SAINT LOUIS, MO.- This summer,
Pulitzer Arts Foundation presents three exhibitions of art that, while from different eras and in radically different styles and mediums, are all related to the material aspects of everyday life. They range from an exhibition devoted to Claes Oldenburg’s soft sculptures, depicting such common objects as a three-way plug, a fried egg, and a folding chair; to an intimate display of seven exquisite eighteenth-century French and Italian decorative-arts objects, among them a chamber pot, a potpourri vase, and an armchair; to a large-scale, site-specific installation by the Berlin-based architecture collective raumlaborberlin—commissioned by the Pulitzer—that transforms an abandoned, structurally unsound house in St. Louis by bringing its building materials, objects, and history into the gallery, exploring the ways we inhabit the urban landscape and how this, in turn, shapes our ideas of “home.” The three exhibitions stand both individually and as a group, raising questions about our relationship to the objects and environments of daily life.
The exhibitions are on view at the Pulitzer from July 29 through October 15, 2016, accompanied by a series of public programs including music, theatre, roundtable discussions, and meditation.
Pulitzer Arts Foundation Director Cara Starke states, “Together, these three exhibitions exemplify the Pulitzer’s commitment to offering a range of experiences to its visitors by crossing disciplines, styles, and time periods. By juxtaposing architecture, fine art, and decorative arts, our summer exhibitions present a variety of ways of looking at and thinking about the meaning of ‘home’ in all its attributes, through both objects for contemplation—with works representing radically different ways of thinking about household goods—and active engagement with our audiences, thanks to a project that has involved the St. Louis community from its inception.”
The Ordinary Must Not Be Dull: Claes Oldenburg’s Soft Sculptures
With a prolific career spanning over fifty years, Oldenburg has made a radical contribution to the history of sculpture by rethinking its materials, forms, scale, and subject matter. This exhibition is dedicated exclusively to Oldenburg’s soft sculptures, a body of work that he began in 1962 and developed over the next two decades. The fourteen works on view, all but one made during the 1960s and 70s, represent food, common fixtures of the home, and domestic objects that might be found in one’s garage or kitchen.
As with Oldenburg’s other work, the soft sculptures undermine the functionality of the objects they represent—challenging our perceptions and unsettling our routines with, for example, a twelve-foot-tall, bright blue sculpture in the form of a three-way plug, or a folding chair that appears to droop, and a pile of four-foot-long French fries topped with ketchup. The exaggerated scale, bold colors, and limpness of Oldenburg’s soft sculptures will stand out in especially high relief when viewed within the pristine geometry of the Pulitzer building, where they will transform quotidian objects into a provocative mix of the ubiquitous and the uncanny.
The Ordinary Must Not Be Dull is curated by Tamara H. Schenkenberg, Associate Curator at Pulitzer Arts Foundation. A catalogue with an original essay will accompany the exhibition.
Exquisite Everyday: 18th-Century Decorative Arts Objects from the J. Paul Getty Museum
This exhibition brings together seven decorative arts objects made in France and Italy in the 1700s, demonstrating the increased attention paid by designers, craftsmen, and artisans of the period to everyday activities. Whereas Oldenburg created “utilitarian” objects with no conceivable practical function, these designers produced elaborate objects, from chamber pots to armchairs, that elevated even the most basic aspects of daily life to a level deemed suitable for their upper-class patrons.
The elegant and extravagant modes of expression that resulted from these efforts gave rise to a style, originating in the eighteenth century and later referred to as “rococo,” that frequently captured an illusion of softness through curving, undulating lines. Rich with sensuous detail, interlocking curves, and naturalistic motifs, these works not only reward close looking, but also testify to the serious regard paid to the engineering, production, and consumption of household items—a preoccupation that endures today in the design, quality, and use of many everyday objects.
raumlaborberlin: 4562 Enright Avenue
The Pulitzer has commissioned Berlin-based architecture collective raumlaborberlin to create a site-specific installation that considers the question: What does “home” represent, and how does it reflect our lives, desires, and dreams?
Exploring this question as it relates to the built environment in St. Louis— where a steep residential decline since the 1950s has resulted in the prevalence of vacant houses and empty lots—raumlaborberlin worked closely with the local community to develop a project that would take shape both as an art installation and as interactions with a neighborhood. Working with the many residents of Enright Avenue, the Lewis Place neighborhood association, the City of St. Louis, local stakeholders, and key figures in urban planning and organizing, raumlaborberlin salvaged materials from a derelict house fated for demolition in order to create an installation that gives significant elements from the home a new life inside the Pulitzer’s main gallery.
Located at 4562 Enright Avenue, the two-story brick house was built in 1890 and was home to dozens of residents, representing a variety of backgrounds, over the last century. The house, which has fallen into disrepair, has been uninhabited for over twenty-five years and has now been scheduled for demolition. Raumlaborberlin’s reinterpretation of this home looks to both its particular history and the current state of housing in St. Louis in order to imagine how we might dwell in the future.
