SLAM Features Architectural Photography and Native American Art
The Saint Louis Art Museum will welcome visitors this summer with several free exhibitions and temporary installations that highlight a diverse range of art, including a survey of architectural photography, a reinstallation of Native American art from the Southwest, and presentations of works by the artists Oliver Lee Jackson, Nicholas Lowe and Damon Davis.
Several exhibitions that opened earlier this year will continue through the summer months. “Nubia: Treasures of Ancient Africa” is on view in the main exhibition galleries through Aug. 22. “Currents 119: Dana Levy” continues through Aug. 15, and the solo exhibition “Buzz Spector: Alterations” continues through Monday (May 31). “Signed in Silk: Introducing a Sacred Jewish Textile,” an exhibition highlighting the 2019 acquisition of a 1755 Torah Ark Curtain, closes on Oct. 3. Also new at the museum is a reinstallation of the Oceanic art collection, which opened to visitors in May.
Although the museum typically is closed on Mondays, it will be open on Memorial Day and Labor Day from 10am to 5 pm. The museum will also be open regular hours on July 4.
The following exhibitions and installations open this summer:
Reinstallation of Native American art from the Southwest
Opening June 11
Zia; "Olla", c.1930; ceramic and pigment; 17 × 21 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of Mary and Leon Strauss 121:2001
A reconceived Gallery 323 will focus on outstanding historic and contemporary art from the Southwest and include ceramics, textiles and baskets highlighting some of the most iconic and innovative styles of Indigenous art from North America. These works reflect an active period of revival and experimentation using materials and forms historically created by Indigenous women.
Architectural Photography from the Collection: 1850–2000
July 2 through Jan. 2, 2022
Drawn from the museum’s collection and tracing a history of the representation of architecture over a period of 150 years, this exhibition in Gallery 234 and Gallery 235 includes significant examples of photographic prints and illustrated books by European and American artists. Their photographs create journeys through expanses of both geography and history, from the surviving abbeys of medieval Europe to skyscrapers of modern America.
Oliver Lee Jackson
July 16 through Feb. 20, 2022
Oliver Lee Jackson is known for his complex and layered images that integrate elements of figuration and abstraction. This exhibition of 12 paintings, drawings and prints in Gallery 249 and Gallery 257 includes works created from the mid-1960s until 2020, and it offers the opportunity to trace the artist’s evolution over these years. Jackson’s works draw on Western traditions from the Renaissance to the 20th century, allied to what he describes as an “African sensibility.”
All Hands on Deck
Opening Aug. 13
Damon Davis’ “All Hands on Deck” is a powerful artwork that addresses social justice and the call for change. The St. Louis artist conceived the original photographs of hands held up high during the months-long protests following the August 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. The museum will display six of the large photolithographs in a special installation in Gallery 212S. A seventh work from the series will be on view in the exhibition “Art Along the Rivers: A Bicentennial Celebration,” which opens in October.
New Media Series: Nicholas Lowe
Aug. 20 through Jan. 9, 2022
“Sixteen Frames-a moving mirror of the overland trail,” a 2018 video by the Chicago-based artist Nicholas Lowe, as the latest installment of the New Media Series and will be shown in Gallery 301. This video is one in a series of works and studies made by Lowe and inspired by the landscape paintings and travels of 19th-century American artist James Wilkins. The Saint Louis Art Museum recently completed a reinstallation of Native American works from the collection that expands its presentation of art from the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.