Jacolby Satterwhite: Spirits Roaming on the Earth, installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, March 10–August 13, 2023. Photo courtesy Dusty Kessler.
History
The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (3750 Washington), or CAM, is located in the Grand Center Arts District and works each season to put together exhibitions and programs that inspire curiosity, creativity, and learning through experiences with contemporary art.
This September, CAM will celebrate 20 years in its current home. The museum’s first iteration, The First Street Forum, was founded in 1980 and run by a group of civic and cultural leaders. But in 2003, the once-small gallery became a major art institution after Brad Cloepfil designed the 27,000-square-foot building we know today as the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
“It’s a really interesting history of a kind of evolving organization that was really responsive to what St. Louis was looking for and needed in a contemporary art space,” says CAM executive director Lisa Melandri. “We still do, in many ways, think of it as a forum, because it's not only a launchpad for artists, and it's a really accessible space, but it's really a place that's available to various communities in St. Louis and the region to have discussions around art and contemporary art.”
Photo courtesy of Wil Driscoll.
Programs
CAM offers a wide variety of more than 100 programs each year, most of which are free. “It’s a little bit of everything,” Melandri says. “We engage thousands of people of all ages each year.”
Local artists, families, and students can all find programming for their needs at CAM. Below are the current programs offered.
For Artists
Resident Teaching Artists: This program is perfect for any local artists who are looking to inspire young artists or just love working with kids. RTAs get the opportunity to lead ArtReach, teen studio programs, and many more offerings at the museum and at offsite locations.
“The resident teaching artists are not only working with all of these students, but they’re also having some manner of curriculum development and professional development through CAM staff,” Melandri says. “It’s really exciting, because what is most important to us is that the students in these programs, whether they're here at CAM or they’re in school, they’re learning directly from working, professional artists.”
Currently, applications for the 2023–2024 school year are closed, check the CAM website in the spring of 2024 for updates.
Teen Museum Studies Exhibition Opportunity: Each season, select RTAs get to organize an exhibition of their students’ work at the museum. CAM seeks proposals from these local artists for an exhibition in the Education Galleries. The exhibitions are designed and organized in the summer by Teen Museum Studies students alongside an RTA and are part of CAM’s opening season in the fall. The artist selected receives a $1,000 stipend to cover supplies. Currently, applications are closed, with the next application cycle starting in Spring 2024.
The Great Rivers Biennial: If you’re an emerging, mid-career artist looking for a chance to display your work then check out the Great Rivers Biennial. This exhibition program was established in 2003 and is in collaboration with the Gateway Foundation. Every two years, a panel of jurors selects talented artists from the St. Louis metro area to win $20,000 and have their work featured in the Great Rivers Biennial exhibition. The call for 2024 submissions has officially closed and will reopen in the spring of 2025.
Youth + Family
Play Dates: Bring the kids by CAM once a month for an artistic play date. Play Dates take place every second Saturday, and each has a different theme, including hands-on art making, exploring exhibition ideas, and performances with guest artists. The next Play Date event will take place on August 12 from 10–11:30 a.m. with the theme, “Creating Contrast.”
Family Days: If you have older kids that want to get involved, too, you can bring the whole family to Family Days at CAM. These events are held twice a year, once in the summer and once in the fall. Each event features hands-on activities, storytelling, performances, face painting, and exhibition tours designed especially for kids.
Activity Cards: CAM is always looking for ways to get youth more involved and excited about their experience at the art gallery. That’s why they created Activity Cards; a card for kids to fill out as they walk through the exhibitions, encouraging them to find balance in pieces and answer different prompts.
Community
CAM Connect Workshop: Are you part of a community organization looking for some creative activities for a group? Organizations that serve the community can participate in the CAM Connect Workshop program. Staff at CAM can hook you up with all the materials you need for an artistic afternoon, including meeting you on-site or virtually to give instructions. Each workshop is tailored to best meet the needs and interests of different community organizations.
Collective Impact: This program started in 2020 and is a multiyear partnership between CAM and Creative Relations Lab. Each year, a “collective”—a group of stakeholders and residents from local neighborhoods—uses an “equity-centered community design model” to create an exhibition that portrays the challenges faced by community members in St. Louis neighborhoods. This season, the 2023 Collective Impact exhibition is titled Building Beautiful Community and is displayed in the Education Galleries.
Podcast-in-Residence: Speak up St. Louis: CAM is hosting its first Podcast-in-Residence, which is a program that helps support the launch and development of a local podcast. Currently, CAM is supporting the podcast Speak Up St. Louis with host Quiton Ward and producer Tré Alexander. The podcast focuses on elevating diverse voices in the St. Louis community and airs bi-weekly.
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Photo courtesy Chris Bauer.
Education
“We do a lot of programs for young people,” Melandri says. “It’s a chance to foster creativity and discover not just what creativity is, but art-making and more. There’s a lot of in-depth art education that we offer through these programs, and they’re totally free.”
ArtReach: This is one of CAM’s signature programs and is free of charge. ArtReach offers multiple different programs to students and teachers, including ArtReach Drop in Workshops, where CAM staff provides hands-on art projects for students, and ArtReach Incentives, in which CAM partners with multiple middle schools and high schools to craft programs for their classrooms led by RTAs. Through CAM’s Teachers Program, educators can reach out to plan a program for their students at the museum or in the classroom.
LEAP Middle School Initiative: This 10-week after-school program is offered to middle-school students who are interested in exploring contemporary art practices and media. The program gives young artists the opportunity to work alongside local artists and educators. Fifteen students are selected each semester and applications for the fall of 2023 opened in July.
