Derek Fordjour: SHELTER, installation view. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, January 17–August 23, 2020
Derek Fordjour's SHELTER
Virtual museum visits have been a silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic—nothing’s stopping you from dropping by the Sistine Chapel from your smartphone while you’re working from home. But there’s nothing like the real thing. And starting Thursday, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is opening its doors back up.
“There is this experiential quality to being with a work of art, in the same physical space, which is just very different” from viewing it online, says CAM’s executive director Lisa Melandri. “There really is a quality to it that is very, very satisfying, that can be really engaging, that can give you something different.”
The museum has intense safety protocols in place and the intriguing exhibitions that were interrupted when it closed will be on view until late August.
On display are Vashon High School’s ArtReach, Marina Zurkow’s The Thirsty Bird, Liz Johnson Artur’s Dusha, and Derek Fordjour’s series of 100 Player Portraits and the installation SHELTER.
Fordjour’s works, in particular, are excellent examples of artwork that reveals far more in person that in the virtual realm.
The Player Portraits, images using sport and spectacle to address uneasy issues of race in America, are physically built-up canvases—online images just can’t capture the layering of cardboard, paint, and collage elements that comprise them.
“I have not yet been able to find a photograph of those works that gives you an indication of the physicality of those works,” Melandri says. “You really can’t understand the power and the nuance of it unless you’re standing in front of it.”
SHELTER, most of all, has elements that need to be experienced in person—it’s a work that literally encloses viewers, with dirt underfoot and specific smells and sounds at play. The corrugated metal structure poses questions about humans seeking shelter in a variety of settings.
“It’s an artwork that really engages all your senses,” Melandri says. “Of course you can’t get that from a photograph.”
It’s also an artwork that was made and installed before the pandemic yet continues to reveal more and be ever more relevant in a world forever changed by COVID. For instance, Melandri says, it’s nearly impossible to hear the word "shelter" and not think about "shelter in place."
“I can’t believe how profoundly meaningful this particular installation and exhibition has been, and how it continues to be profoundly meaningful, but the context has shifted,” says Melandri. “It’s really a testament to Derek as an artist because the artwork has been transformational and meaningful in different ways.”
His work, she explains, is deeply engaged with the Black American experience. And the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities—with higher rates of infection and death—has thrown the inequities he’s exploring into stark relief.
New with the reopening is After Shelter, a “microprogram” where viewers are interviewed by museum staff about their experience of the artwork and their experience of the pandemic. The interviews will be shared with StoryCorps.
“It becomes the perfect environment in which to have this time capsule for what we have all, collectively and personally, been going through,” she says.
The public health protocols in place in the museum are incredibly rigorous, Melandri explains: compulsory masks for staff and visitors, frequent cleanings, timed visits and limited numbers of guests, kickplates on bathroom doors.
The hope, says Melandri, is that the safety measures can let visitors give their COVID nerves a rest, turning off the vigilance many maintain on those crucial but scary trips to the grocery store.
“You are experiencing a totally touchless visit to the museum,” she says. “I feel really good about our ability to provide the safest experience, for staff as well as visitors.”
The building itself—which Melandri says has been “lonely” for viewers to return—has a role to play in the experience.
“The CAM building is also this kind of beautiful, airy volume of space,” she says. “That is also going to give visitors a real sense of calm and safety. We’re delighted about that.”
Check out the safety requirements and then reserve your free timed tickets online.
