It’s ironic to think acclaimed painter Mike Henderson loved teaching his craft at UC Davis for over 30 years, after he himself despised his schooling in his native Missouri, and dropped out because of racial remarks from a teacher.

“A science teacher started comparing us all, all the Black students in the class, with animals like apes and so forth,” Henderson said. “He would say, ‘Ok you guys stand up, now look at they lips.’”

After moving in the ‘60s, Henderson said he continued to experience racial injustice in San Francisco attending social justice rallies.

His life experiences eventually would make their way on to canvas and are a prominent piece in the exhibition currently on view at the UC Davis Manetti Shrem Art Museum.

His works are a rarity, as there are few paintings from the ‘60s depicting the racial images and feelings of Black people by a Black painter.

“I’m glad that I did them, I’m glad that I saw it, and I’m glad that I said something,” Henderson said. “That’s what I want my son to say. That’s what I want your kids to say. I used to tell my class of students that: ‘It’s your life, it’s your time. Just don’t be a spectator through it all.’”

Not only skilled with a brush, Henderson has also released blues albums and made short films, some of which are on view at the exhibition.

The display is also important because of the lack of representation of Black artists historically in museums.

Founding Director of the museum Rachel Teagle said this exhibition has been in the works for long a time, but there has been a bump in interest in Black artists since George Floyd’s death.

“The issue of under representation is the crucial issue of art museums in our time,” Teagle said. “I see it as my responsibility to be part of a movement to make sure that the art we show in our museum is as diverse as our community in California.”

Teagle also noted the huge reaction from viewers to Henderson’s work, the most responses in their visitor journals of any exhibition at the museum.

Henderson said he’s humbled by such acknowledgment.

“You know I’m thrilled about it all and being seen,” he said. “And the people are relating to it.”

Hederson said he is glad his paintings can continue to teach for generations to come, because the issues depicted in his paintings continue to haunt society.

A new mural honoring local and global Indigenous communities has been unveiled at P.S. 958 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The unveiling was celebrated Patty Mills, the Brooklyn Nets and the creative agency Street Theory. The new mural was painted by Victor “Marka 27” Quiñonez and takes inspiration from Mills’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander roots in Australia. 

“The idea for this mural came about a year ago in conversations with General Manager Sean Marks,” said Mills. “We thought of a creative idea to give something to the community that could make them feel proud and that they could have ownership of. This mural is something that can bring us all together no matter where you’re from and honor Indigenous people both around the world and here in Brooklyn. It’s a generational masterpiece that communities around the world can be proud of.”

The mural celebrates Mills’ ancestry and also pays homage to the RedHawk Native American Arts Council, Ramapo Munsee Lunaape Nation and other global Indigenous communities in the New York Area. The Team Mills Foundation and the Nets worked with local Mexican artist, Marka27 to design the mural. Mills was also advised by the RedHawk Native American Arts Council, a non-profit maintained by Native American artists and educators residing in the tri-state area.

“Art has always been a catalyst for social change,” said Quiñonez. “Working with Team Mills, the Brooklyn Nets and The Redhawk Native American Arts Council was an honor and perfect opportunity for myself and Street Theory to celebrate our ancestors and Indigenous communities at the highest level through street art.”

The mural was unveiled during a community block party headlined by Mills on Sat., June 24. The event featured a cultural blessing and dance performance by Redhawk Native American Arts Council, as well performances by the Nets’ Team Hype and Brooklynettes.

“As a school committed to representing the diversity that makes up New York City, this mural is an important tool to deepen the understanding of Sunset Park’s history. We are so grateful for this opportunity to collaborate with Patty Mills, the Brooklyn Nets and other organizations that align with our school’s mission to center the experiences of historically marginalized groups. We look forward to teaching our students about all that it signifies for years to come,” said Emily Shapiro, principal for P.S. 958.

In his latest body of work, on view until 22 July at Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco, the American artist Jeffrey Gibson explores the collage medium through the lens of his Cherokee and Choctaw heritage.

The works on paper incorporate found objects and imagery, beadwork and textile that have been assembled into intricate arrangements, and interrogate themes of empowerment, consumption, and non-Western modes of relating to each other – issues that have persisted throughout Gibson’s multidisciplinary and multifaceted practice.

Using offcuts, paper scraps, handmade Native American objects like watch bands and belt buckles, and imagery that he has collected and stored for decades, Gibson relates these forgotten materials to the fractured history of Native peoples.

