ST. LOUIS, MO.- The Saint Louis Art Museum celebrates the 100th installation in its Currents series with the March 30 opening of Currents 100: Angelina Gualdoni. A native of St. Louis , Angelina Gualdoni uses painting to explore the conflicts and synchronicities between the built environment and landscape. One of Gualdoni’s most recent bodies of work is the result of her research into utopian architecture, while another series explores the phenomenon of dead malls. The environmental and architectural conditions represented by Gualdoni are unstable and shifting, and the forces behind these shifts are ambiguous, never clearly malevolent or benevolent. Her paintings engage in multiple dialogues, considering the contemporary painterly, architectural and environmental heritage of modernism, as well as the cyclical nature of construction and destruction. The public is invited to preview the exhibition with Gualdoni following a free discussion of her work March 29 at 7 p.m. in the Auditorium.

Gualdoni came of age artistically in Chicago and recently relocated to New York . She studied at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Art before completing a degree in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois at Chicago . Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, the Netherlands . She is represented by Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago .

Founded in 1978, the Museum’s Currents series is a laboratory for new work by emerging and mid-career artists. While the majority of Currents artists have been based in North America, the series is international in scope and has featured artists from Australia , Brazil , China , Denmark , England , Ethiopia , Germany , Italy , Japan , Portugal , Scotland , Sweden and Wales . In many cases, a Currents exhibition represents an artist’s first solo show in a museum, or his or her first solo show in a North American museum.

A range of materials and approaches has been shown in the series including furniture, installations, media work, paintings, photographs and sculpture. Featured artists have included Matthew Buckingham, Dale Chihuly, Willie Cole, Tara Donovan, Leonardo Drew, Brian Eno, Ellen Gallagher, Frank Gehry, Roni Horn, Donald Judd, Julie Mehretu, Catherine Opie, Gabriel Orozco, Richard Serra and Cindy Sherman.

Currents 100: Angelina Gualdoni is also part of an annual series supported by the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Endowment Fund, which was established to foster the exhibition and acquisition of contemporary art at the Museum and to nurture the teaching principles of contemporary art at the School of Fine Arts at Washington University . As the 2006-2007 Freund Fellow, Gualdoni will complete two month-long residencies in St. Louis , during which she will teach at Washington University and offer lectures at the Museum. Freund Fellows are selected by representatives from the Art Museum and the School of Art from an international pool of applicants.

Curated by Robin Clark, associate curator of contemporary art, Currents 100: Angelina Gualdoni will be on view in Gallery 335 through June 17, 2007.

The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the nation’s leading comprehensive art museums with collections that include works of art of exceptional quality from virtually every culture and time period. Areas of notable depth include Oceanic art, pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes and European and American art of the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular strengths in 20th-century German art. The Museum offers a full range of exhibitions and educational programming generated independently and in collaboration with local, national, and international partners.