Spring Arts Guide 2021: Six art exhibits illuminate the past, present, and future

Many of the exhibitions featured this year address urgent national and global issues.

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How does art speak to this moment in history? And in a time of immense uncertainty, unrest, and divisions, why make it? These are some of the questions that St. Louis artists and museum curators are grappling with. Many of the exhibitions featured this year address urgent national and global issues. Some look back at the past, at the histories we share and those we’ve forgotten. Others speak to the human condition, examining the body, pleasure, emotions, and intimacy. Here, a sampling of works from them.

1. Dana Levy makes video and installation art about place and displacement. “Currents 119: Dana Levy” at the Saint Louis Art Museum combines dynamic images and projections with cultural artifacts from St. Louis buildings and communities (shown here is the Campbell House Museum, downtown). Taken together, they examine the way humans inhabit and transform architecture, history, and nature. “Currents 119” is on display through August 15.

2. In Laumeier Sculpture Park’s “The Future Is Present: Art and Global Change,” artists combine art with technology to navigate critical issues related to global climate change and environmental crises. Among them is Marina Zurkow’s animated work Mesocosm, inspired by her visit to the sinkhole Wink Sink 2. It includes depictions of floating trash, industrial waste, and polluted skies that warn of a future environmental catastrophe. “The Future Is Present” is on display through May 9. 

3. Chloë Bass’ sculpture I want to believe that desires can be different without being threatening is part of her exhibition “Chloë Bass: Wayfinding,” a set of 20 site-specific sculptures that explore intimacy and human emotions. Set in the Pulitzer’s outdoor spaces, the sculptures invite reflections and self-explorations from visitors and passersby. “Wayfinding” is on display April 17–October 31. 

4. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis’ “Stories of Resistance” fills the space with narratives of resistance across different social and political contexts, presented in media ranging from video and photography to sculpture and installation art. Amid a national reckoning with racial and social injustice, CAM’s exhibition offers a critical look at St. Louis’ history. Shown here is Salute (Sweep), a 2019 multimedia work by Glenn Kaino. “Stories of Resistance” is on display through August 15. 

5. Hannah Wilke (1940–1993) was a feminist artist and trailblazer in the 1960s, whose art about the female body and pleasure pushed against established gender norms. Untitled is part of “Hannah Wilke: Art for Life’s Sake,” at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, which highlights works from the artist’s three-decade career. “Hannah Wilke: Art for Life’s Sake” is on display June 4, 2021–January 16, 2022. 

6. Torah Ark Curtain (Parokhet), the centerpiece of SLAM’s “Signed in Silk: Introducing a Sacred Jewish Textile” exhibition, is an example of devotional Jewish textiles from 18th-century Italy that synthesizes Jewish ceremonial arts with Rococo and Ottoman artistic traditions. Even more extraordinary? The artist: Simhah Viterbo, a teenage Jewish girl living in confinement. “Signed in Silk” is on display through October 3. Also at SLAM, through August 22, is “Nubia: Treasures of Ancient Africa,” which offers a peek at art and objects from what’s known today as the Sudanese Nile Valley. slam.org.

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