When Two Become One! Saint Louis Arts Groups Hopeful of Merger Impact

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

Detail of "A Prince Meeting a Muslim Holy Man" (1610) at the Saint Louis Art Museum

Many believe, including me that nonprofit news partnerships are the future for arts journalism. On Monday another sign of that hopeful change was the merger of the St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon to become one news organization. "Commercial media have no interest in the arts," said one Saint Louis arts administrator (and friend). "Today, when I send a press release or an email pitch, I get a call-back from the advertising department." The consolidation of the two nonprofit news organizations will significantly improve their business capacity; and the arts community is hopeful it will also result in more depth explorations of arts issues; and stories about artists in the community.

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Kansas City Trip Shows Visual Component of Interfaith Worship

JBU STUDENT ONLINE
By Sydney Van Wyk

MISSOURI---Many students had their first experience with Orthodox Christianity and Islamic art during a trip last weekend to Kansas City. Students in Honors Integrated Theology visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to tour the “Medieval and Islamic Art” exhibit on Saturday, Nov. 9, before experiencing a Vespers service at a Russian Orthodox church. The next morning they attended a Sunday church service at a Greek Orthodox church. [link]

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Christians for the Visual Arts Traveling Exhibition Arrives in the Ozarks

NSCHRISTIAN COUNTRY
By Moriah Isringhausen, College of the Ozarks

Michael Buesking, Healing of the Blind Man

MISSOURI---The Boger Gallery will present “Touch, Anoint, Heal: God with Us” Oct. 28 through Dec. 1. The exhibition, which will travel across North America for the next two years, features works by prominent artists of faith and is presented by the organization, Christians in the Visual Arts. Artwork for the exhibition was selected by Richard Cummings, associate professor of art at College of the Ozarks. For more information, call (417) 690-2255 or email bogergallery@cofo.edu. [link]

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Saint Louis Art Museum Urges Visitors to Take a Religious Leap for it's 20th Anniversary

SAINT LOUIS BEACON
By Nancy Fowler

"Paranirvana" (1999-2012) by Lewis deSoto, installed at MOCRA in 2013.

MISSOURI---An invitation to cross thresholds into unfamiliar territory is the theme as Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) marks two decades of existence. “Thresholds: MOCRA at 20” is a two-part exhibit reprising segments of previous shows dating back to the museum’s 1993 debut. Part One, open through Dec. 15, revisits MOCRA’s first 10 years. Works examining all religions and spiritual quests have always had a place at MOCRA. Founding director Terry Dempsey wants to continue and expand that diversity. “We’re trying to build a bridge among various faith traditions,” Dempsey said. [link]

Museum Of Contemporary Religious Art: "Thresholds: MOCRA at 20" (Part One ends Dec. 15); Saint Louis University, Saint Loius, MO; 221 N. Grand Blvd; (314) 977-7170; slu.edu/mocra

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Kansas City Art Museum Offers an Engaging Look at Islamic Art Through the Ages

KANSAS CITY STAR
By Alice Thorson

Shirin Neshat, Iranian, b. 1957. Stories of Martydom (detail), 1994.
Black and white RC print and ink. Photo by permission of the artist and lender.

TOPEKA---Although Americans’ relationship with Islam is often fraught with fear and suspicion, a small but highly engaging exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art offers multiple points of positive contact, from the sheer beauty of historical works to the abhorrence of violence expressed in contemporary pieces. Called “Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists,” the exhibit brings the culture of Islam to life with stellar objects, striking pairings, moving images and music. [link] 

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: “Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists” (Ends April 27), 4525 Oak St., Kansas City, MO; (816) 751-1278, nelson-atkins.org

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$25,000 Arts Grant to Arts & Faith Organization in Saint Louis

SAINT LOUIS-TIMES DISPATCH
By Tim Townsend

MISSOURI---Sometimes crisis can birth noble efforts. And a new St. Louis arts organization is proof. Opera Theatre St. Louis’s “The Death of Klinghoffer,” about the murder in 1985 of a Jewish American tourist by members of the Palestine Liberation Front on a Mediterranean cruise ship, was a year away from production. Knowing the kind of ugly debates John Adams’s opera had provoked since it was first staged in 1991, Timothy O’Leary, general director of Opera Theatre, set up the lunch at Duff’s. Now, another product of that lunch conversation is taking shape in the form of Arts & Faith St. Louis. The organization will team up with regional arts institutions to present exhibits and performances on the convergence of faith and arts. The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis has approved at the committee level a $25,000 grant for the new organization. [link]

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An Artist’s Revenge: Missouri's George Caleb Bingham

THE NEW YORK TIMES 
By Nicole Etcheson

“Order No. 11,” by George Caleb Bingham | State Historical Society of Missouri

MISSOURI---By the time the Civil War broke out, the Missouri artist and politician George Caleb Bingham had, in the words of the art historian Joan Stack, “achieved national fame as a quintessentially American genre painter.” Art historians have traced the connections between images in “Order No. 11” and depictions of religious themes. The black man and boy resemble representations of Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden. The slave woman holding her swooning mistress evokes a Renaissance Pietà, and the kneeling daughter resembles images of kneeling saints. Professor Rash argues that Bingham, for his composition, also drew from magazine depictions of Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, including the placement of buildings and the image of the kneeling woman. In Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, the woman kneels over the body of her slain husband as the attack on Lawrence rages around her. [link]

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