For Praying for Time (pictured top), whose title is borrowed from a George Michael song, Gibson subverts the work of Elbridge Ayer Burbank, a 19th-century American artist who made portraits of more than 1,200 Native people, often dressed in garments not of their own tribe or culture. Setting Burbank’s portraits of White Swan and Christian Naiche against vibrant beadwork and patterning, Gibson critiques Burbank’s depiction of Native Americans as a dying race at the time, in a powerful political statement against erasure. 

‘Jeffrey Gibson: Once More with Feeling’ runs until 22 July at Jessica Silverman Gallery in San Francisco, jessicasilvermangallery.com

A version of this article appears in the August 2023 issue of Wallpaper* – a guide to creative America – available in print from 6 July, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

The latest art installation honors Veterans and was completed just in time for the 4th of July.

If wanderlust has struck, might we suggest one of the most American of adventures: a summer road trip. We’ve mapped out seven must-see off-the-grid art destinations, cities, or hamlets within a day’s drive of Austin, Dallas, and Houston. So, gas up, enlist a friend or two, and hit your ignition button. We suggest you do as Frost did and take the road less traveled.

ALBANY, TEXAS

From Dallas: 2 hours, 30 minutes

From Austin: 3 hours, 30 minutes

From Houston: 5 hours, 30 minutes

The Old Jail Art Center

Albany is likely the smallest city on our list, but it’s nonetheless home to an arts organization with an impressive roster of past exhibitions. It was indeed the first permanent jail built in Shackelford County, which opened in 1878 and was abandoned in 1929 for a new jail around the corner. The Old Jail Art Center, an art-world insider destination, debuted as a shrine for culture in 1980. On view is “Cheyenne Ledger Drawings: Stories of Warrior Artists” (through August 26), with works by Cheyenne artists who were part of the forced assimilation project (which included 72 prisoners of war — Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Caddo, and Arapaho warriors) following the Red River War in 1875. It’s a poignant narrative from a dark chapter
of American history that must be brought forward.

The 52 deeply personal works depicting these Native Americans’ lives before and after captivity were drawn with colored pencils on Army ledger paper.

MARFA, TEXAS

From Dallas: 7 hours, 30 minutes

From Austin: 6 hours, 30 minutes

From Houston: 8 hours, 30 minutes

The Chinati Foundation, Judd Foundation, Ballroom Marfa

Donald Judd (1928 – 1994)  remains one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. The remote Trans-Pecos outpost of Marfa sprawls across a decommissioned 1919-1920 army base, which Judd transformed into the world’s most improbable, yet ultimate art town. As such, Marfa and its two Judd-focused foundations continue to lure collectors, curators, writers, and cultural cognoscenti.

At The Chinati Foundation, founded 1987, Judd’s own rigorous works join commissions by other artists dedicated to mirroring his staunch minimalist aesthetic, with installations by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Robert Irwin, and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen deployed in buildings and grounds of the former Fort D.A. Russell.

The Judd Foundation, founded in 1994, preserves his former architecture and art studios, which occupy downtown buildings, a princely surfeit of space in an exquisitely beautiful and isolated pilgrimage site. Judd’s residence, La Mansana de Chinati/The Block, is an adobe wall-enclosed city block consisting of living space, a quartermaster’s office, hangars displaying work, his 13,000-volume library, and an expansive courtyard.chinati.org, juddfoundation.org.

Another reason to voyage to West Texas is Ballroom Marfa, the nonprofit that commissioned Elmgreen + Dragset’s 2005 Prada Marfa. Visit Ballroom Marfa’s mystical installment of a more recent public art piece, 2018’s stone circle by Haroon Mirza.

Retail therapy. Our top spot in Marfa and environs for acquisitions and discoveries is Garza Marfa. Husband-and-wife design team Jamey Garza and Constance Holt-Garza relocated to Marfa from the California coast and crossbred the effortlessness of the West Coast with the materials and simplicity of the Trans-Pecos desert. Whether fresh takes on Bauhaus furnishings, carefully sourced textiles and ceramics, or Khadi desert blankets hand-dyed and woven to Garza Marfa designs, the shop is a one-stop outfitter for a stylish and considered life in far West Texas.

