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Courtesy of White Flag Projects
John Giorno, EVERYONE IS A COMPLETE DISAPPOINTMENT, 2015, from the group exhibit “Ill Seen Ill Said," on view at White Flag through October 29.
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Courtesy of White Flag Projects
Matt Strauss.
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Courtesy of White Flag Projects
White Flag Projects Assistant Director Marie Heilich.
White Flag Projects founder and director Matthew Strauss has just sent out a press release announcing that his groundbreaking nonprofit arts space will cease operations on October 29, shutting its doors following the closing reception of its current group exhibit, Ill Seen Ill Said.
In a letter posted to the White Flag website, Strauss said the organization's board voted on Monday to close the space, writing that "after years of diminishing attendance and a marked decline in our ability to connect with local patrons, it became apparent that we could not establish an adequate audience for the art and artists we exhibited on the terms they were being offered. An institution, regardless of its support elsewhere, cannot be sustained without the interest of the community in which it finds itself, although I’m hopeful that the discourse we introduced here will prove to have had some effect.”
We would guess a huge number of local artists and curators would agree that it did. Even back in 2008, when SLM staff writer Jeannette Cooperman profiled Strauss, former Post-Dispatch art critic David Bonetti told her that White Flag was "one of the best things to happen to art in St. Louis in years." Another anonymous insider told her, "Matt’s the only person I know who walks in both worlds: the scrappy, young, punk rock, grassroots art culture and the rarefied Contemporary/Pulitzer/Grand Center world. He’s one of the few in town who are really cross-pollinating those worlds, which needs to happen.” Though there aren't exactly strict metrics for this sort of thing, we'll point out that in 2006, the visual arts scene was very much split into the two worlds described by the anonymous art insider—you had the Grand Center behemoths and the Art Museum, a handful of mid-sized galleries, and plethora of tiny artist-run spaces, some of which only lasted for a few months. Now, we have spaces like parapet/REAL HUMANS, founded by White Flag alum Amy Granat, which pairs that scrappy punk-rock energy with a sophisticated understanding of the international art world. Things did change. But perhaps not fast enough, or radically enough, to save White Flag, which has never compromised its high-bar vision.
As the press release noted, White Flag "mounted 86 exhibitions and introduced 375 artists to its Midwestern audience," including solo shows from Lucas Blalock, N. Dash, Lena Henke, Ajay Kurian, Israel Lund, and Carlos Reyes, and group shows featuring artists including Robert Longo, Richard Kern, Dena Yago, and Ryan McGinley. It also invited artists to guest curate, hosted events offering art periodicals that were otherwise unavailable in St. Louis, and invited artists, including John Waters and Cindy Sherman, to curate its outdoor "A Film to be Determined" film series. In his letter, Strauss thanked the artists, as well as the project's collaborators, regular patrons, and assistant directors Marie Heilich, Sam Korman, and Jessica Baran.
White Flag Projects is located at 4568 Manchester; the closing reception will happen on October 29 from noon to 5 p.m. Strauss also plans to publish a catalog, White Flag Projects: Summary of Exhibitions, 2006–2016, as well as books documenting its Library space and "A Film to be Determined."
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