Courtesy of Paul Artspace
Paul Artspace, the residency program that offers living and studio space to artists at a house on six acres in north St. Louis county, wants to send you to Germany this summer. Since its inception in July 2013, Paul Artspace has hosted more than 70 artists from around the city and around the world. And this summer, the program is facilitating an exchange between St. Louis and one of our sister cities: Stuttgart, Germany.
The selected artist will represent St. Louis through a Sister Cities Artist-in-Residence Award-Stuttgart. Applications will be judged by Misa Jeffries at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Terry Suhre of Gallery 210, and Trina Van Ryn of Flood Plain Gallery. The award, presented by St. Louis-Stuttgart Sister Cities organization, includes a month-long residence at the GEDOK center in Stuttgart and a $1,000 honorarium.
Then, Paul Artspace will host a Stuttgart artist, chosen by the curators at GEDOK.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t know Stuttgart was a sister city of St. Louis,” says Paul Artspace director Michael Behle. “What does that mean? What is its function to have that kind of title? Through this process and research, we were connected with the Stuttgart Sister Cities organization of St. Louis, and they’ve been incredibly supportive.”
A few years back, a board member of Paul Artspace was working on bringing a photography conference to St. Louis. A couple of German artists attended, and the board member arranged for them to stay at Paul Artspace. The artistst were connected with the GEDOK space in Stuttgart—which, as the board members learned, is an official sister city to St. Louis.
Paul Artspace: A global artists' residency, hidden in the woods
The sister-city relationship goes far beyond a trivia answer. It fosters cultural exchange and opportunities. St. Louis-Stuttgart sponsors educational exchanges for high school and university students and fosters engagement through sports, art, and music.
“One of the things that we do as an organization is that we ask our residents to give back to the community,” Behle says. “That’s purely in trade, for them having the time and the space. That giveback can happen in many ways.” Residents present workshops and public lectures or engage with the students that Behle teaches at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in the department of art and design.
“The international residents that have come through Paul Artspace, they’re curious about the United States—they’re curious about the Midwest. A number of them have used their time at Paul Artspace not to make their art, but to conduct research, to use it as a base to take trips, to understand what the Midwest of the United States is about,” Behle says. “They take that, they digest it, they think on it, and then they generate some type of response.”
He mentions a Parisian artist who came through Paul Artspace specifically after reading coverage of the unrest in Ferguson following the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a police officer.
“She was wanting to understand more, to get a sense of all the dynamics at play.”
When the artists from Germany arrive next fall, Behle says, Paul Artspace will be five years old, with a review exhibition planned at Gallery 210. It’ll be a moment of looking back, with visitors brining a new perspective to inform the future. Hopefully, Behle says, this exchange can lead to other exchanges with other established sister cities.
So, you want to go to Stuttgart? Of course you do. Applications are due April 1, so check out the requirements and get busy.