BARTLESVILLE, OKLAHOMA

From Dallas: 5 hours

From Austin: 7 hours, 30 minutes

From Houston: 8 hours

Price Tower

An hour north of Tulsa and looming tall in the middle of an Oklahoma prairie sits the 221-foot Price Tower, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956. Wright nicknamed the building “The Tree that Escaped the Crowded Forest” since it was not built in Manhattan as originally planned but instead in Bartlesville, Oklahoma’s first oil boomtown. Price Tower is the architectural visionary’s only fully realized skyscraper with interiors he designed, including furniture, fabrics, fixtures, and murals. Go for the architectural masterpiece but don’t miss the art gallery and inn (the restaurant is temporarily closed for remodeling), making this reinforced concrete-and-copper building a must for acolytes of architecture. Book ahead for a special tour of the handsomely restored top three floors, including the 19th-floor suite of H.C. Price, the pipeline czar who commissioned Wright to build the tower. (Wright also designed H.C.’s son Harold Jr.’s home, Hillside.)

On view at the Price Tower Gallery is “The Rogue Lens” by local newspaper photog Andy Dossett, featuring evocative photographs capturing the “flow” in the creative process among eight artists of different disciplines including a baker, glassblower, and florist (through August 6).

Woolaroc

Don’t forget Woolaroc. Bartlesville’s history is intrinsically linked with Frank Phillips, legendary oilman and founder of Phillips Petroleum. Take in his 1925-era ranch retreat, Woolaroc, in the Osage Hills outside of town, now a museum and 3,700-acre wildlife preserve. (The estate’s name is taken from the woods, lakes, and rocks that comprise the natural beauty of this part of Oklahoma.) The museum features a trove of the greatest hits of historic Western art including Remington, Russell, and Moran, as well as contemporary talents, eccentricities and artifacts, Native American artworks, antique Colt firearms, and more. This collection reflects its founder’s unique vision, including his friendship with the Osage tribe.

BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS

From Dallas: 5 hours, 30 minutes

From Austin: 8 hours, 30 minutes

From Houston: 9 hours

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Since its opening in November 2011, the museum that Walmart scion Alice Walton built has welcomed more than five million visitors. Designed by architect Moshe Safdie, its expansive grounds are capped by a 120-acre sculpture garden (pack sneakers for a hike), a glorious testament to what a sizable Walmart inheritance can achieve. Safdie, known for his mod Habitat 67 in Montreal, has created an architectural tour de force, comparable to Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao, albeit a building forged from wood that pays homage to its stunning natural setting. Crystal Bridges’ architecture alone calls for a trip; then there’s the museum’s permanent collection — a veritable history lesson spanning centuries of American art. The temporary exhibitions are lagniappe, as is a visit to the museum’s sister annex, The Momentary.

The Momentary

Crystal Bridges’ sister property is an industrial and edgy space in a former cheesemaking plant that is all about the now. At CB, don’t miss the new permanent Infinity Mirrored Room by Yayoi Kusama; blockbuster “Diego Rivera’s America” (through July 31); and, in time for the Fourth, “Flagged for Discussion” (through September 25). At The Momentary, check out the confectionary canvases of Chicago artist Yvette Mayorga (through October 15), and Firelei Báez’s immersive and vast sculptural time-travel installation (through September 24).

The Walmart Museum Heritage Lab

See how it all began. For fans of Americana, visit The Walmart Museum Heritage Lab to delve into the history of the behemoth that arose from modest dime-store beginnings to forever alter retail around the world. Rest and recharge after your art trek at the 21c Museum Hotel Bentonville.

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

From Dallas: 4 hours, 30 minutes

From Austin: 7 hours, 30 minutes

From Houston: 7 hours

Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts

One of America’s newest museum expansions, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts’ eagerly watched addition ups the art game for the state’s capital. The architect — Chicago-based Studio Gang, directed by principal Jeanne Gang — is everywhere in the news this year for the extraordinary Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at Manhattan’s century-old American Museum of Natural History. While Studio Gang’s new museum in Arkansas lacks the earth-centric drama of the Gilder, it makes up for it in a sculptural, light-filled structure that appears to levitate.

Like the Gilder, an innovative use of concrete comes into play. The roofline appears to billow, while the expansive glass façade, supported by V-shaped concrete pillars, introduces geometric notes that harken back to temples of modernism. For art seekers, the inaugural exhibition, “Together,” meditates on family, community, and connections to nature, with works from Little Rock artists as well as those with a global imprint, such as Anila Quayyum Agha and Jim Hodges, as well as Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ stack of paper prints (which visitors may take), photog Julie Blackmon, and the Pop Art Nun, aka Corita Kent (through September 10).

