique presentation of animated GIF’s as zoetropes playing out the format’s stop-motion, jittery aesthetic in physical space. The Physical GIF project will feature collaborations from Ryder Ripps, Nullsleep, Sterling Crispin and Sara Ludy, as well as the artists’ own work.

Paul B. Davis/BEIGE

Paul B. Davis founded the BEIGE Programming Ensemble with Joe Beuckman, Cory Arcangel and Joseph Bonn. While still in college in the late 90s Davis pioneered the use of hacked video game cartridges as an art practice. His Nintendo work was premiered in 2000 and subsequently BEIGE members used hacked NES systems to create a distinct body of work that has been shown internationally. 

Elna Frederick

Elna Frederick is known for her javascript animations that offer an enigmatic take on place and experience online. Visually dense and stylisticly sophisticated, her work elevates the typical experience of web animation to explore the possibilities of the medium.

Martijn Hendricks

Martijn Hendricks is an Amsterdam-based artist who often works with marginalized media and the legacy of contemporary art as filtered through file-sharing, post-studio practice. 

Jon Rafman

Jon Rafman’s diverse net work (and network) spreads throughout Google Street View, Second Life and any number of Tumblr blogs, stitching together a surprisingly cogent view of how physical space and individual expression is represented and recreated through online platforms. 

Krist Wood

Krist Wood is perhaps best known as the founder of the influential net art community, Computers Club, as well as a number of diverse curatorial and artistic approaches that explore the possibilities of online experience and tools as both subject and object of contemporary practice.

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Now in its second year, The Luminary’s annual fundraiser, FORM Contemporary Design Show, will take place on August 12-13, 2011 at The Temtor Building in South St. Louis. FORM is presented by The Luminary as a forum for exceptional designers to showcase their work, connect with a community of other designers and sell directly to supporters. FORM 2011 will feature 70+ architects, designers and a special keynote address by Zoe Ryan, Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Attending FORM is one of the primary ways to support The Luminary’s programs and events throughout the year, so buy tickets and bring friends to this incredible event!

VIP Night: August 12th from 7-10pm. Features exclusive auction items from exhibitors, complimentary food and drinks from Schlafly, Randall’s, Harvest, Duff’s, Lababee’s and more, DJ Billy Brown and keynote address by Zoe Ryan. Tickets are $40adv/$50 at the door. Buy Tickets

General Admission: August 13th from 11am-4pm. Experience cutting-edge contemporary designs, shop for unique items and take part in the free panels and presentations. Buy Tickets

Directions:

For more information about FORM, please feel free to contact The Luminary at 314-773-1533 or email form@theluminaryarts.com

On Saturday, July 30th, from 10am-4pm Gabriel Dawe will open Plexus no. 8 in the Installation Space. The new site-specific installation continues the artist’s exploration of thread and fibers as loaded materials implicating the complicated construction of gender and identity in his native Mexico. The Plexus series utilizes everyday sewing thread expanded from human to architectural scale. As it expands, the material begins to disappear, leaving broad swaths of color stretching throughout the space.

The opening reception for Plexus no. 8 will be held in conjunction with the Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis’s Open Studios.

Installation Space

John Early: Terra Firma

June 10th-July 22nd

Opening Reception from 6-9pm on June 10th

John Early’s new site-specific installation, Terra Firma, stems from a recent documentary chronicling the career of BMX rider Mat Hoffman, who has devoted much of the past twenty-five years to launching himself and his bike to unbelievable and unprecedented heights. Using as a frame of reference Hoffman’s relentless pursuit to push the bounds of gravity, Terra Firma explores the condition of humankind’s earthbound existence and the desire to transcend and push beyond that limit.

The sculptural component of Terra Firma loosely references the homemade ramps constructed by Hoffman in his backyard in Oklahoma and serves to draw the viewer’s gaze upward toward the window, thus making a connection between the earth and the sky. The installation also includes two audio tracks consisting of sounds referencing the terrestrial and the celestial, respectively. Each track is played simultaneously from opposing sides of the space such that while the sounds can be heard individually, they merge toward the center of the installation. Fittingly situated in a former chapel—a space where man once sought to commune with the transcendent—Terra Firma acknowledges the physical limits of human existence while pointing toward the incessant pull to escape beyond those bounds.

