ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - JOE

 

Another one by Richard Serra, Joe at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Yes, Joe is Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., the late publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Serra's friend and patron. It is in a courtyard, not visible from the street, but its huge size (13.5 feet, 4 meters tall, spiraled inward) makes its physical presence all the more impressive. You can see a view from above at https://pulitzerarts.org/collection/ (scroll down a bit).                      

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - TWAIN

 

Richard Serra's Twain is a controversial work. It's big, 12 foot / 3.7 meter slabs of semi-rusted Cor-ten steel taking up most of a city block. When it was installed in 1981 there was a huge negative reaction (something Serra is no stranger to). I love it, but it is a pretty intellectual concept. There is a helpful discussion at https://racstl.org/public-art/twain/ .                 

STL DPB IN MADRID - MINIMALISM

Richard Serra's room at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. Some people hate his stuff, some like it. We love it.      

CITY DAILY PHOTO JANUARY THEME - PICTURE OF THE YEAR

From a post in November, looking up at the sunset sky from within the spiral of Richard Serra's monumental steel sculpture, Joe. It is located in the courtyard shared by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and our Contemporary Art Museum. Not to everyone's taste but it's my favorite of the year.

And so to 2024. May the people of Gaza, Israel, Ukraine--and you--find peace. May Trump go away forever and may the skies be clear for the total eclipse in April. May artificial intelligence not become overlord and may Twitter/X fold. May we have enough water and shelter from the heat. May we learn our lessons, so many lessons. 

 

BLACK CUPPA JOE AND A TEMPLE

A silhouette of Richard Serra's Joe with the Scottish Rite Masonic temple looming behind. I'm not sure what goes on in there these days. If you look carefully you can see a couple of lights on in the building but the Masons aren't such a big deal any more.                

INSIDE THE SPIRAL

Inside the spiral of Joe, the grand, deliberately rusting Richard Serra sculpture seen in my post yesterday. Near sunset in the plaza between the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.                           

JOE

Seen in the courtyard connecting our Contemporary Art Museum with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. This is Richard Serra's large sculpture, Joe, dedicated to Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., the one-time publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and great patron of the arts. Serra and Pulitzer were close friends. The work is a giant spiral of Cor 10 steel that feels like it is sucking you inside. 

The building in the background is the grandiose Scottish Rite Masonic Temple.       

AT THE PULITZER - INSIDE JOE

You must walk just over 360 degrees through the spiral to reach the center of Joe. The visitor arrives at a nearly circular enclosure. There is plenty of room but you might feel some panic about being able to escape over the high walls. (The museum staff won't let you bring in a grappling hook and rope.) Of course, the way you came in is still there but the space can give you the feeling of being trapped with plenty of space.

I looked through the archives and found one overeposed shot in which you can look down and see the overall shape. https://tinyurl.com/yyfx32ap

AT THE PULITZER - JOE

The courtyard of the Pulitzer contains Richard Serra monumental sculpture Joe, named for his friend and patron Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. You can hardly take a bad picture of it on a clear day but it's also impossible to view the whole unless you find an elevated viewpoint. Maybe that's part of the point. It is made of bent slabs of COR TEN steel, solid as rock but with a lovely rusted patina. The walls are at least twice as high as me and I'm medium-tall. You wander into the curve as if into a maze of light, dark and space. I think we'll see what you get to tomorrow, depending on what happens overnight.           

Joe

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation is one of the gems of St. Louis. It's not very big and a bit out of the way. It was founded by Joseph Pulitzer III, grandson of Joseph Pulitzer, the New York newspaper baron, and his wife, Emily.  He was for many years the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Joe and Emily amassed one of the greatest collections of contemporary art in the U.S. The foundation is a center of research and a small, exquisite museum, designed in a very spare style by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

The Pulitzers were good friends of the sculptor Richard Serra. The courtyard of the Foundation contains his massive work Joe, dedicated to the patron's memory. It is a spiral of rust-red steel plate, concerned with space, scale and sky, holding delights around every bend. The last picture gives an overview.     

Vise

Richard Serra's Twain puts the squeeze on the Civil Courts Building. I've shown it here a number of times before. Most people ignore it now but it generated a lot of hate when it was installed. I kneel before it.

It's gonna be a crazy but wonderful weekend. Up to Chicago today. Son Andy will be married on Saturday to the simply delightful Claire Blouin, who knows how to keep him in line. None of this wedding-industrial complex stuff. The rehearsal dinner is tonight in their back yard with Popeye's fried chicken and a keg. I'm the wedding photographer with daughter Emily working the second camera. We'll have days and days of this, I'm sure.                             

