Lauren Pressler
St. Louis, Missouri
In 2011 Lauren Pressler completed her masters degree in Fine Arts at Washington University. Pressler constructs fabric and found artifice sculptural works that explore contemporary body politics. She was most recently awarded the Millikin Graduate Award for a position as a resident artist at Cite International des Arts in Paris, France. Her art has been exhibited throughout the west coast, in St Louis and most recently in France. Formerly, she served as a guest curator for the Oregon Jewish Museum an archivist at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and exhibition preparator at the Berkeley Art Museum.
Presentation(s):
THE HINGE – Art Gallery. Thought Salon. Creative Turning Point.
Day 2 / Apr, 13 @ 4:15 pm
Lower Level : Room C
Recent decades have witnessed a spate of commercial and cultural growth throughout St. Louis city, but elisions persist, especially those that embrace the fine arts. Predominate concerns include where emergent artists can show their work and come into contact with viable patrons, as extant venues by and large do not exist at this time. To engage these questions and launch a dialogue about how the gallery space itself can bring artists, curators, patrons, and communities together, this panel includes a wide variety of arts-passionate professionals: Lauren Pressler, visual artist and curator; Francesca Wilmott, director of Los Caminos apartment gallery and assistant registrar at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum; Eileen G’Sell, Mentor St. Louis activist, poet and lecturer at Washington University; Bryan Laughlin Jr., fine-art furniture dealer and antique restoration specialist; and Galen Gondolfi, proprietor of fort gondo.compound for the arts.
The panel will explore the relatively recent history of the apartment gallery as a space in St. Louis, the pros and cons of such developments, and the prospect of a new kind of gallery in the near future. How could such a space accommodate the emergent artist while bringing together diverse participants? How have upstart galleries already strengthened the region, and what can we learn from each other? How can this type of space serve both as cultural crossroad and nexus of distinguished artistic pursuits?
