geoff: A public art exhibition
explores art as a way of
uncovering hidden history and
addressing contemporary urban
life.
Jeffrey brown traveled to St.
Louis for our arts and culture
series, canvas.
>> Right now, we are in
somebody's living room or
kitchen.
We are in the neighborhood but
you have to use your
imagination.
Jeffrey: Not far from downtown
St. Louis, its famed arch in the
distance, the old buildings are
gone.
This was the site of an historic
and vibrant black neighborhood
called mill creek valley, razed
in the name of urban renewal in
the late 1950's.
Now, it's memorialized in a
large public installation titled
"Pillars of the valley."
Each pillar holding an hourglass
shape signifying the passage and
loss of time and people.
>> Like pillars of the
community.
Jeffrey: With inscribed
quotations from some of those
who once lived here, their names
and occupations nearby.
It's the work of 38-year-old St.
Louis artist Damon Davis.
>> I'm a kid that grew up in St.
Louis, so I've been in this area
my entire life, in St. Louis,
east St. Louis, and I had never
heard about this.
And I thought I had a very good
grasp on black history,
specifically where I was from.
Jeffrey: So you're thinking, why
don't I know about this?
>> Yeah.
And I want to make sure no other
kid, ever, that never happens
again.
Jeffrey: Weeks earlier, this was
the site of the opening of an
ambitious city-wide public art
exhibition of which the pillars
are part, titled
"Counterpublic."
30 artists were commissioned to
create works along a six-mile
axis from the city's south to
its north.
Much of it running along
Jefferson avenue, a main
thoroughfare.
There are small pieces, such as
sculptures by Matthew Angelo
Harrison at the George B. Vashon
museum of African-American
history.
And very large works, including
torkwase Dyson's "Bird and lava"
in St. Louis place park, with
sound inspired by Scott Joplin,
the ragtime composer who lived
and worked in the city for
several years.
A video by an artist who goes by
the name "X" projected onto the
bluff of a Mississippi river
industrial zone.
Wind chimes, by raven Chacon,
paraded through city streets and
then hung in Benton park.
A mural titled "Justice" by
simiya Sudduth, based on a tarot
card.
And much more.
"Counterpublic" artistic
director James Mcanally.
>> We talk about this as a civic
exhibition, in particular
because we're really trying to
think about where does art
connect with social change,
where does it connect with the
city itself?
This was a moment where across
our country, monuments were
being taken down and
recontextualized, and this
question of how are we telling
history in public was really on
people's minds.
And so, we took that up as our
mission.
Jeffrey: As a starting point,
Mcanally writes in the catalog,
"St. Louis is, for better and
worse, at the crux of American
history."
The gateway to the west, based
on ideas of manifest destiny and
realities of Indian annihilation
and removal.
A long history of racial
discrimination and violence, up
to the 2014 killing of Michael
Brown by a police officer and
the Ferguson protests and riots
that followed.
>> In St. Louis, 10 children --
Jeffrey: Divisions and tensions
continue.
And just a few days after our
visit, a downtown shooting that
left 10 injured and one dead.
>> Art can't exist in a silo in
a city like St. Louis, that's
very clear, especially public
art where immediately you're
talking about public safety.
Immediately you're talking about
land ownership or
gentrification.
Kind of the changes of the city
itself become part of the art
and we wanted to be very
intentional and say, like, we
think that we can do this
better.
Jeffrey: One example still in
progress when we visited,
renowned architect David adjaye,
designer of the national museum
of African-American history and
culture in Washington, is
erecting a sculpture of Earth
walls that will enhance the
grounds of the griot museum in
the north of the city.
Another theme, uncovering past
history, captured in a work next
to sugarloaf mound, considered
the oldest human-made structure
in St. Louis, the last remnant
of a once-thriving culture.
Above, billboards created by
"Counterpublic" artists.
Below, an installation titled
"Wayback" by artist Anita
fields.
With a soundtrack by her
musician son, nokosee.
Fields is a member of the osage
nation, whose people once lived
in this area before being
removed to Oklahoma, where
fields grew up and lives.
>> You know, it's a very complex
history that we have in this
area of removal, of erasure, of
ideas behind manifest destiny
and western movement, and how
that affected as as osage
people, our culture, all aspects
of being osage.
Jeffrey: Her response, 40
colorful platforms, adorned with
ribbons and iconography.
Structures she remembers from
her own youth used for family
and ceremonial gatherings,
symbols of a continuous culture.
>> I thought, why not initiate,
you know, a series of platforms
where we can put them in a
situation where people in this
area can come and also sit here
and enjoy, but also think about
the history of this place.
Jeffrey: Does it in that sense,
reclaim that history or bring
forward that history for you?
>> Yes, that is my hope.
We are actually coming, making
our way back.
You know, there's a double
meaning there.
So, by having this installation
with these platforms, we are
making our way back to this, to
our, part of our ancestral
homeland.
Jeffrey: A way back, but also,
the organizers of
"Counterpublic" hope, a way
forward.
Some of the art works are
ephemeral, including an opening
day jeep parade of sights and
sounds through city
neighborhoods.
But, others will remain.
And Damon Davis' "Pillars of the
valley" will continue to grow,
as new sculptures stretch along
a mile-long greenway.
For Davis, it is also a
statement for the local art
scene.
>> People consider us a flyover
spot.
We don't get the type of respect
that many of the coastal cities
get when it comes to art and
creation.
So, I really like the idea of
people being able to stay home
and the world coming to us and
the idea of public art and what
it can do to change the civic
makeup of a city in a positive
way is, it's just outstanding.
I haven't heard of anything like
that, like this, happening at
home here.
Jeffrey: Now, it is happening
here.
For "The pbs newshour," I'm
Jeffrey brown in St. Louis.