William J. Clinton Presidential Library

Consider our 42nd President. With its dramatic view of the Arkansas River, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum boasts an insider view of American history culling documents, ephemera, and recreations of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room. Wrap your visit with lunch, weekend brunch, or dinner at the on-site farm-to-market 42 Bar and Table, with al fresco seating looking out upon the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge.

OKLAHOMA CITY

From Dallas: 3 hours, 30 minutes

From Austin: 5 hours, 30 minutes

From Houston: 6 hours, 30 minutes

OKCMOA

Begin in OKC with the Arts District’s prime institution, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. OKCMOA’s dazzling Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center, unveiled in 2002, boasts a collection encompassing American, European, post-war and contemporary, photography, prints and drawings, decorative arts, and design. Up now is a traveling blockbuster organized by LACMA, “True Nature: Rodin and the Age of Impressionism,” culling 100 sculptures, paintings, prints, and photographs (through October 22). After basking in Rodin, check out the museum’s design exhibition, “Chihuly Then and Now: The Collection at Twenty,” spanning the glass maestro’s five decades of innovation (through June 2024).

Oklahoma Contemporary

An art crawl through Oklahoma wouldn’t be complete without a stop at Oklahoma Contemporary, situated on a 4.6-acre campus in the heart of Oklahoma City. The stunning building, designed by architect Rand Elliott, is devoted to the celebration of living artists. “Patterns of Knowing,” currently on view, explores how patterns from Indigenous cultures are embraced and reinterpreted, with works by three Native American artists, Benjamin Harjo Jr., Jeri Redcorn, and Jordan Ann Craig (through October 23).

Catch a dynamic mural informed by Mesoamerican iconography, “Eduardo Sarabia: Green Vines,” with L.A./Guadalajara/Berlin-based Sarabia in collaboration with OKC street talent TANK (through August 2024).

Frida Southwest

For sustenance. OKC insiders head to the chef-driven and hip Frida Southwest, with toque Quinn Carroll in the kitchen. End your journey by checking into the 21c Museum Hotel Oklahoma City.

TULSA, OKLAHOMA

From Dallas: 4 hours

From Austin: 7 hours

From Houston: 7 hours, 30 minutes

The Bob Dylan Center and Woody Guthrie Center

Once a bustling oil boomtown set against the backdrop of the rolling Osage Hills, Tulsa is amidst a cultural efflorescence, one that attracts national and international devotees of two of the 20th century’s iconic balladeers. That would be Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, thanks to each singer’s eponymous museum. (Curiously, the first song Dylan ever wrote was “A Song for Woody Guthrie.”)

A cultural gem designed by Olson Kundig and located on Tulsa’s Guthrie Green, the Bob Dylan Center offers a treasure trove of its namesake’s extensive archives and music. This enigmatic Midwestern poet with a guitar won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Down the street sits the Woody Guthrie Center, home to comprehensive archives of Oklahoma’s legendary Dust Bowl storyteller. This collection is comprised of more than 100 notebooks of correspondence from this American activist, who spoke up for those who have no voice. Also at the Guthrie, catch the groovy exhibit “Love Saves the Day: The Subterranean History of American Disco” (through October 8).

Greenwood Rising

Paying tribute to victims and survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Greenwood Rising was recently unveiled to explore Black history and the resilience of Tulsa’s Greenwood community. The massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of racial violence in American history, leaving a haunting, brutal mark on the town.

On Memorial Day weekend in 1921, a white mob destroyed one of the wealthiest Black communities in the U.S., known as Black Wall Street, in a racist rampage that killed hundreds of people. The massacre was shrouded in silence for decades. This museum now stands as a testament to hope and racial reconciliation, as well as a reminder of the vibrant, wealthy community that existed before the race massacre.

Philbrook Museum of Art

Then there’s the fabulous Philbrook Museum of Art. Tucked amid 25 acres of verdant gardens rests Philbrook’s Italian Renaissance villa, once the storied home of Waite and Genevieve Phillips, converted in 1939 into a world-class museum. This 72-room mansion features more than 16,000 objects with a focus on American, Native American, and European art. This summer, Philbrook opens “Wyeth: Textured Visions of Nature,” tracing the influence of the rural Northeast, its flora and fauna, on three Wyeth generations: N. C. Wyeth (1882–1945), son Andrew (1917–2009), and grandson Jamie (born 1946) (through June 9, 2024).

Also recommended… In a town renowned for its Deco edifices is Decopolis, Tulsa’s Art Deco museum, and Flagship, the Boston Avenue downtown exhibition space for the acclaimed Tulsa Artist Fellowship program.

