The Middle Mississippi River Valley is home to a number of venues that are the home to ongoing exhibits that change periodically. The venues come in a number of different sizes. There are small galleries like the Sikeston Depot Museum in Sikeston, Missouri and the Misselhorn Gallery in Sparta Illinois. Art centers are another venue and include the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton, Illinois, the Quincy Arts Center in Quincy, Illinois, and the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Missouri. The metropolitan St. Louis area has the largest assortment of venues including the Saint Louis Art Museum, The St. Louis Artists Guild, and the Contemporary Art Museum.
CURRENT ART EXHIBITS
Off the Block
Through June 22, 2024
Foundry Art Center
St. Charles, Missouri
Off the Block is a captivating, small group exhibition which explores the art of printmaking. This exhibition showcases a range of techniques, from traditional etching and silkscreen to innovative digital processes. Themes range from love, loss, mental health, human fallibility, humor, the mundane, and political discourse. Off the Block kicks off the Foundry’s month-long celebration of Printmaking, culminating in the Block Party steamroller printing event on June 15th.
Aspired Inspiration - Den Smith
Through July 6, 2024
St. Louis Artists’ Guild
Clayton, Missouri
There is power to be found in moments of quiet, and stillness. “Source” showcases times that have held the attention of Maddie Aunger. Each piece begins with an excitement about a specific formal quality, a shape of light, a hint of color, repetition of form, or a composition of layered spaces and the exhibit encourages the viewer to slow down and recognize that these moments can be found within their own worlds.
Geologic - Elizabeth Claire Rose
Through July 6, 2024
St. Louis Artists’ Guild
Clayton, Missouri
Referencing her own experiences traveling through altitudinal zones to alpine areas, and across latitudinal lines, Elizabeth Claire Rose creates work which connects geographically disconnected landscapes focusing on their shared ecologies: how each site is connected through climatic shifts, soil qualities, and habitat range. She repetitively reworks traditional copperplate matrices, often in combination and collage with photo-lithography, and photography to extract observations, uncovering cultural and natural histories.
Impressions Unbound
Through July 6, 2024
St. Louis Artists’ Guild
Clayton, Missouri
Impressions Unbound aims to highlight current trends in contemporary American printmaking and shine a spotlight on a cross-section of artists working in a variety of traditional, alternative, and experimental print processes. This exhibit’s is Karen J Revis, an artist based in New York City.
Honors Awards 2024
Through July 11, 2024
Venue: Art St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
Honor Awards 2024 features new artworks by ten Award-winning regional artists from Missouri and Illinois who received Awards of Excellence in the 2022 juried exhibits at Art Saint Louis. The new artworks in this exhibition have not previously been exhibited at Art Saint Louis and include digital art, drawing, illustration, mixed media, painting, printmaking, and textiles.
Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection
Through July 14, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection celebrates a transformative gift of outstanding works by Native American artists active across the 20th century. The promised gift of 100 works establishes a critical junction between the Museum’s deep collection of Indigenous art pre-1920 and a growing emphasis on the contemporary.
Humorous Art Show
Through July 14, 2024
St. Peters Cultural Arts Centre
St. Peters, Missouri
The St. Peters Cultural Arts Centre provides a home base for several local arts organizations, gallery space for area artists. Stop by the Cultural Arts Centre to view the galleries filled with the original artwork where the artist explore the vast realm of wit, humor, and its myriad interpretations.
Kahlil Robert Irving: Archaeology of the Present
Through July 29, 2024
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
The St. Louis–based artist Kahlil Robert Irving creates assemblages made of layered images and sculptures composed of replicas of everyday objects. Mainly working in ceramics, Irving critically engages with the history of the medium and challenges constructs around identity and culture in the Western world.
Santiago Sierra: 52 Canvases Exposed to Mexico City’s Air
Through July 29, 2024
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Madrid-based artist Santiago Sierra is known for his provocative performance and installation art that deals with the topic of social inequities and has created works visualizing of the toxicity of contemporary urban life. Sierra created the 52 compositions—one for each week in a year—by placing adhesive-lacquered canvases on the floor in a building in Mexico City with the windows open, allowing the air to settle on them.
The Body in Pieces
Through July 29, 2024
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
By the early 20th century, Europe and the United States had experienced rapid modernization and industrialization. Artwork from this time reflect the sensorial overload of urban life, the sweep of high-speed travel, the repetitive motions of factory machinery, and the dismemberment caused by mechanized warfare. Dana Ostrander, assistant curator curated this exhibition with artwork primarily from the Kemper's permanent collection.
Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings
Through August 4, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
A painting’s surface hides a wealth of information that can only be found using advanced methods of conservation science. Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings presents new discoveries made during an ambitious three-year study of the Museum’s world-class collection of German Expressionist paintings. Complete underpaintings, a lost title, and studio graffiti are just some of the exciting findings that will receive their public debut.
