ART@MURMURATION
PRESENTED BY THE WILLIAM T. KEMPER FOUNDATION
Art@Murmuration brings the convergence of art, music, science, and technology into sharp focus with a collection of innovative installations. Five St. Louis artists, selected by a jury of local curators and artists, have created experiences that range from interactive works that invite viewers to explore abstract environments to installations that comment on how technology has impacted our daily lives.
You be the judge! Use our festival app to vote for your favorite installation and the winning artist will receive $5000 plus the opportunity to exhibit their work on the Cortex campus until next year’s event. Look for our app closer to the festival.
Art@Murmuration is free and open to everyone. No ticket is required.
ARTIST PROFILES
Vita Eruhimovitz with Michael Rees
Vita Eruhimovitz (born Kharkov, Ukraine) grew up in Israel and currently lives and works in New York and Saint Louis. Eruhimovitz received her Master of Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Shenkar College. Eruhimovitz’s background in computer science and bioinformatics and her interest in science and technology inspire and inform her work. She works in multiple media such as sculpture, installation, and digital media. Eruhimovitz is interested in the ways the modern culture perceives nature and pushes the boundaries of the physical nature into the digital realm. She explores the ways in which human-made spaces, systems and relationships interconnect with the environment that is being constantly modified by humans. Her recent focus has been in interactive sculpture and digital fabrication. Some of her projects reflect on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the secret life of algorithms. Vita’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including, the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis, and at the San Diego Art Institute Museum.
Michael Rees was born in Kansas City Missouri. Rees holds a Masters of Fine Art from Yale University and a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute where he worked with Dale Eldred, and Jim Leedy. He studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in 1983-84 with Joseph Beuys. Currently he is a Professor of Sculpture and Digital Media at William Paterson University. He is also the Director of the Center for New Art and a founding board member of the Digital Stone Project. His work traverses a wide range of activities and efforts. He is a New York Artist who’s been showing his work since the 1980’s in Museums and art spaces in the United States and Europe. His current works utilizes robots, software, and mixed reality to create rich media experiences in a plethora of materials. His work weaves complex narrative around process and object that are at times grotesque or cerebral, uncanny or experientially charged.
Daniel McGrath
Daniel McGrath received his Master of Arts from Kings College at University of London in 2005 and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from UCLA in 2000. McGrath has exhibited his work nationally and internationally in collaboration with Yarat Contemporary Art, Baku, Azerbaijan; The Fabrikken, Copenhagen; EXPO Chicago, Hunter College Times Square Gallery, New York; Office Space, Los Angeles; Sweetboy Projects, Los Angeles; Pirate, Burford, United Kingdom. His solo and group exhibitions in St. Louis include Laumeier Sculpture Park, Good Citizen Gallery, Luminary Center for the Arts, PSTL, Hunt Gallery Webster University, and Forest Park Community College among others. As an independent curator, McGrath has organized exhibitions in Baku, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Oxford and St. Louis. In addition, he is a contributing art writer for Art Papers, Sculpture and Site 95. Currently, McGrath is an adjunct professor in the art department at Lindenwood University, director of Duet, St. Louis and co-director of Isolation Room/Gallery Kit in St. Louis
Open Source Architecture & John Carpenter
Open Source Architecture (OSA) was founded by Chandler Ahrens, Eran Neuman, and Aaron Sprecher as a research and design practice that undertakes projects ranging from industrial design and exhibition design to residential, commercial, and institutional buildings. Researchers and staff are engaged in diverse expertise considering that architectural design is foremost linked to our current technological conditions where the main emphasis is placed on investigating new modes of spatiality and materiality made available through the accelerated changes occurring in our contemporary culture, technological and environmental conditions. This approach to architecture recognizes the necessity to reconsider the nature of the architectural object as a dynamic system that stems from transdisciplinary collaborations with experts in structural and civil engineering, computer sciences, environmental design, and manufacturing among others. As a result, Open Source Architecture acts as a decentralized design and research organization with offices in St. Louis, Tel Aviv and Montreal; and experts in Europe, Asia and the United States.
