Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

3750 Washington Blvd., St. Louis 63108
314-535-4660

Free admission and free street parking

info@camstl.org

Established 1980.  Building built in 2003. 

This museum started as a small gallery in 1980 and then expanded in 2003 to its new 27,000-square-foot building in the Grand Center Arts District. 

Obviously the architectural style of the building is contemporary as well, as verified, too, in the lobby.

The museum operates as a non-collecting museum in that it presents art on loan from other institutions or individuals.  It does not collect nor own art. Instead CAM offers three-four months long exhibits in their three main galleries, their project wall, their street view, and their two educational galleries. 

Their largest gallery currently has a display called Basquiat Before Basquiat: East 12th Street, 1979–1980 and includes works created by Jean-Michel Basquiat when he was 19/20 years old. Last year one of his paintings sold for the most ever of any American artwork - $110,487,500. He died at age 27 from a drug overdose.

His roommate and friend Alexis Adler, documented the year with photographs including photos of the artist.

In Adler's own words: 

Adler often photographed Basquait's works including those below: Painted television in the apartment, Briefcase with cassette recorders in the apartment, "The Baby" in the apartment, Refrigerator in the apartment, and Painted jacket with gun and Pepto-Bismol bottle, hanging in the apartment. 

Untitled: Five acrylics on sweatshirts was actually on display!

Untitled: Acrylic on Found Pepto-Bismol bottle

Untitled: Acrylic on Tyvec suit with laminated badge

Basquait often used a notebook as another vehicle for creative experimentation and expression. 

Untitled:  This is a story I have tried to write many times. 

Self-portrait: Crayon on paper

Untitled (Rock Hudson): printed paper collage and ink on paper

Three Eighty Seven: oil on canvas - from 1984, one of his later works on display

Bayer Blackhead from 1984/85

Untitled: 1980

A second small gallery displayed works of Sanford Biggers, a Harlem-based interdisciplinary artist born in 1970. This bronze with black patina is titled BAM (for Jordan).

Infinite Tabernacle is an HD video installation with carpet lasting almost 4.5 minutes. 

Shepherd, 2016, consists of assorted textiles and antique quilts, with glitter, tar, acrylic and spray paint.  

These two by Biggers are in the CAM lobby: Floral Seated Warrior and Pink Seated Warrior

A third gallery holds Superflex: European Union Mayotte.  Superflex is a Danish art collective which combines art, science, technology, and engineering to explore social issues. This installation has two screens. 

The smaller screen shows a boat overloaded with passengers crossing the Indian Ocean in search of a better life. 

The larger screen documents the construction of the fiberglass boat and the island of Anjouan. 

The project wall currently has a work by William Downs, b. 1974, titled Sometimes It Hurts. This large scale drawing addresses the human body. 

The final first floor display is by Jennifer West, young California artist, and is the museum's street view exhibit.  

The artwork, Emoji Piss Film, is on display on the outside of the building and only at night. 

There are two small galleries on the second floor. One of them is the Teen Museum Studies gallery.  This display was done by high school students working six summer weeks with local artist Lizzy Mortinez.  It is called Seeing Red. 

The final gallery upstairs includes works by students at Northwest Academy of Law produced at intensive CAM workshops held each year for one St. Louis Public School. These large three-dimensional art works represent everyday objects. 

To help understand and learn more about the artwork on display the museum offers free and informative fliers in each gallery. There is also an audio tour available which we were not aware of or would have possibly used. 

The second floor also houses an activity room for elementary-aged children. 

Also on this floor is a library and a seating area. 

The museum has a small coffeehouse, Rise Café, which offers in addition to a modern cuisine menu, specific gatherings such as "Drink in Art." 

The Cafe also offers outside eating. 

And of course, there is a gift shop. The shop offers items related to the works on display at the time. A few items one can also order online. 

For lunch we went to Sweetie Pie's made famous through the reality show Welcome to Sweetie Pie's filmed for the Oprah network. This location is walking distance from the museum. 

  There was so much good soul food it was hard to choose! 

   

The jumbo chicken wings, mac and cheese, and cornbread are all favorites there.  

Yummy apple cobbler could not be ignored! 

The restaurant is quite large and also has other locations.  

The service was great.  When we left we ran into Robbie Montgomery, an original back-up singer for Ike and Tina Turner, owner of the restaurants, and star of the show. She was very nice and very friendly. 

Comments:  I am not a big fan of contemporary art but that being said, this is a good museum for both lovers and non-lovers of this art form. The museum offers a variety of galleries and display areas - seven total - increasing your chance that you will enjoy something!  And every three-four months they completely change all of the exhibits again increasing the likelihood that you will find something that you like.   

Also through the use of signs, pamphlets, and the audio tour the museum offers explanations of what you are viewing.  They also have guide-led tours and other options listed on their website.   

The art works were well-displayed. The museum is a nice size in that one can view all in about 1.5 hours or less. The museum is part of the Grand Center Arts Exhibit. 

Despite my basic dislike of contemporary art, I think I will return to CAM in the future. You never know what you will see there! The upcoming exhibits starting in January 2019 look interesting! 

I was impressed with the two small galleries dedicated to the work they do in the community with students. And the library was extensive.  

Sweetie Pie's was fun and yummy!  They worked hard to please us as we placed our order and a waitress carried all of our food to our table from the buffet line.  And talk about comfort food - WOW!  It was a lot of food and thus we took leftovers home.  After hearing about the television show for a number of years it was fun to finally see a Sweetie Pie's and a fun ending to spend a moment with the star/owner as we were leaving.