In the early 2000s, Doug Pawlik was just a teenager, hanging out with friends or honing his music and acting skills on stage at Riverside-Brookfield High School. 

Two decades later, the Brookfield native is an accomplished performer and artist, who has a major role in a world-premiere production with the renowned Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. 

Through July 16, Pawlik stars as Martin in Lookingglass’ “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon,” a musical exploring the story of first-generation Asian American newlyweds who embrace “the worst of the American dream” — both adventures and misadventures — while road tripping across the country.  

The play was written by Matthew C. Yee, who appeared on Broadway in “Almost Famous.”

“The show has a lot of dark humor [and] observations about current society,” Pawlik said. “It has some deep subjects which it deals with, but you leave the show hopefully having experienced a lot of different emotions. And, it has really great music —all the songs are super memorable and effective.”

In his role as Martin, Pawlik says his character is — to put bluntly — not a nice guy.

“Martin’s a dangerous man with a shady past,” he said. “A lot of shows have to have a bad guy, and Martin is not a nice guy. Martin is kind of the overarching danger in the show — the kind of bad guy that he is an amalgam of the things that are feared in American society, including people who take advantage of people in certain ways.”

A 2003 graduate of RBHS, Pawlik says his high school experience fostered his lifelong passion for music and theater. During his time at RBHS, Pawlik served as drum major of the marching band, performed as a lead actor in stage productions all four years, and was a founding member of the school’s chamber singers and men’s ensemble group. 

“Diane Marelli and Kevin McOlgan were the choir and band directors while I was at RB, and they are some of the main reasons why me and several of my classmates really took a strong favor towards being artists, making music and theater,” he said. “The program was very strong back then, and I definitely credit everything I did at RB as what really led me to loving the arts.”

After receiving his B.A. in music performance in 2009 from North Central College in Naperville, Pawlik immersed himself in the theater world, both locally and nationwide.

He’s worked extensively at Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace as a stage manager, backstage crew member and performer, acted at Paramount Theatre in Aurora and Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place in Chicago, and has performed nationally at The Pasadena Playhouse in California), Actors Theatre of Louisville and American Repertory Theater in Boston.

A commercial actor as well, Pawlik has appeared in TV commercials, and most recently, played a bank manager on an episode of NBC’s award-winning primetime drama, “Chicago Fire.”

“It is a constant effort that you’re looking for the next show, because shows in Chicago don’t run for years like they do on Broadway,” Pawlik said. “I’ll do a show for three months, and then I’m usually auditioning for something right after. It is the kind of job that you always have to keep yourself prepared and ready for auditions and in shape.”

In addition to acting, Pawlik sings with “The Four C Notes,” a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tribute band, and is a founding member of “Cowboy Jukebox,” a country-influenced alt-rock cover band. 

Pawlik’s work with Lookingglass comes 11 years after performing as an understudy in a show and working with the company in a variety of workshops. 

“Lookingglass is a very supportive theater for new work — they tend to do shows that are originals,” he said. “‘Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon’ is very fun, and we’re performing at an intimate theater where you’re not going to miss a moment no matter where you’re sitting. It’s very cool to be so close to experiencing this live, concert-like show.”

Now married to a fellow actor, Leah Morrow, and raising two daughters in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood, Pawlik’s message for young people interested in acting and music is simple: don’t be afraid to seek guidance from others and find a way to forge your own path. 

“Start playing music, take voice lessons, participate in community theater — reach for that next step and try something that looks cool,” he said. “Keep your ears open, go to the theaters, find people who can get you in touch with others. It doesn’t matter where you come from — you can make something if you find people who are passionate and you just go for it.”

Lookingglass, which is celebrating 35 years of theater in Chicago, is located at 821 N. Michigan Ave. Late last week, the theater announced that due to ongoing struggles along with other nonprofit theaters across the country following the pandemic, it will be reducing staff and producing fewer shows and operating in different ways as it works to reimagine its future.

In a statement from theater leadership, Lookingglass added it will be launching a public campaign to raise $2.5 million to invest in the company’s future and remain committed to developing original programming and continued investment with Chicago Public Schools. 

For more information about Lookingglass and to purchase tickets for “Lucy and Charlie’s Honeymoon,” visit lookingglasstheatre.org.