For art@murmuration, OSA is collaborating with John Carpenter who is an interactive digital artist and designer whose work explores the use of gesture with complex data and spaces. Based in Los Angeles, he works for Oblong Industries as an interaction designer and g-speak software engineer and is a visiting professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Media Arts + Practice Division and Loyola Marymount University’s Multimedia Arts Department. John earned his Master of Fine Arts from the department of Design Media Arts at UCLA and has recently exhibited work at ACME. Los Angeles, Young Projects, and the Academy Awards.
Tao + Lee Associates
Tao + Lee Associates is an award winning St. Louis based design firm founded by Peter Tao and Helen Lee. With a collective 60+ years of experience living and practicing architecture in St. Louis, New York and London, projects have been located both domestically and internationally. Their clients have included a broad range of local, national and international companies and institutions including MYA Skyline (China), Touchwood Creative, General Growth Properties, Forest Park Forever, Great Rivers Greenway, International Institute, Missouri History Museum, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum, Trailnet, Washington University, and Webster University. Tao+Lee has created two public art projects for Metro Arts in Transit in St. Louis and in 2014, they won the Washington University Sukkah City national competition.
Brett Williams
Brett Williams received his Master of Fine Arts in 1998 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1996 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His selected exhibitions, performances and screenings include: Expo Chicago 2013; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Spiderbug Screening, Chicago; Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis; Yellow Bear Projects, St. Louis; Floor Length and Tux, Chicago; Saint Louis Community College Forest Park; The Luminary Center for the Arts; PSTL Gallery, St. Louis; Open Lot Nashville, Nashville; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Nightingale Theater, Chicago; Maps Contemporary Art Space, Belleville, IL; Ellen Curlee Gallery, St. Louis; Boots Contemporary Art Space, St. Louis; Kunstraum Kruezberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; Toy Shop Collective, Brooklyn; Gallery 210, University Missouri St. Louis and White Flag Projects, St. Louis. He is recipient of many awards and grants including Critical Mass Economic Stimulus Award and a Regional Arts Commission Artist Assistance Grant.
JURY PROFILES
Michael Behle
Michael Behle is an artist living and working in the St. Louis area; his work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Behle is the Director of Paul Artspace, a residency program in Florissant, Missouri, which he co-founded in 2012. He is also the co-founder of the project space Museum Blue. He is currently Assistant Teaching Professor for studio arts at the University of Missouri – St. Louis.
Behle received his M.F.A. from Rutgers University. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Studio Center and the Community Arts Training Program through the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission.
Leslie Markle
Leslie Markle is the Curator for Public Art at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. He manages the Washington University Art on Campus program, which seeks to activate the campus community and contribute to the cultural identity of the St. Louis metropolitan area. In 2015, Markle received a mayoral appointment to serve on the Lambert International Airport Arts Advisory Committee. Previously, he held the position of the Director of Public Art and Design at the Arts Council for Long Beach in Southern California.
Markle studied studio art and design at Otis College of Art and Design and has a B.F.A., M.A., and M.F.A. from Cal State University, Long Beach.
Thomas Sleet
Thomas Sleet is a sculptor and painter based in St. Louis, Missouri who works with common materials – cement, metal, organic fiber, resin, wood, and oxides – to merge organic structures with geometry to engage a new vernacular. Sleet’s work was exhibited in a 2002 solo show at the Mitchell Museum at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. He is represented by Bruno David Contemporary Art in St. Louis. Sleet is engaged in social practice and has lectured, executed artist residencies, and seminars at Webster University, University of Missouri – St. Louis, the College School in Webster Groves, and the School for Visual and Performing Arts in St. Louis.
Sleet received his BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in ceramics with a minor in sculpture.
