Critical Mass for the Visual Arts is a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region.
Latest:
5 Questions- Yvonne Osei
Join us in conversation with transmedial artist Yvonne Osei, a 2018 Creative Stimulus winner, 2016-17 Romare Bearden Fellow, and recipient of the 2018 Saint Louis Visionary Award for Emerging Artist . Yvonne is a German-born Ghanaian artist based in St. Louis. Her creative practice examines beauty and colorism, the politics of clothing, complexities associated with global trade, and the residual implications of colonialism in post-colonial West Africa and Western cultures. Osei received her M.F.A. in 2016 from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was a Chancellors Graduate Fellow, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer T. Olin Fellow, and Danforth Scholar. She received her B.F.A. from Webster University in 2013 and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Fashion Design and Business at Lindenwood University. Osei is currently the inaugural Curator-In-Residence at the Center of Creative Arts (COCA) and an Adjunct Professor at Webster University in St. Louis. Her solo exhibitions, “Tailored Landscapes” and “Who Discovers the Discoverer?” were recently on view at Laumeier Sculpture Park as part of the Kranzberg Exhibition Series, and the Bruno David Gallery where she is represented.
Artist’s Website: http://www.yvonneosei.com/
5 Questions: Special Episode- Live Audio of Critical Conversations SITE-SPECIFIC at G-CADD (October 26, 2018)
This special episode of 5 Questions is a live recording of the 10th Critical Conversation: SITE-SPECIFIC, which took place October 26, 2018 at Granite City Art and Design District (G-CADD). Initiated by Gavin Kroeber, this discussion emerges as a community roundtable on site-specific work and the social conditions in which such work is situated. Much of the most important art in St. Louis is marked by a keen sense of site-specificity—attending explicitly to the social conditions that define the city and the region, engaging with the particulars of its neighborhoods and communities. The first half of the decade was arguably defined by celebrated placemaking projects and critical art-activism interventions. This summer saw a number of announcements about ambitious cultural initiatives on the horizon—the Chouteau Greenway, a new affordable artist housing initiative in Gravois Park, and the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Art Challenge grant that St. Louis is a finalist for—all of which promise to use art to re-imagine and even re-shape the urban fabric. In this moment, with St. Louis poised between two intensive waves of site-specific art projects, this roundtable offers a space to consider site-specific art practice. How has work that engages the city shifted in the past decade, and why? What work is happening right now and what spaces of opportunity are emerging? How do local artists want to engage with the major projects that are coming and what independent paths are open?
Announcing the 2018 Creative Stimulus Awardees- Edo Rosenblith, Yvonne Osei, and Steph Zimmerman
Critical Mass for the Visual Arts is pleased to announce the winners of the 10th annual Creative Stimulus Award. This year’s selected artists are Edo Rosenblith, Yvonne Osei and Steph Zimmerman! Creative Stimulus awards unrestricted funding to support artists to pursue special projects, experiment with new techniques, and deepen their understanding of their working processes. Each artist will receive an award of $1,500 for their use as creative operating capital along with the opportunity to present their work in an exhibition in 2019. The artists were selected by a jury from over 25 St. Louis-area visual artists who applied for this award, which recognizes artists for their outstanding work and commitment to developing their careers.
