The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
August 19, 2023–January 1, 2024

Location
Entrance in Taylor Hall, East Building

Cost
Adults: $12; seniors and students: $10; children (6–12): $6; children (5 and under): free
Members always free.
Reduced-price tickets are available for scheduled group visits. Schedule a group.

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century presents a sweeping art history of hip hop culture and its myriad expressions across the globe. This multidisciplinary and multimedia exhibition examines the resounding impact of hip hop on contemporary art and culture, including its unique contributions to innovations in music, visual and performing arts, fashion, and technology. To illuminate the depth of hip hop’s influence, the exhibition will feature immersive installations, fashion, painting, sculpture, photography, and video, showcasing the complex, expansive, and international allure of one of the 20th and 21st century’s great cultural movements.

The Culture will prominently showcase iconic paintings not previously exhibited in St. Louis by some of the art world’s most famous practitioners, including Jean-Michel Basquiat and Mark Bradford, as well as works by artists represented in the SLAM collection, such as Julie Mehretu and Carrie Mae Weems. Other featured artists include Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, Jordan Casteel, Kudzanai Chiurai, William Cordova, Hassan Hajjaj, Lauren Halsey, Arthur Jafa, Deana Lawson, Hank Willis Thomas, and others.

The exhibition will include significant examples of fashion, including looks from Virgil Abloh’s collections for Louis Vuitton, legendary streetwear brand Cross Colours, as well as a range of music ephemera. To further illuminate hip hop’s influence, the exhibition incorporates artists with deep ties to local communities. St. Louis and Missouri artists include Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Damon Davis, Jen Everett, Aaron Fowler, Kahlil Robert Irving, Shabez Jamal, Yvonne Osei, and Adrian Octavius Walker.

The Culture will explore a series of themes, emphasizing pressing issues in the hip hop industry, such as the complex relationship between capitalism, commodification, and racial identity; hip hop culture’s connection to gender, sexuality, feminism, appropriation, and misogyny; as well as hip hop’s relationship to the art world and the art market.

The Culture is organized by the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Conceived and developed as a collaborative effort that engages with both museums’ curatorial and education departments, The Culture will emphasize community access and engagement as core to the exhibition experience This open dialogue will elevate connection to local communities and facilitation of collaborative exhibition development. Designing a strategic approach to curating that includes outside perspectives further recognizes the importance of communities having a say in the way their story is told. ​

As part of the planning for this exhibition, the Baltimore Museum of Art and SLAM have engaged a global advisory committee of experts comprising hip hop’s leading thinkers: academics, musicians, fashion designers, visual artists, and curators who have been helping the curatorial team refine exhibition themes, adhere to the ethos of hip hop, and be accessible to the local community and beyond.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue with contributions from more than 50 artists, writers, scholars, curators, and arts leaders.

The Culture is curated by Hannah Klemm, SLAM’s former associate curator of modern and contemporary art; and Andréa Purnell, SLAM’s audience development manager; Asma Naeem, the Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art; and Gamynne Guillotte, the BMA’s former chief education officer with Rikki Byrd, the BMA’S curatorial research fellow and Carlyn Thomas, the BMA’s curatorial assistant.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Ford Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

In St. Louis, The Culture is made possible by the William T. Kemper Foundation.

The Garage Lab
Located in Sculpture Hall, The Garage Lab by Gary Simmons recalls the structure of a typical suburban garage set up with amps and equipment for band practice. In addition to constructing the garage’s wooden frame, Simmons lined the interior with historic and contemporary concert posters collected over many years from around the world. The digitally altered posters also include nods to the St. Louis hip-hop scene.

Created as a space for community interaction, The Garage Lab will serve as a venue for live performances by poets, musicians, dancers, and DJs during the exhibition. When the space is not being activated by performances, video playback of previous productions will be displayed on a nearby monitor. For more information on The Garage Lab, visit the SLAM Blog.

Location
Entrance in Mae M. Whittaker Gallery 212
Cost
Adults: $12; seniors and students: $10; children (6–12): $6; children (5 and under): free
Members always free.
Reduced-price tickets are available for scheduled group visits. Schedule a group.

Action/Abstraction Redefined: Modern Native Art, 1940s–1970s, is the first exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum to focus on modern Native American art. Expanding the narrative of midcentury abstraction, the exhibition highlights groundbreaking paintings, sculptures, textiles, and works on paper that challenged stereotypical expectations of Native American art during the postwar era.

The Saint Louis Art Museum will celebrate Action/Abstraction Redefined with a free, public preview starting at 4 pm on Friday, June 23, 2023.

Innovative artists, including Fritz Scholder, Lloyd Kiva New, and Linda Lomahaftewa, explored new modes of artistic expression in studios across the nation and especially at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), founded in 1962 in Santa Fe. IAIA’s revolutionary pedagogy encouraged experimentation as artists combined styles and methods of the New York school with abstract forms based in historical Native art. The exhibition introduces audiences to this exciting body of artwork and deepens scholarship by highlighting many women artists whose work remains largely unknown even among specialists.

Action/Abstraction Redefined is organized by the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, a Native American-led institution with a deep, focused collection. In the St. Louis presentation, Saint Louis Art Museum curators have expanded the number of works to provide greater context for the remarkable story of abstraction during the first decade of IAIA.

This exhibition is curated by Manuela Well-Off-Man, chief curator, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts; Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer, curator of collections, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts; and Lara Evans, former IAIA professor of Native Art History. The presentation in St. Louis is curated by Alexander Brier Marr, SLAM’s associate curator of Native American Art, and Hannah Klemm, SLAM’s former associate curator of modern and contemporary art.

Action/Abstraction Redefined: Modern Native Art, 1940s–1970s is organized by IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges.

Additional funding is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Edward L. Bakewell Jr. Endowment for Special Exhibitions.
Audio Guide

The exhibition audio guide shares commentary on modern Native American art, expanding the narrative of midcentury abstraction. Listen to the director’s welcome, associate curator Alex Marr, artists, and scholars as they share their experiences and perspectives.