Culture

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Yowshien Kuo’s Two Right Feet, Snake Eyes and Cherry Pie. | COURTESY THE ARTIST / LUCE GALLERY. Visitors color during a member preview. | COURTESY MISSOURI HISTORY MUSEUM

[ART BREAK]

Don’t Miss

Do yourself a favor and take a (short) break from the holidays to check out some art at these five exhibits

Written by JESSICA ROGEN, KASEY NOSS AND ROSALIND EARLY

It’s go time for the holiday season. While that’s pretty much top-notch delightful most of the time, it can also be — to be frank — really redundant to look at all those beautifully decorated trees, bright lights, Christmas-oriented sale advertisements and mulledwine recipes all the time.

So do yourself a favor and take an art break. Sneak out during lunch, grab yourself an hour this weekend or attend the many first , second or third riday art events that the city has to offer, and experience the relief and joy that comes from checking out something beautiful, thought provoking or just different. Plus, the following exhibits can be taken in during a short break or carefully perused if you need a whole afternoon to soak up some happiness.

From le : Katharina Grosse’s Untitled, 2008 and Untitled, 2008. | VIRGINIA HAROLD

1. See some beautiful fabrics at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Global Threads: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz.

The exhibition tells the story of Indian chintz, a fabric as revolutionary as it is beautiful. rom the 1 th century onward, this cotton textile, which Indian artisans spent centuries perfecting, dominated the global textile scene. Coveted for its brilliant colors and intricate designs, chintz transformed fashion, industry and global trade, and was sought everywhere from East Asia to Egypt to Great Britain.

The exhibit runs through Sunday, January 8, 2023. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, and $6 for children ages 6 to 12. It is free on Fridays — and anytime for museum members.

2. Literally color on the walls at the Missouri History Museum’s Coloring STL.

This interactive show invites attendees to learn about St. Louis architectural history by drawing on the walls of a 6,000-square-foot special exhibition space printed with illustrations of 50 local structures on a whiteboard-like material. In addition to the walls, there are exhibits in the center that dig into some truly interesting local history, answering important questions like, “What else might the Arch have looked like?” and “What are those metal stars on buildings there for?”

The exhibit is free and runs through Sunday, May 5, 2024.

3. Discover great local artists making world-class stuff at the Contemporary Art Museum’s Great Rivers Biennial.

The every-other-year exhibit aims to foster artistic talent in the greater St. Louis metro area. This year’s honorees are Yowshien Kuo, Jon Young and Yvonne Osei. Their works are bright, bold and fun to look at, ranging from sculptures and fabric designs to Southwest inflected paintings.

The exhibit is open through Sunday, February 12, 2023, and admission is free.

4. Learn about a groundbreaking Black female sculpture at the Pulitzer Art Foundation’s Chase-Riboud Monumentale: The Bronzes.

If you’re at CAM and want to keep the art party going, head to the Pulit er rts oundation, which is celebrating Barbara Chase-Riboud’s career with a retrospective exhibit. The show includes 50 of her most striking sculptures and works on paper, such as her award-winning poetry.

The exhibit is free and is open through Sunday, February 5, 2023.

5. Make your eyeballs happy by checking out the wild colors in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum’s Studio Paintings, 1988-2022: Returns, Revisions, Inventions.

Visiting the Kemper’s Katharina Grosse exhibition is like stumbling into a contemporary wonderland of bright colors, bold patterns and unusual materials. It features 3 large scale canvases, which is reason enough to visit. Grosse is known for her site-specific wor , and it’s rare for her to show paintings.

The free exhibit is open through Monday, January 23, 2023. n

Storytelling

New Humans of St. Louis book celebrates stories of real-life people

Written by JESSICA ROGEN

Imagine that you’re working on self-publishing a book. It’s been five years of ups and downs of fundraising and editing. Now, it’s finally here on your doorstep — all 3, 5 copies on 1 pallets — and it’s time to get them in the hands of your readers.

Earlier this year, that was the scenario faced by indy Drew and Dessa Somerside, authors of the Humans of St. Louis boo , who spent a month of late nights in the basement of ig rothers ig Sisters getting everything pac aged for delivery or drop off.

“ e had so many volunteers help us,” Drew says. “My mom came out. My partner came out. he friends that we dance with at lub iva came out. People just wanted to help us.” hat community support spea s to the very heart of the umans of St. ouis organi ation, which celebrated the launch of its boo last Saturday at the Schlafly Public ibrary. local nonprofit, the group — also nown as OS — has been sharing the stories and photographs of St. ouis people and places on social media with the aim to promote “civic engagement and social good” since 1 . Drew, who was a social wor student at ashington niversity at the time, founded the organi ation with Caroline Fish after seeing the original umans of New or account.

Drew’s bac ground is in documentary street photography, and that uic ly showed up in her OS wor . She’d set out on her bi e with her camera, pedaling up and down the city’s streets until she found someone to interview.

“I’ll just ind of give people the time that they need to let their stories unfold,” she says, explaining she aims to get to a place of comfort. “So that by the end, they feel li e, ou now what, I really enjoyed this tal . hether you put it on your website or you don’t, it was a really beautiful moment between strangers.’”

Drew and others began by posting the interviews to aceboo , expanding to other social media platforms over time. he stories spread organically and the platform came to have a huge following. hen, OS expanded to storytelling in partnership with other organi ations, creating stories about St. ouis health, arts, race, creativity and more. ut as OS produced more stories, Drew reali ed that the older ones were getting buried. She’d seen other umans accounts produce boo s and thought that might wor in St. ouis, too, and the rest of the OS team uic ly concurred. hey found a publisher to wor with but then had other thoughts and opted to go it alone. But how?

“ e didn’t have a penny in the ban to do it,” Drew says. “ ut we thought the idea might be supported by the community.” OS launched a ic starter campaign, putting together a promotional video and moc ups of what the book might look like. ithin three wee s, the group had made it. rom the time the ic starter wrapped up to having those pallets delivered was about four years of selecting the stories to include, trac ing down the interviewees and getting permission, editing, and figuring out printing snafus. Drew and Somerside didn’t put it together all by themselves rather, they invited a team of editors in an effort to get as many voices as possible into the book. aving the finished product in hand after all that feels really good, Drew explains.

“It’s so cool to finally see it in people’s hands,” Drew says. “It’s so neat to finally see the end products, not anything li e what I thought it would be. he boo ended up being a lot thic er, a lot bigger, a lot heavier, a lot more dense than we anticipated, just because we wanted to include so

many stories from fol s and really ma e it seamless.” Somerside agrees, adding that it’s “li e a mix of a relief and also a sadness because I run into people every day, and they’re li e, Oh my od, I really wanted to get a copy.’” hat’s right Every one of the 3, 5 boo s on the 1 pallets has been accounted for — though there are still boo s available in local bookstores. So Somerside and Drew are in the midst of planning another print run. There is a preorder list on the website. Once there’s enough orders, they’ll put in for another printing. In the meantime, they’re just enjoying the impact the first printing is having on the St. ouis community. “It’s been ama ing,” Somerside says. “I too one to the mayor of Maplewood, and she had tears in her eyes. She was so moved because it’s about our city and real life people.”

“People are writing us private messages saying, I was supposed to go to bed at this time tonight, but I just eep flipping through the pages’ I came home, and I read it cover to cover, and I’m so inspired,’” Drew says. “ hat’s been really special.” n

Humans of St. Louis is gearing up for a second print run of the book, and there’s a preorder list on its website. | COURTESY HOSTL

e book has been five years in the making. | COURTESY HOSTL

Find bookstore locations or get on the preorder list for the next print run at humansofstl.org.