Although it only feels like Wednesday, the weekend is here! The holiday chaos is behind us and we now have time to explore our great city when the work week ends. Here are three things to do in the Lou this weekend:
1. First Friday in Grand Center
When this work day comes to a close, head on over to Grand Center for our monthly neighborhood gallery walk! From 5-9 you can enjoy all of the current exhibitions of all the fabulous arts organizations located in the heart of Grand Center. Here is what you can see on this First Friday of 2013:
Bruno David Gallery: BLUE – WHITE – RED: A Group Exhibition
In this exhibition, the artists associated with the gallery return to the very essence of the three colors and investigate how they interact with surrounding space. A wide range of media is explored, including painting, sculpture, and video. The limited palette provides a constant that amplifies the artists’ individual styles.
CLASP is about making connections. The application of a clasp is what brings their art to the body as jewelry, while also serving as a conceptual device that connects the individual artists’ differing approaches to making. Described “as a collection of works that define the body as our most intimate of landscapes, while at the same time addressing our collective cultural terrain,” the artists in CLASP bring a fresh look and energy to nontraditional and contemporary materials. Their work establishes an intimate relationship with the body as intergraded form that moves and exists in space.
Although HEC-TV’s next door neighbor is in its off-season, St. Louisans can still stop by CAM tonight for First Friday and enjoy drink specials and music by DJ Mahf.
The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts: The Progress of Love
The Progress of Love, is an unprecedented, transatlantic collaboration between The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis, The Menil Collection in Houston, and the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos, Nigeria, that explores the universal emotion of love. The three concurrent but unique exhibitions that make up The Progress of Love constitute a narrative arc, addressing love as an ideal, love as a lived experience, and love as something lost. The Progress of Love exhibition at the Pulitzer specifically explores the end of love and its aftermath through works by the British-Nigerian artists Zina Saro-Wiwa and Yinka Shonibare, MBE, the French artist Sophie Calle, and the American-Jamaican-Nigerian artist Temitayo Ogunbiyi. With inclusion of both African and Western art, the exhibition invites visitors to examine their own ideas about love and its loss.
Image via
The Sheldon Art Galleries: Al Hirschfeld’s Jazz and Broadway Scrapbook; Arnold Newman: Luminaries of the Twentieth Century in Art, Politics and Culture; ArtParty: Young Artists Celebrate the Centennial; The Sheldon: A Rich History
The Sheldon is one of my favorite venues in Grand Center. Their unique exhibitions truly make it an extraordinary source for art and music in St. Louis. The Jazz and Broadway Scrapbook exhibit closes on Saturday, so you won’t want to miss First Friday tonight! Below is a preview (images via the Sheldon) of the art you will see.
2. Theater at the Missouri History Museum
I am Free Now: The Ona Judge Story (January 5 at 11:30 am): Ona Judge was Martha Washington’s enslaved maid. Join Teens Make History Players to hear her story of escape and the ways she avoided recapture. Afterward, you can check out the museum’s current George Washington exhibit.
Resurrection 150: Another Voice (January 5 at 2 pm): In conjunction with the current Missouri Civil War exhibit, this production uncovers a new outlook to the Civil War. Presented by The Black Rep, this play is centered on the experiences of African American women during and immediately after the war.
3. Soulard Mardi Gras 12th Night
January 6, twelve nights after Christmas, is the traditional beginning of Mardi Gras.
Start the season at Johnny’s, the birthplace of Soulard Mardi Gras in St. Louis. The Board of Directors will be accepting petitions from krewes, civic, business and neighborhood leaders, all requesting them to declare the start of the new Mardi Gras season.
Petitioning can be a reading, a poem, a skit, a song, a puppet show, love letters, or any conveyance you wish to get your message to the board. The basic message is “WE WANT TO HAVE MARDI GRAS THIS YEAR!!!” It is all fun and your participation is encouraged.
After petitioning and a couple beverages, join the Board of Directors on the front steps of Johnny’s at 5:30 pm to hear the reading of the proclamation. A musical procession will then wind through the neighborhood, ending in Rudy Commons at 8th and Lafayette in front of Soulard Market, where the Soulard Mardi Gras flag will rise and fireworks will signal the official start of the Mardi Gras season in Soulard.
