Metzgerrm
Richard Metzger
Open Lot’s very name alludes to its receptivity; the artists in this collective have kicked ego to the curb in the name of collaboration. They value the experimental, the multidisciplinary, the immediate, the ability for art to function as mind-altering substance:
"Open Lot is a home space, a creative platform, and exercise in reform. We host artists and musicians in a rehabbed Yeast Factory in Saint Louis' historic Lafayette Square neighborhood. Our space holds an extensive visual arts library, working wood shop, artist studio space and gallery. Exhibitions are held on a month to month basis. We are currently: two architects, a printmaker, photographer, painter and a sculptor. We heart art, and work to show compelling and underrepresented visual, audio, and conceptual projects within our space."
Here’s what they are doing this month; pencil in your calendar accordingly. —Stefene Russell, Culture Editor
Friday November 7th
9 p.m.
$6
“[Metzger] attaches sitar-style drone strings, music-box parts, and other objects to his guitars and banjos—and simply steep in the power of the sounds. The hard-tugged, solitary notes with which Metzger opens each piece might curl like lazily rising smoke or accelerate into a near pileup of breakneck runs; either way, if the flawless control he has over the music's raga-like shape-shifting doesn't get you, the knife-between-the-teeth intensity of his playing will.” —Chicago Reader
Tim Kaiser produces arresting visuals / performances / music with his homemade electro-acoustic contraptions: “Kaiser has made more than 150 instruments...coaxes foreign sounds from far-fetched equipment made by hand...” —Make Magazine
ADAM CRUCES: EL CABALLERO DEL NOCHE
Friday November 14th
7-10 p.m.
Free
Open Lot presents new found and constructed video works by Adam Cruces. Cruces acts as author and mediator of a new, immersive and ritualized version of Batman: The Dark Knight.
“In the process of subtly manipulating (i.e. repetition through looping, extracting from the mass) the content is transformed into a hybrid, of found object and unique original. The elements are distorted into overbearing dramatic music with abstract chanting and reconstructed dialogs with unidentifiable new characters interacting with the cast of the movie. The pieces are not only a re-contextualization of the movie, but an investigation of the movie's mediated, illegitimate offspring.”
LIGHTS OUT: THE LAST MOVIE (1971) and AMERICAN DREAMER (1971)
Sunday November 16th
8 p.m. sharp
LIGHTS OUT is a new monthly film series co-curated by A Different City, APOP Records, Open Lot, and Spooky Action Palace mastermind Michael Ferrer. Please Join us on Sunday, November 16th for the first installment, a damaged Dennis Hopper double feature.
“A deconstruction of film myths and the filmmaking process, THE LAST MOVIE was dismissed as a drug-fueled mess upon its first release, and Hopper was not allowed to direct in Hollywood again until 1988's Colors. However, time has been very kind to the film, and it can now be seen as the bold artistic statement it really is [...] The fascinating documentary THE AMERICAN DREAMER finds Hopper at home in Taos, New Mexico, editing THE LAST MOVIE, getting completely stoned, shooting guns, cavorting with various groupies and more.” —A Different City
Open Lot, 1310 South 18th Street, Saint Louis, MO 63104
