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by Dickson BeallThe Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at

Washington University opens its fall season with the

works of 10 artists.

Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in

Contemporary Art is smartly curated by Meredith

Malone. Both conceptually and visually, the

exhibition packs a wallop.

At rst, Andrea Zittels installation in the

museums entry room may appear as old-fashioned

patterned wallpaper. A satellite photograph,

mirrored into a repeating pattern of urban sprawl,Wall Sprawl #6 (Between Enterprise and Henderson)

is Zittels response to memories of growing up in a

rural area, just outside Las Vegas.

Now called Henderson, the city is a self-contained

afuent community, complete with shopping mall,

isolated from the outside world and considered one

of the safest and best cities in America.

Surrounding the neat boundary of Hendersons

grid-like streets is the stunningly beautiful and

undulating geologic pattern of the desert. Yet the

satellite perspective conveys the clear warning that

independence is limited by water supply, a desert

environment on the edge of life and death.

Zittels theme is one of literatures favorites,

man against nature. The large main gallery of the

exhibition reviews mans pull to power fascism

and terrorism, industrialization and development,

stretching into the clouds with skyscrapers, and

coming together in groups yet often resulting in

human disconnection.

Franz Ackermanns painting, Untitled (yet),

captures well the fragmentary, disjointed urban

wanderers of our time. Its central image is a tram car

oating on a blue-black eld of wired connectivity,

where modernism has devolved into neon ephemeral

fragments of de-humanized technology.

A wall-sized installation of offset posters by Jakob

Kolding, How to Build a Universe that Falls Apart

Two Days Later, places hope for change in individual

action. In the face of monarchs and governments

who dominate history, citizens frequently employ

posters, collage and montage to call for economic and

political change. Multiple copies of four black-and-

white posters of Koldings diagonally-collaged images

of power brokers and protesters are mounted edge-

to-edge, to form a powerful oor-to-ceiling pattern.

Stacks of the posters form solid shapes on the gallery

oor, inviting visitors to extend the message.

German photographer Andreas Gursky, famous

for his landscapes in color, is also known for large

format architecture photographs. An oversize

inkjet print, Beijing, commands a wall and displays

Gurskys dispassionate method of cataloging

architecture. The vaulted spaces in his interior view

of Beijings spectacular Birds Nest, the national

stadium built for the 2008 Olympics, suggests a 21st-

century secular cathedral.

Gursky digitally manipulates images and edits

spaces, while maintaining the immediacy of a

straightforward photograph, in this monumental

work that expresses nationalism and economic

power.

Los Angeles, a 35mm lm by British-American

artist Sarah Morris, doesnt waste a frame of its 26

minutes. Morris captures the time and pace of today

always moving, always connected, always making

images, always serving the ego and the obsession

with fame.

Shooting during Oscar week, Morris took her

camera to the Dolby theater, the red carpeted

sidewalks, the stairs, the stage and backstage,

and through the decentralized architecture of Los

Angeles.

Her lm focuses on psychology and economic

power that drives the electronic cigar-smoking deal-

makers and the persona out front Botox on the face,

tanning bed for the body and Xanax covering the

anxiety. With a plethora of celebrities and cameras

and much blowing of kisses, Morris reveals there

is no underwear beneath the tuxedoed or pink-

feathered surfaces.

The rich texture of the lm, without any dialogue,

uses a techno-music soundtrack and brings to mind

Marshall McLuhan. Morris camera glances across

texting and talking on cell phones, robotic lm and

TV cameras, and picture-gazing at magazines and

newspapers, while not-so-cool books remain on

shelves.

An army of remote-controlled cameras scan

the scene and ditto more of everything-the-same.

Paparazzi stand shoulder-to-shoulder, taking the

same picture.

This exhibition focuses on major challenges,

as man is caught between accelerating time and

collapsing space, clouded by the distractions of

media.

Events

Encountering the City: The Urban Experience

runs through Jan. 4, at the Mildred Lane Kemper

Art Museum/Washington University in St. Louis.

Upcoming events include:

Gallery Talk, Sept. 29, 5 p.m.; Meredith Malone,

associate curator.

Artist Talk, Dec. 1, 5 p.m.; Jakob Kolding.

For more information, visit www.

kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

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Encountering The City

On Display At Kemper

Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in Contemporary Art will be on display at the Kemper Art

Museum at Washington University through Jan. 14. Among the art on display is Franz Ackermanns Untitled

(yet), far left in the frame.

panoramic photo by Dickson Beall

Art ReviewAndrea Zittel,

Wall Sprawl

#6 (Between

Enterprise and

Henderson),

2011 (detail).

Inkjet on J15

Blueback paper,

dimensions

variable.

Courtesy of

Regen Projects,

Los Angeles and

Andrea Rosen

Gallery, New

York. Andrea

Zittel.

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