Flames twist high over the building and into the night sky.
With its fluid brushstrokes and precise fracturing of space, Gary Simmons’ “Plaza Inferno Grid” (2008) teases not only the rigors of modernist geometry and gestural abstraction but also the sublimations of popular culture. The painting draws inspiration from “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (1972), a futuristic thriller shot amidst Los Angeles’ Century City complex — and a thinly veiled metaphor for race relations in the wake of the 1965 Watts riots.
This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Plaza Inferno Grid” as part of “Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in Contemporary Art.” Encompassing a wide range of media — painting, sculpture, photography and video — the exhibition explores how artists respond to and grapple with our rapidly changing urban landscape.
Many of the works examine the relationship between art, architecture, design and social experience. Franz Ackermann’s “Untitled (yet)” (2008–09) explores themes of travel and transport in a globalized world, while Jakob Kolding’s “How to Build a Universe that Falls Apart Two Days Later” (2014) investigates the gap between the planning and use of architectural spaces. Isa Genzken’s “Bill II” (2001) and “Little Crazy Column” (2002) suggest the soaring facades of modern skyscrapers even as their modest materials and seemingly haphazard construction ques¬tion assumptions about what constitutes “good design.”
Other projects focus on the material fabric of particular built environments and how the aesthetics of a city are informed by its cultural, commercial and political configurations. Andreas Gursky’s “Beijing” (2010) presents a subtly impossible vision of the spectacular, but now little-used, Bird’s Nest stadium, constructed for the 2008 Olympics. Günther Förg’s “Uffizio Postale, Roma” (1982–85) — which depicts a monumental post office built in the 1930s by Italy’s fascist regime — both examines and dismantles the relationship between architecture, ideology and power.
Catherine Opie’s photographs of St. Louis, which depict vacant parking lots and the banks of the Mississippi River, explore both the failures and promise of the American urban dream. In “Wall Sprawl #6 (Between Enterprise and Henderson)” (2011), Andrea Zittel creates an endlessly repeating wallpaper pattern from satellite photography of the Las Vegas suburbs meeting wide-open desert.
Still other works shift attention away from the experience of actual places to more amorphous notions of mental or psychological space. In his portraits of passengers on the London Tube, Wolfgang Tillmans captures the speed and disruption of modern travel but also intimate moments of rest and contemplation. Sarah Morris, in her film “Los Angeles” (2004), investigates both the surface of the city — its architecture and geography — and the psychology of inhabitants during a weeklong run-up to the Academy Awards.
“Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in Contemporary Art” is curated by Meredith Malone, associate curator at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. An opening reception will take place from 7-9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12. The exhibition will remain on view through Jan. 4, 2015.
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is located on Washington University’s Danforth Campus, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Tuesdays and 11 a.m.-8 p.m. the first Friday of the month. The museum is closed Tuesdays.
Support for “Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in Contemporary Art” is provided by James M. Kemper, Jr.; the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation; the William T. Kemper Foundation; and members of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
For more information, call 314-935-4523; visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu; or follow the museum on Facebook and Twitter.
