about the exhibition

This national juried exhibition contains works of art that examine the state of our shared environment. The word politics is derived from the Latin words polites “citizen” and polis “city.” Politics as a term used in everyday life first appeared in the 15th century and referred to the state and its administration of public life. As a society how are we linked together through the decisions of our leaders? What is your reaction to the shifting tectonic plates of today’s political landscape? Propaganda is part of our political dialogue. Is fake news the same? Do you trust the news you receive? How are you or someone you know personally impacted by the policies and actions of government today?

Exhibition Dates: September 28, 2018 to October 24, 2018

Opening Reception, Awards, and Juror Discussion: Friday September 28, 2018, 5pm to 8pm

Screen Shot 2018-08-10 at 3.53.19 PM.png

Juror: Wassan Al-Khudairi

Prior to accepting the position of chief curator at Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, Wassan Al-Khudairi was the Hugh Kaul Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. Recently Al-Khudhairi was appointed as one of the guest curators for the 2017 Asian Art Biennial, to be held in Taiwan in the fall of 2017.

Al-Khudhairi was born in Kuwait to Iraqi parents. She has lived in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, England, California, Georgia, Egypt, Qatar, Korea, and Birmingham, Alabama. Previous positions have included Co-Artistic Director at the Gwangju Biennale Foundation in South Korea; and Founding Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar. She has also held positions at the Brooklyn Museum, British Museum, and the High Museum of Modern Art.

Al-Khudhairi studied at the Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University and holds degrees from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and Georgia State University.

Curated Artist

Margi Weir: The Politics of Hue

Better Red, 2017, 66” x 51.25,”painting of acrylic on Plexiglas surrounded by multicolored vinyl on the gallery wall

The St. Louis Artists' Guild welcomes a new body of work by Margi Weir titled "The Politics of Hue." Ms. Weir earned her MFA in painting from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); her MA in painting from New Mexico State University. She also holds a BFA in painting from San Francisco Art Institute and BA in art history from Wheaton College in Massachusetts.

Blue is Not A Neutral, 2017, 65” x 51.25,”painting of acrylic on Plexiglas surrounded by multicolored vinyl on the gallery wall

Ms. Weir has had solo exhibitions at Ivan Karp's OK Harris Gallery in New York, and the Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.   She has completed installation pieces at the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (ATHICA), Lexington Art League (KY),  the Las Cruces Museum of Art (Las Cruces, NM), the Hardesty Art Center in Tulsa OK, Coastal Carolina University, and Central Features Gallery in Albuquerque, NM. In 2017 the Puffin Foundation awarded Weir a grant to support her work on gun violence. She is, currently, an Associate Professor of painting and drawing at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
    
In this new body of work, Ms. Weir finds inspiration for imagery from anywhere: from the street where she lives, from television or film, or from the Internet. This most recent series of paintings on Plexiglas panels surrounded by vinyl on the gallery wall is titled “The Politics of Hue.” The Politics of Hue does not connote racial or identity politics and instead finds inspiration in the color divide during the last Presidential campaign between red and blue. There are currently 9 pieces in the series; red, blue, white, green, gold, yellow, orange and silver and purple.

Weir groups images of related things or repeated objects in stacked rows in a two-dimensional composition (paintings, prints, or cut vinyl). This stacking is a visual metaphor for the ways that bits of information are thrown at us, daily, with only occasional “in-depth coverage.” By placing a row of spatially flattened imagery on top of a row of images that suggest the illusion of space, Weir finds an appropriate way to visually represent the twenty-first-century experience of receiving information from many points of view simultaneously and often without a gauge by which to determine the validity of the information. The static point of view required for Renaissance perspective doesn’t reflect my contemporary experience. Neither does the medieval correlation of scale to status. In these new works Weir intentionally gives equal weight to positive and negative space. This handling of space encourages perceptual shifts between positive and negative imagery by employing high black and white contrasts. “The Politics of Hue,” offers viewers a visual experience that has multiple layers of both meaning and process, where opposing views coexist within the accumulation of massive amounts of information.
 

Juried Artists

CB Adams, Kyle Brandt-Lubart, Fidalis Buehler, Barbara J. DiMartini, Robert Fields, Amy Firestone-Rosen, Ted Gillespie, Yu ling Huang, Robert Hunter, Christine Ilewski, Margaret Keller, Neil Kruel, J. J. L'Heureux, Heather Layton, Marlene DiFiori Locke, Bryan Prather, Judith Repke, Bob Rickert, Allana Ross, Cody Schlabaugh, Ali Seradge, Michael Shadwell, Gene Tanta, Vaughn Wascovich, Aaron Wilder, Mark Witzling.

View the Catalog