Analogue

June 10th-July 22nd

Opening Reception from 6-9pm on June 10th

Analogue brings to the forefront the concept that contemporary culture is perceived through a discontinuous series of analogies rather than a linear narrative. Finding in the commercial landscape a language of representation and reference, the five artists in Analogue make use of common cultural material—consumer goods inverted, remade and expanded upon; survival recast as a particular set of products; the infuriating experience of waiting for YouTube to load given physical presence.

Analogue is presented with support from the Missouri Arts Council (MAC) and the Regional Arts Commission (RAC).

About the Artists

Ethan Greenbaum is a New York-based artist and curator known for his sculptural approach to commercial architecture, construction materials and urban environments. Greenbaum, a 2005 Yale MFA graduate, utilizes  materials such as Formica, acrylic, and vacuum-formed plastic that fill the urban landscape, yet resist function when presented in a gallery setting. Greenbaum modifies these cultural blank spots via a range of material gestures that  open them to new associative possibilities. Greenbaum has exhibited widely, including exhibitions at The Suburban (Chicago), Marlborough Gallery (New York) and Circus Gallery (Los Angeles). He is also an editor at The Highlights, an online archive of artists text projects.

Caleb Larsen is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and currently lives and works in Mexico. Larsen’s diverse studio practice incorporates installations, prints, drawings, sculpture and computer programs. Much of his work centers on the parallels between the financial footprints of artistic practice and commercial production, tracking abstract quantities such as the value of art, time and forcing the viewer into placing a value on the work through online auctions and other means. One Person, Three Days – Survival Kit presents a complete range of products as means for survival, stripping a person’s life down to a series of commercial needs. Larsen’s work has been discussed in Beautiful/Decay, The Seattle Times and Rhizome.

Helmut Smits is an acclaimed conceptual artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands who takes cultural detritus and reimagines it as satirical sculptures. Utilizing found objects, Smits draws attention to themes of consumption, excess and waste with a contemporary, pop sensibility. Recurring motifs of McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Disney embrace an American sheen while constructing visual puns that are both accessible and humorous. Smits has exhibited widely internationally at museums such as Palais de Tokyo (Paris) and the International Design Biennial. This will be his second exhibition in the US.

Zoe Sheehan Saldana’s work examines such notions as the shifting value of the handmade in art, the dynamic between low and high art forms, the imperfect and often additive nature of copying and reproduction, and the multiple roles of the audience in the art experience. Saldana is best known for her handmade, functional reproductions of commercial items in which she exchanges mass-produced items with exact replicas, positing questions about the nature of craft and authenticity. Zoe Sheehan Saldana has exhibited at PS1/MOMA, Steve Turner Contemporary and Exit Art. Her work has been discussed in Artforum, The New York Times and Fiber Arts.

Ryan Thayer utilizes a minimalist palette of industrial objects from shopping centers, office spaces and product displays that have been reconfigured, simplified or abstracted. In my building has every convenience, commercial shopping carts have been combined with a volume of space that fills, and extends, the contours of the shopping basket.  This incomplete volume is made of drywall and remains open on one side. These ubiquitous drywall volumes are characterized by a blank white surface that moves seamlessly from interior to exterior, volumes that entirely fill each shopping cart but in turn are filled with nothing.  They are a fragment of immense networks, combining consumer objects with elements of minimalism, seriality, and subjectivity. Ryan Thayer is an artist currently based in St. Louis making conceptually driven large-scale sculptures and photographs.  Ryan Thayer received his MFA from California College of the Arts in 2006 and has studied in London and Berkeley.  His work has been exhibited at venues throughout Europe and the US including; Southern Exposure (CA), Skydive (TX), Gallerie Box (SE), Koh-i-noor (DK), Unten Drunter (SE) and NOMA Gallery (CA).