MoMA

Field trip yesterday to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. OMG was the city crowded. I don't remember this from when I was a child and a teen here. The subway line we needed to go from Penn Station to the museum was out of service so we had to walk up 6th Avenue past Radio City Music Hall and the back side of Rockefeller Center.  We could have used a bull whip to get through. Same when we got back to Penn on the way home, when people were emptying out of the city. Penn Station's current incarnation is horribly designed and a few hundred people were trying to press through a single doorway onto the platform for the train to New Jersey. Mrs. C felt in serious danger of being trampled at a couple of points.

I like to take photographs in art museums but there is nothing interesting in photographing the artworks. The fun part is the architecture, people interacting with the art and people taking pictures of the art on their phones. Starry Night, anyone? Or can anyone guess the neighborhood, if that's the right word, in the bottom photo? We've walked through it.

Home tonight.         

Every Picture Tells A Story

Found just inside the plate steel walls of the Twain sculpture. I invite readers to tell a little story, just two or three sentences, about how and why these objects came to rest here.              

Lie On Your Back And Look At The Sky

Screw on a wide angle lens and a polarizing filter. Put yourself right in the middle of Richard Serra's Twain downtown. Be willing to get dirty. Push the shutter button a few times.

I want to go back and try this again with my fisheye lens.                                 

Balancing Act

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So I was doing my usual downtown walkabout on Sunday when I noticed a young man sitting on top of one of the slabs of Richard Serra's Twain. The massive steel construction has been featured on this blog before.

The individual sections are at least 3 meters high. Lacking any Spider Man talents, I didn't understand how he got up there. But as I rounded the sculpture I saw him up on top, walking the edge that couldn't be more than 5 cm wide and crossing the gaps between the plates. My first instinct was to run away in terror (to the extent that I can run) before witnessing what could be severe injuries. Then I thought what the hell, whipped up my telephoto lens and shot these. The boy saw me and called out, "Hey, mister, nice camera!"

Thanks. Nice performance, too.

Matt Holliday looks through Kieth Haring's eye on Downtown St. Louis 365 today.

2-Fer

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Downtown St. Louis 365 and St. Louis Daily Photo have a two for the price of one special today. These are a pair of view of views of the Civil Courts Building, seen here yesterday, through the portals of Ricard Serra's massive steel sculpture, Twain. While the Civil Courts is a jumble of ancient styles, Twain is at once much more simple and difficult. Certain people howled for its removal after it was installed in 1982. It stayed, thank heavens. The opposite result happened in New York when Serra's 1981 work, Tilted Arc, was removed from Foley Square in Lower Manhattan and carted off for scrap. So we get a one-up on the grand center of art.

Another advantage of a 2-fer is that I can use the same text on both blogs, more or less. Here's the image you can see on Downtown St. Louis 365:

At The Pulitzer: Inside Joe

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Inside the curve of Richard Serra's Joe at the Pulitzer Foundation, enhanced by visual steroids of HDR. I have one more decent picture from the Pulitzer (of something different). However, if luck and light are with me, our Monday post will feature family hero U "R" Us belting it out in the Chicago Marathon today.

More From The Pulitzer

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Cieldequimper of Versailles Daily Photo asked to see a broader view of Joe, Richard Serra's sculpture at the Pulitzer Foundation in memory of Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. Her wish is our command. The work is 3 or 4 meters tall so you can't see the internal design. However, you can get a top view if you click here to go to the Foundation's web site, then click on Richard Serra.

Quick trip up to Chicago this afternoon to cheer on City Daily Photoblogger U "R" Us, one of the heirs to the St. Louis Daily Photo fortune. He's running the Chicago Marathon tomorrow morning. It's his first time but he's been training hard and he will do well. Send him your best wishes.

The Pulitzer Foundation

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The Pulitzer Foundation For the Arts is a small jewel, little known outside St. Louis. It opened in 2001 with support from the estate of the late Joseph Pulitzer and the continuing gifts of his wife, Emily. Pulitzer was the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 34 years and, yes, that's the family that established the Pulitzer Prize.

The building is small for a museum but breathtaking, designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The Pulitzers had one of the greatest collections of modern art of the 20th Century, which has become the backbone of the Foundation. It is more focused on scholarship than display and is open to the public only two days a week. If you are an art lover and visit St. Louis, it's a don't-miss.

The Pulitzers were close friends of the contemporary sculptor Richard Serra. He created the sculpture Joe as a memorial. It sits in the Foundation's courtyard. The work is a tall, tilted spiral, winding inward and inward. The photo above shows only the entrance.

On another topic, Virginia has been pleading with me to post the photo of the bunny from the blessing of the animals, mentioned in Tuesday's post. So here it is.