The Search

The Search

Jason Lazarus's The Search is a large-scale sculpture and participatory platform that will remain in the gallery over the course of our entire exhibition season, which is focused on the concept of "Sporadic Democracy."

The Search will weave through multiple exhibitions, re-inscribing its meaning as numerous artists and others engage it through various performances, installations, and both private and public conversations over the course of the year.

The Search, a monumental series of uniform steps that are reminiscent of a pyramid of bleachers or a ziggurat, will externally host performances, installations and public interactions and internally house conversations between pairs of interlocutors, sourced from St. Louis's diversified community of writers, artists, scientists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, and politicians. The artist and curators will pair them up based on their understanding of their respective interests and vocations. Their dialogue, whatever they choose to talk about, will not be recorded, except for their respective signatures as a confirmation of their attendance.

Participants are given limited instructions and are left unconstrained save for a time limit. The length of their conversation, its substance and its terms are all up to them. They leave with the personal memory of the conversation. We, as spectators of the piece and the proceedings contained within, leave with the knowledge that it has taken place, only to speculate on what might have been.