On Sunday I decided to spend a couple hours hiking around one of St. Louis' nicest outdoor locations, Laumeier Sculpture Park. Laumeier is home to many unique and incredible artworks that populate the park's nature trail, fields, and area around the museum shop and indoor gallery. As I drove out there I was expecting some time to myself; a simple and quiet excursion with local fauna and some great, larger-than-life sculptures. So imagine my surprise when I found myself as one of the many attendees of the PNC Arts Alive: Discover Laumeier Festival. The afternoon turned out to be a lot more fun and interesting than I had originally intended. Not only did I enjoy the festival, I also got to reconnect with an old friend who was volunteering at the event. He and I got some henna tattoos, one of the many free and fun activities at the festival, and then I got my own personalized tour. There is nothing like a walk in the woods where the inhabitants are the site-specific creations of artists' imaginations with your own guide. I would compare it to Willy Wonka taking you around his chocolate factory, except at Laumeier I imagine they would frown on it if I tried to eat any of the artworks.
One of my favorite pieces at Laumeier, which my friend and I interacted with and talked about, is actually a bridge by Dan Graham entitled Triangular Bridge Over Water. This piece is really interesting because it plays a number of tricks on the eyes. As you step onto the iron grating of the structure your gaze it drawn downward to the water, which is viewed through numerous small rectangles, like a grid. While staring at the water babbling passed the assurance of solid ground melts away. Once you look up and rub that optical trick from your eyes there is another. To one side there is a second grid, no longer below your feet but vertical and rising over you at an angle, with much larger rectangular sections. It looks like multiple windows stacked on top of each other and it divides the landscape into categories. Like the artist is trying to organize the view for you into individual blocks, meant to be taken in one at a time. This view is less disorienting than the first and makes you feel like the world has been put back into its proper place; nicely packaged and organized in a way that makes visual sense. Just as you are feeling at peace with the world again, you turn 180 degrees and are met by four panels of two-way mirrors that reflect you, the grating and stream below, the grid and landscape behind, and still allow you to view the landscape in front. The eyes try to focus on something but they really can't. All you can see are leaves forming a human silhouette that moves as you do and as you don't, because it waves as the branches dance in the breeze and shimmers as the sunlight bounces off the stream. The world that surrounds this silhouette is made up of large grids, small grids, no grids, leaves, water, branches, sky, tinted glass, and the occasional squirrel. Dan Graham's bridge is marvelous. What appears to be a simple conduit from one side of a stream to the other is actually a composite of frames that completely reshapes how the viewer sees the landscape.
My other favorite piece at Laumeier is also out hiding in the woods. This is a piece by the artist Mary Miss called Pool Complex: Orchard Valley and it touches on a lot of archeological themes and focuses on the passage of time. Mary Miss actually incorporated an abandoned pool that was built back in the early 20th century when Laumeier was not a public park but instead someone's private land. The family that originally built the pool also incorporated a kitchen and dance floor, and the site was often used for entertaining. The artist built several wooden structures that invite visitors to circumvent and explore the area surrounding the original pool. Her attraction to the site was the ruinous feel of this old, cement-lined hole. Like so many cultures that have built up on top of the architectural remains of their past, Mary Miss wanted to redevelop what she viewed as an archeological site. The material she used, mostly wood, is not treated with any type of protective coating, so it too will reflect the passage of time as it ages and decays. Her point, I believe, is that time eventually erodes away everything we create, sometimes with the exception of the basic forms and foundations which are buried. Buried and lost, or perhaps buried with the hope of eventual rediscovery. She calls our attention back to the past and how it shapes our present and maybe even our future. That's pretty deep for a six-foot shallow swimming pool. It's an amazing piece. I also just want to add that the name Mary Miss is an incredibly endearing name and makes me like the piece more.
There is so much more art to be discovered and explored out at Laumeier Sculpture Park. In addition to the permanent pieces they also put on rotating exhibitions, both in the indoor galleries and out in the park. The current exhibition is Camp Out: Finding Home In An Unstable World. Tied into this exhibition are programs and activities, like the festival I happily stumbled into, and I already have plans to return for the September 7th campfire chat with the Camp Out artist Michael Rakowtiz (with the added plus of ghost stories), as well as the September 8th-9th overnight in Laumeier. Setting up a tent and toasting some s'mores next to a work by Donald Judd!? Yes Please!!!
Have you ever visited a sculpture park or garden? How did you feel about viewing art out in nature rather than in a traditional museum?
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