Wonder and Praise: Sun Smith Forêt
Through August 3, 2024
Venue: Quincy Art Center
Quincy, Illinois
Quilts, knotted vessels, paintings, and mixed media artworks are featured in Wonder and Praise: Sun Smith Forêt – Sculpture, Painting, SilverScreen Quilts, Riverwork Project. Artworks by Sun Smith Forêt, an artist based in Alton, Il, is accompanied by her Riverwork Project that she created and manages. Riverwork Project is comprised of quilted panels composed of over 70 individual contributions expressing their personal and community connection to rivers.
Delcy Morelos: Interwoven
Through August 4, 2024
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
St. Louis, Missouri
Colombian artist Delcy Morelos creates art that calls attention to connections between people and the environment. Using natural materials like textile, fibers, clay, and soil, her work asks us to consider earth as a living entity rather than a territory to be owned. The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, and installations made throughout Morelos’s career, including several works never before seen in the United States. In addition, Morelos will create a monumental, immersive sculpture made from local soil specifically for the Pulitzer’s galleries.
On Earth
Through August 4, 2024
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
St. Louis, Missouri
On Earth features five artists who use moving images to explore the complex relationships between humans and the natural environment. The film and video works in this exhibition present land as a central figure, introducing themes of temporality, ritual, memory, territory, loss, and birth. Offering critical readings on the often destructive relationship between humankind and the earth, the artists also advance visions for alternative futures. The artworks directly engage with challenging realities, while acknowledging the joy, creativity, and growth that a relationship with land can provide.
Selections from the Permanent Collections Exhibit
Through August 4, 2024
Rosemary Berkel and Harry L Crisp II Museum
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Curator’s Choice is the theme of this year’s Selections from the Permanent Collections Exhibit. This summer we will bring out our Navajo rugs, Maria Martinez blackware pottery, and an assortment of paintings and drawings. See these beautiful items before they go back into the vault.
Paul Chan - Breathers
Through August 11, 2024
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
New York-based artist, writer, and publisher Paul Chan came to prominence in the early 2000s with vibrant moving image works that touched upon aspects of war, religion, pleasure, and politics. Around 2009 Chan embarked on a self-imposed break. Taking the notion of a “breather” as its organizing principle, this exhibition surveys Chan’s activities since his break from that point to the present.
ArtReach: The Art of Caring
Through August 11, 2024
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
What makes a problem a societal issue? Why do these problems persist? What roles can visual art play in addressing these issues? ArtReach: The Art of Caring is the product of a semester-long focus on questions of social justice and healing with visual art students at Sumner and Vashon High Schools.
Transform Your Hood
Through August 11, 2024
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
Transform Your Hood is a multifaceted, nonpartisan campaign that aims to activate how we creatively express our values through civic engagement. Residents of the St. Louis region are invited to take time and space to consider what matters most, and how to use their voice and action to shape these issues.
Romare Bearden: Resonances
Through September 15, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Romare Bearden: Resonances will highlight modernist artist Romare Bearden and his relationships with other artists in the Museum’s collection. The exhibition will explore the varied ways Bearden served as a friend and mentor to his contemporaries. This exhibition will spotlight Summertime, an important work by Bearden in the Museum’s collection that contains many themes Bearden highlighted in his work such as African American life, jazz, and the city.
Currents 123: Tamara Johnson
Through September 22, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
A painting’s surface hides a wealth of information that can only be found using advanced methods of conservation science. Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings presents new discoveries made during an ambitious three-year study of the Museum’s world-class collection of German Expressionist paintings. Complete underpaintings, a lost title, and studio graffiti are just some of the exciting findings that will receive their public debut.
Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries
Through October 20, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Japanese people have used silk to create items of clothing and decorative works of art for hundreds of years, ever since the cultivation of silkworms was introduced to Japan from China during the third and fourth centuries CE. Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries celebrates silk pieces from the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, which has been collecting fine Japanese textiles for more than a century. Some were purchased by the Museum while others were generously given by patrons and donors over decades.
UPCOMING EXHIBITS
Pattie Chalmers’ Mudmaid Museum
Through PLACEHOLDER
Venue: Sheldon Art Galleries
St. Louis, Missouri
Pattie Chalmers’ Mudmaid Museum is an exploration of folklore and legends that blurs the lines between myth and reality. Chalmers has created her own museum of catfish-beings, referred to as “Mudmaids,” believed to exist in the Mississippi River in a distant past. This unique concept of a museum within a gallery features artifacts created by Chalmers.
Panoply: 26 Painted Lives
Through PLACEHOLDER
Bradbury Art Museum, Jonesboro, Arkansas
“Panoply: 26 Painted Lives" brings together two bodies of work from portrait artist Ray Allen Parker. The LIT series forms a sort of visual biography of the artist, who holds two degrees in English literature from the University of Arkansas. These portraits of literary figures trace Parker's journey through the novels and poetry that shaped his thoughts and feelings about major themes explored in literature.
