Grounded, Yield, Amass: News from Curator-at-Large, Dana Turkovic

This is as good a time as any to pull curator-at-large Dana Turkovic's Human/Nature piece from the archives, which she wrote for us last year when Ellen Curlee Gallery collaborated with St. Louis Earth Day on "Grounded," an exhibit that pushed the twee and sentimental genre known as "nature photography," to new and radical places. Dana sent two very interesting news releases along this week: the first was a heads up on a show opening at James Schmidt Contemporary Art tomorrow night. "Yield," features the work of L.A. artists Krysten Cunningham and Jim Iserman, plus work from Hadi Tabatabi (San Francisco) Anne Wilson (Chicago) and St. Louis' own Erik Spehn. For those who follow the local contemporary art scene, you may remember that Erik's 2007 show at Schmidt created an insane amount of buzz, and for good reason; it was a real breakthrough show, and nearly every piece sold in a matter of weeks. Her second note is pretty exciting, too: "Amass," a group show that she curated for Boots Contemporary Art Space in 2007, will be reinstalled (with some revisions) at Monte Vista Projects in L.A. The exhibit includes artists from around the world, including Brandon Morse (Washington D.C.), Wendy Mason (L.A.) Fantastic Nobodies (Brooklyn), Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (London), as well some folks from home, including Brandon Anschultz, Robert Goetz and John Watson. --Stefene Russell