The Middle Mississippi River Valley is home to a number of venues that are the home to ongoing exhibits that change periodically. The venues come in a number of different sizes. There are small galleries like the Sikeston Depot Museum in Sikeston, Missouri and the Misselhorn Gallery in Sparta Illinois. Art centers are another venue and include the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton, Illinois, the Quincy Arts Center in Quincy, Illinois, and the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Missouri. The metropolitan St. Louis area has the largest assortment of venues including the Saint Louis Art Museum, The St. Louis Artists Guild, and the Contemporary Art Museum.
CURRENT ART EXHIBITS
Environmental Impact II Exhibit
Through April 20, 2024
Venue: Quincy Art Center
Quincy, Illinois
Environmental Impact II is a national traveling museum exhibition, curated by David Wagner. This exhibit aims to heighten public awareness and concern about the intentional or unintentional consequences of human action or inaction, through the power of this art. Traditional art generally depicts nature in all of its glory, often in beautiful, pristine conditions. The sixty or so paintings, photographs, and sculptures in Environmental Impact II are different from traditional works of art because they deal with ominous environmental issues.
SEMO Annual Juried Student Exhibition
Through April 21, 2024
Rosemary Berkel and Harry L Crisp II Museum
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Southeast Missouri State University’s Annual Juried Student Exhibition “Exhibiting Excellence” is being hosted by the Rosemary Berkel and Harry L. Crisp II Museum. The Annual Juried Student Exhibition showcases the creative talents of the Department of Art students. Merit awards and honorable mention awards are given in each of the following categories: Color Composition/Design Foundations, 3D, Drawing, Painting, Fibers, Graphic Design/Illustration, Digital Art, Printmaking, Ceramics and Sculpture. Best in Show and the Distinguished Merit Award are also awarded. This is a significant show for Southeast students, showcasing selected works that have been created within the past year. Many of the works on view will be available for purchase.
Matisse and the Sea
Through May 12, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Matisse and the Sea is the first exhibition to examine the significance of the sea across Modernist artist Henri Matisse’s career, which included artwork in coastal locations on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Marine imagery was an important catalyst for Matisse’s artistic experimentation - most notably in the Saint Louis Art Museum’s own iconic painting Bathers with a Turtle.
Window to the Soul
Through May 16, 2024
Venue: Art St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
For this juried exhibit, artists were asked to consider what the adage, “the eyes are the window to your soul” means to them and how do they explicitly or implicitly explore that meaning in their artwork? This show features original artworks in a variety of media including ceramics, collage, digital art, drawing, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, video, and more.
Source by Maddie Aunger
Through May 18, 2024
St. Louis Artists’ Guild
Clayton, Missouri
There is power to be found in moments of quiet, and stillness. “Source” showcases times that have held the attention of Maddie Aunger. Each piece begins with an excitement about a specific formal quality, a shape of light, a hint of color, repetition of form, or a composition of layered spaces and the exhibit encourages the viewer to slow down and recognize that these moments can be found within their own worlds.
In the Foothills of the Endless Mountain by Lisa Lofgren
Through May 18, 2024
St. Louis Artists’ Guild
Clayton, Missouri
Lofgren often says she is from the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. The repetition of saying this phrase has her questioning the importance of the foothills beyond being the rolling grasslands blanketing the rocky uplift. If mountains are described as a precipice of achievement the foothills become the starting point of an ascension. The action of the climbing is her focus–climbing towards all-knowing.
A Change of Scenery
Through May 18, 2024
St. Louis Artists’ Guild
Clayton, Missouri
The St. Louis Artists’ Guild is proud to present, A Change of Scenery, a juried exhibit that showcases artists working in various mediums whose work engages with landscape, exploring how the natural environment around us influences their representations of ourselves and communities.
Food Story Art Show
Through May 19, 2024
St. Peters Cultural Arts Centre
St. Peters, Missouri
The St. Peters Cultural Arts Centre provides a home base for several local arts organizations, gallery space for area artists. Stop by the Cultural Arts Centre to view the galleries filled with the original artwork where the artist explore the captivating world of food through art.
Panoply: 26 Painted Lives
Through May 29, 2024
Bradbury Art Museum, Jonesboro, Arkansas
“Panoply: 26 Painted Lives" brings together two bodies of work from portrait artist Ray Allen Parker. The LIT series forms a sort of visual biography of the artist, who holds two degrees in English literature from the University of Arkansas. These portraits of literary figures trace Parker's journey through the novels and poetry that shaped his thoughts and feelings about major themes explored in literature.
Regional High School Student Show
Through May 25, 2024
Foundry Art Center
St. Charles, Missouri
The Foundry is hosting a Regional High School Student Show featuring the extraordinary talent of all St. Charles - St. Louis regional public, private, and homeschool high school students in grades 9-12. Works selected for the exhibition will be juried based on skill, decision making, innovation, and personal expression as is appropriate for the student’s grade level.
Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection
Through July 14, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection celebrates a transformative gift of outstanding works by Native American artists active across the 20th century. The promised gift of 100 works establishes a critical junction between the Museum’s deep collection of Indigenous art pre-1920 and a growing emphasis on the contemporary.
Kahlil Robert Irving: Archaeology of the Present
Through July 29, 2024
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
The St. Louis–based artist Kahlil Robert Irving creates assemblages made of layered images and sculptures composed of replicas of everyday objects. Mainly working in ceramics, Irving critically engages with the history of the medium and challenges constructs around identity and culture in the Western world.
Santiago Sierra: 52 Canvases Exposed to Mexico City’s Air
Through July 29, 2024
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Madrid-based artist Santiago Sierra is known for his provocative performance and installation art that deals with the topic of social inequities and has created works visualizing of the toxicity of contemporary urban life. Sierra created the 52 compositions—one for each week in a year—by placing adhesive-lacquered canvases on the floor in a building in Mexico City with the windows open, allowing the air to settle on them.
The Body in Pieces
Through July 29, 2024
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
By the early 20th century, Europe and the United States had experienced rapid modernization and industrialization. Artwork from this time reflect the sensorial overload of urban life, the sweep of high-speed travel, the repetitive motions of factory machinery, and the dismemberment caused by mechanized warfare. Dana Ostrander, assistant curator curated this exhibition with artwork primarily from the Kemper's permanent collection.
Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings
Through August 4, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
A painting’s surface hides a wealth of information that can only be found using advanced methods of conservation science. Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings presents new discoveries made during an ambitious three-year study of the Museum’s world-class collection of German Expressionist paintings. Complete underpaintings, a lost title, and studio graffiti are just some of the exciting findings that will receive their public debut.
Delcy Morelos: Interwoven
Through August 4, 2024
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
St. Louis, Missouri
Colombian artist Delcy Morelos creates art that calls attention to connections between people and the environment. Using natural materials like textile, fibers, clay, and soil, her work asks us to consider earth as a living entity rather than a territory to be owned. The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, and installations made throughout Morelos’s career, including several works never before seen in the United States. In addition, Morelos will create a monumental, immersive sculpture made from local soil specifically for the Pulitzer’s galleries.
On Earth
Through August 4, 2024
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts
St. Louis, Missouri
On Earth features five artists who use moving images to explore the complex relationships between humans and the natural environment. The film and video works in this exhibition present land as a central figure, introducing themes of temporality, ritual, memory, territory, loss, and birth. Offering critical readings on the often destructive relationship between humankind and the earth, the artists also advance visions for alternative futures. The artworks directly engage with challenging realities, while acknowledging the joy, creativity, and growth that a relationship with land can provide.
Paul Chan - Breathers
Through August 11, 2024
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
New York-based artist, writer, and publisher Paul Chan came to prominence in the early 2000s with vibrant moving image works that touched upon aspects of war, religion, pleasure, and politics. Around 2009 Chan embarked on a self-imposed break. Taking the notion of a “breather” as its organizing principle, this exhibition surveys Chan’s activities since his break from that point to the present.
ArtReach: The Art of Caring
Through August 11, 2024
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
What makes a problem a societal issue? Why do these problems persist? What roles can visual art play in addressing these issues? ArtReach: The Art of Caring is the product of a semester-long focus on questions of social justice and healing with visual art students at Sumner and Vashon High Schools.
Transform Your Hood
Through August 11, 2024
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
Transform Your Hood is a multifaceted, nonpartisan campaign that aims to activate how we creatively express our values through civic engagement. Residents of the St. Louis region are invited to take time and space to consider what matters most, and how to use their voice and action to shape these issues.
Currents 123: Tamara Johnson
Through September 22, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
A painting’s surface hides a wealth of information that can only be found using advanced methods of conservation science. Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings presents new discoveries made during an ambitious three-year study of the Museum’s world-class collection of German Expressionist paintings. Complete underpaintings, a lost title, and studio graffiti are just some of the exciting findings that will receive their public debut.
Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries
Through October 20, 2024
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Japanese people have used silk to create items of clothing and decorative works of art for hundreds of years, ever since the cultivation of silkworms was introduced to Japan from China during the third and fourth centuries CE. Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries celebrates silk pieces from the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, which has been collecting fine Japanese textiles for more than a century. Some were purchased by the Museum while others were generously given by patrons and donors over decades.
UPCOMING EXHIBITS
Pattie Chalmers’ Mudmaid Museum
Through PLACEHOLDER
Venue: Sheldon Art Galleries
St. Louis, Missouri
Pattie Chalmers’ Mudmaid Museum is an exploration of folklore and legends that blurs the lines between myth and reality. Chalmers has created her own museum of catfish-beings, referred to as “Mudmaids,” believed to exist in the Mississippi River in a distant past. This unique concept of a museum within a gallery features artifacts created by Chalmers.
