Statement + Artist List
Counterpublic is a triennial civic exhibition that engages the complex histories, charged present, and many possible futures of Saint Louis from April 15 - July 15, 2023. Counterpublic 2023 brings together thirty-plus leading and emergent artists, architects, collectives and community organizers to reimagine civic infrastructures towards generational change.
Following a year-long process of community engagement in which neighbors in St. Louis were invited to reflect upon the most urgent needs facing their communities in order to shape the theme of the exhibition, Counterpublic determined to focus its 2023 edition on public memory and reparative futures—how our history is told, held and healed, and how our future is envisioned collectively towards new liberated lifeways.
Organized by Artistic Director James McAnally, Counterpublic 2023’s curatorial ensemble of Allison Glenn, Diya Vij, Dream the Combine, New Red Order and Risa Puleo was invited to consider ancestral and infrastructural approaches to the exhibition: both the celebrations, settlements, displacements and harms held in the accumulated legacies of the land, as well as what will be left behind after the exhibition cycle closes. Working under the thematic inquiry of residence time—a term of measurement for how long one material remains in another, such as salt in earth, or blood in water, prior to repair—Counterpublic 2023 will move through not only distinct sites, but timelines, considering cycles of change along geologic timescales and overlapping futures, non-linear histories and multi-directional memories, means of repair and repatriation with a view towards transformation.
Working in public places, cultural institutions, historic houses, and community gathering spaces, the footprint of a displaced neighborhood and the last remaining Indigenous mound in “Mound City,” the exhibition aims to be a reparative act of communal memory rooted in the land and its coexistent histories, with a rhythm meant to rattle the foundations of other futures.
David Adjaye, Sketch of Asaase III, curated by Allison Glenn and commissioned by Counterpublic and donated to The Griot Museum of Black History
Projects for Counterpublic 2023 include:
The first public programs to be held in relation to Sugarloaf Mound in partnership with the Osage Nation, including a new film by New Red Order documenting repatriation efforts around the mound and expansive artistic commissions curated by Risa Puleo, featuring work from Cannupa Hanska Luger, Raven Chacon, Anita Fields and Nokosee Fields, and numerous others;
A mile-long monument to the displaced neighborhood of Mill Creek Valley by St. Louis-based artist Damon Davis along the new Brickline Greenway and grounded at St. Louis CITY SC’s Centene Stadium;
The first permanent public artwork by David Adjaye, curated by Allison Glenn and commissioned by Counterpublic and donated to The Griot Museum of Black History, a 25 year-old community museum in the St. Louis Place neighborhood of North St. Louis.
Additional commissions include a permanent wetland and sculptural installation that functions as a site of racial and ecological repair by regenerative land sculptor Jordan Weber, curated by Diya Vij and presented in collaboration with the Pulitzer Arts Foundation; new work from Jaune Quick-to-See Smith demarcating an altered map of St. Louis, curated by Risa Puleo; an exhibition by Black Quantum Futurism focused on the pasts, presents, and futures of housing, land, and public space at The Luminary and engaging the surrounding neighborhood; an architectural installation by Torkwase Dyson planned for the Scott Joplin House and Historic Site; and a new film commission by Will Rawls and combination performative lecture and video installation by Ralph Lemon curated by Katherine Simóne Reynolds.
Jordan Weber, Prototype for power vs rhetoric (Deep Roots), Courtesy of the Walker Art Center
The three month exhibition will include active education, research, residencies, performances, publications, public projects, and collaborative programming across the city.
Counterpublic 2023’s artist list includes:
David Adjaye
Black Healers Collective
Black Quantum Futurism
Raven Chacon
Juan William Chavez
Damon Davis
Dream the Combine*
Torkwase Dyson
Jen Everett
Anita and Nokosee Fields
General Sisters
Matthew Angelo Harrison
Steffani Jemison
Ralph Lemon
Cannupa Hanska Luger
Mev Luna
Mendi + Keith Obadike
New Red Order*
Yvonne Osei
Tim Portlock
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Will Rawls
Vincent Stemmler
Maya Stovall
Simiya Sudduth/Tha Muthaship
jackie sumell
Jordan Weber
X
*Indicates participation in the Curatorial Ensemble
Documentation + Storytelling by Nyara Williams
Design by Visitor Assembly
Identity by Work/Play
Curators for Counterpublic 2023
James McAnally, Artistic Director
Allison Glenn, Curator
Diya Vij, Associate Curator at Creative Time
Dream the Combine (Artist/Curator)
New Red Order (Artist/Curator)
Risa Puleo, Curator
Katherine Simóne Reynolds, Associate Curator of Counterpublic
Anchor Partners + Sites
Brickline Greenway + Great Rivers Greenway
The Griot Museum of Black History
The Luminary
Osage Nation + Sugarloaf Mound
Pulitzer Arts Foundation
Regional Arts Commission
St. Louis CITY SC + Centene Stadium