Teen Museum Studies: High-school students looking for an art-based internship should check out the Teen Museum Studies program. This is a summer intensive program that gives high-school students the opportunity to collaborate, learn about museum careers, and develop critical thinking skills. Not only that, but teens will also get the opportunity to work with a St. Louis artist to develop and organize an exhibition that will premiere at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in the fall. The application for participants has currently closed and will reopen in the spring of 2024.
New Art in the Neighborhood: This program started in 1995 and is another great opportunity for teens to work with St. Louis–based artists. The New Art in the Neighborhood (NAN) program selects 15 young artists to participate in weekly Saturday meetings for 12 weeks, during which they learn from and work with RTAs, museum staff, and visiting artists. While the majority of the group's projects will be developed alongside RTAs, NAN artists will also enjoy open studio time, workshops, and critique sessions. Applications for the Fall/Winter 2023 season opened in July.
K-12 and University Tours
For tours offered to student organizations or school groups, museum educators will tailor each tour to best fit the classroom curriculum. Tours are offered Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Reservations are required a minimum of two weeks in advance.
Portfolio Day: At the end of every year, CAM hosts a Portfolio Day. This event is a great opportunity for student artists to receive feedback and portfolio tips from local, professional artists and CAM faculty.
Photo courtesy of Wil Driscoll.
Public Events
If a longer-term program isn’t for you, there are still plenty of ways to get involved with contemporary art. Check out the following public events that CAM offers throughout the year.
Artist Talks: Each season, featured exhibition artists, curators, art professionals, and scholars visit CAM to talk about art and ideas alongside current or upcoming exhibitions and contemporary culture.
RE: This program series is a type of public forum dedicated to investigating cultural ideas and research. Each event features in-depth conversations related to current exhibitions with experts from a variety of fields.
Feast Your Eyes: If you’re into the culinary arts as well as contemporary art, then this event is for you. Each season, CAM invites one of the region’s leading chefs to prepare a four-course meal inspired by one of the exhibitions.
First Fridays: CAM joins the Grand Center Arts District in celebrating First Fridays. The first Friday of every month, CAM’s galleries stay open late offering drinks, food, music and, of course, art.
Each public tour will take attendees through current exhibitions at the museum and is designed to engage visitors in the art on display as well as foster conversation about underlying themes and ideas. On-site tours are limited to 25 people, who must all arrive at the same time. Virtual tours are conducted through Zoom. Tours are offered Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Reservations are required a minimum of two weeks in advance.
Justin Favela, Valley of Oaxaca, after José María Velasco, 2018. Paper and glue on board, 42 x 63 1/4 inches. Courtesy the artist. Photo courtesy The Berman Museum of Art.
Exhibits
CAM displays a variety of contemporary art in its exhibitions each season, which feature regional, international, and student artists. Attendees can look forward to a wide range of media from each exhibition.
“CAM is a launchpad for artists,” Melandri says. “Very often you’ll hear the word ‘first’, like the first survey of work, first museum exhibition, first museum exhibition in the United States. A lot of the time we’re really looking to be a discovery for audiences. You might not know their name yet, but you certainly will.”
Fall exhibitions
All of CAM’s fall exhibitions run September 8 through February 11, 2024.
Hajra Waheed: A Solo Exhibition
This will be Montreal artist Hajra Waheed’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States. Waheed is an award-winning artist whose work features a wide range of media including video, sound installation, painting, and sculpture. Waheed’s exhibition will feature several new works.
Dominic Chambers was born in St. Louis, hence the title of his exhibition. However, the title not only signifies St. Louis as his hometown, but also shares the message that St. Louis was the birth of his creativity and imagination. This will be Chambers’ first museum exhibition in St. Louis, and the artist has created brand-new pieces, including sculptures, for this exhibition. Melandri says that local audiences will enjoy being able to walk through and recognize locations and ideas from their community.
Justin Favela will be constructing new, site-specific work for this exhibition. Favela’s cut paper installation inspired by Latin American craft traditions will be displayed on CAM’s 60-foot-long project wall and will reflect on St. Louis’s geographic and cultural position as the “gateway to the West.”
Ruth Reese was selected to present this new exhibition through the 2023 Teen Museum Studies Program. Her exhibition is inspired by Greco-Roman mythology, specifically deities such as Nyx, Gaia, and Daphne, whose stories reflect the process of metamorphosis through times of adversity. Through her artwork, Reese hopes to create a space for youth to believe that there is opportunity for inspiration and growth.
New Art in the Neighborhood: How to Change Yourself World
This year’s NAN exhibition presents student artwork made in the 2022-2023 academic year with the help of two RTAs, Lillian Gardner and Mee Jey. RTAs posed the following question to young artists: “What do you want to change in the world?” Students found inspiration in themes such as identity, environment, and legacy and engaged in meaningful issues while creating art with a variety of materials. While there are repeating materials, this exhibition highlights the diverse approaches from each student artist in the NAN program.
LEAP Middle School Initiative: Collage, Portraits and Pizza
This exhibition will highlight work done by middle-school LEAP participants over the past year. The 2022 Great Rivers Biennial was used as a starting point by Spring RTA Jen Everett to help these young artists explore different media and how it can be used to convey complex messages and themes. Fall RTA Jorge Rios has worked with LEAP participants to develop basic skills in two-dimensional artwork through drawing and water-based painting. Students also had the opportunity to visit Katherine Bernhardt’s studio, where they made “pizza paintings,” and learned how to describe their work using “foundational art history terminology,” all of which will be displayed in this year’s exhibition.