An installation by Tim Portlock, professor of art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Located north of downtown St. Louis, at the intersection of Cass and Jefferson avenues, the project combines oral histories and special effects software to create architectural renderings of the now-demolished Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex. (Photo: Whitney Curtis/Washington University)
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And now fifty years later
I’m looking back to that pile of rubble
How is it possible that I could’ve seen the future from a top that rubble
— Michael Willis, former Pruitt-Igoe resident

Cities rise and fall and rise again, sometimes all at once.

Standing at the intersection of Cass and Jefferson avenues, one looks north to the emerging National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus and south to the dense urban forest that still marks the former site of Pruitt-Igoe, the vast St. Louis housing project that was infamously razed a half-century before.

In his recent commission for Counterpublic 2023, the citywide public art triennial, digital artist Tim Portlock uses special effects software to create detailed, if highly subjective, architectural renderings of the Pruitt-Igoe complex based on the oral histories of former residents. The resulting images, mounted across a series of wooden panels, are at once warm, ghostly, intimate and melancholy — a testament to the promise Pruitt-Igoe once held and to the people who once lived there.

Portlock, a professor of art at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, is one of more than two-dozen artists, collectives and community organizers, many with WashU connections, invited to create projects for this year’s Counterpublic.

Organized by The Luminary, the exhibition explores the entanglements of past, present and future in St. Louis’ built environment. Artwork locations roughly mirror the arc of Jefferson Avenue, flowing from the Old North neighborhood, through downtown’s new Brickline Greenway and south to Cherokee Street and the Mississippi riverfront.

Juan William Chávez (right), lecturer in art, leads a workshop for Counterpublic 2023. His project, “Decolonizing the Hive: Native Bee Stewardship Network,” highlights parallels between colony collapse disorder and issues facing contemporary cities, from blight and dispossession to environmental racism and perceptions of vacancy. (Photo: Whitney Curtis/Washington University)
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At the exhibition’s northeastern edge is “Decolonizing the Hive: Native Bee Stewardship Network” by Sam Fox School lecturer Juan William Chávez. Centered at the nonprofit Northside Workshop, which Chávez directs, the project encompasses a chemical-free teaching garden, bee sanctuary sculptures, a native bee zine and public engagement opportunities highlighting the importance of bees and pollinators to the urban ecosystem.

A half-mile west, in St. Louis Place Park, is “Bird and Lava (Scott Joplin),” an immense sonic installation by New York-based artist Torkwase Dyson. Inspired by the iconic St. Louis ragtime composer, Dyson — whose work is featured in a parallel exhibition at WashU’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum — mixes sound samples with a geometric compositional system derived from spaces associated with slavery. Rows of vertical slats, for example, curve outward as they rise, subtly suggesting the ribs of ship.

“While You’re Still Here” by Yvonne Osei (MFA ’16). Located on Jefferson Avenue, between the intersections with Scott and Chouteau, the installation combines photographs of flowers and everyday workers. (Photo: Whitney Curtis/Washington University)
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Sir David Adjaye, architect of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., received WashU’s International Humanities Prize in 2018. For Counterpublic, he returns to St. Louis with “Asaase III,” a rammed-earth sculpture that will be permanently installed on the grounds of The Griot Museum of Black History.

Regenerative land artist Jordan Weber — who recently completed a residency with the Sam Fox School, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity — contributes “Defensive Landscape,” a series of obsidian boulders with commemorative bronze plaques. Situated in Memorial Plaza, near what was once the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood, the piece will be reinstalled as part of a rainwater garden in Peace Park, now under development in St. Louis’ College Hill neighborhood.

Continuing south along Jefferson, “While You’re Still Here” by Yvonne Osei (MFA ’16) greets motorists and pedestrians crossing the bridge between Scott and Chouteau avenues. Anchored by four large works printed on vinyl, the multipart installation intertwines portraits of everyday workers with brightly colored fields of flowers.

Multidisciplinary artist, and Indigenous futurist, X created this analog projection, titled “(a river) will flow” for the Mississippi River Bluffs, at 3939 South 1st St. (Image: Whitney Curtis/Washington University)

Other Couterpublic participants include celebrated Native artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a former Sam Fox School Island Press fellow, who presents two new works at the artist cooperative gallery Monaco; and photographer and time-based artist Jen Everett (MFA ’19), who developed a series of community workshops focusing on preservation, record-keeping and the creation of vernacular archives. Micah Mickles (MFA ’24) served as the exhibition’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts Fellow.

Counterpublic 2023 remains on view through July 15. For a complete list of artists and projects, visit Counterpublic.org.