The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is pleased to present Contemporary Masterworks: St. Louis Collects. This exhibition highlights contemporary collections from St. Louis. For the first time the general public has rare access to exceptional work by internationally acclaimed artists, who have been sought out by influential St. Louis collectors. The Contemporary’s director Paul Ha, chief curator Shannon Fitzgerald, and curatorial assistant Andrea Green have visited the local homes and offices of St. Louis’s most passionate collectors and have selected contemporary work from the some of city’s most prestigious collections. Teamed with these collections are works provided by emerging collectors, a testimony to the vibrant and growing collecting community St. Louis is proud to boast. The show is proof of St. Louis’s legacy—of being one of the leading cities in supporting art and artists long before the rest of the nation discovers the talent—that is alive and well in local collections. In conjunction with Contemporary Masterworks: St. Louis Collects, the Contemporary provides programs investigating the dynamics of collecting—the benefits, challenges and risks involved. These initiatives are hoped to encourage those who have not thought to collect or are new to the world of contemporary art collecting, to do so.
Contemporary Masterworks features work by artists Polly Apfelbaum, Donald Baechler, William Bailey, Stephan Balkenhol, Matthew Barney, Tina Barney, Jennifer Bartlett, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tony Berlant, Alighiero Boetti, Louise Bourgeois, Georg Breuer, Christo, Chuck Close, John Coplans, Hanne Darboven, Thomas Demand, Lesley Dill, Tara Donovan, Carroll Dunham, Michael Eastman, Tony Feher, Lucian Freud, Lee Friedlander, Tom Friedman, Ellen Gallagher, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Dan Gouldini, Gary Hill, Jim Hodges, Howard Hodgkin, Candida Höfer, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Tom Huck, Bill Jensen, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Karin Kneffel, Jonathan Lasker, Louise Lawler, Wolfgang Laib, Maya Lin, Robert Mangold, Fabian Marcaccio, Brice Marden, Cameron Martin, Ana Mendieta, Tracey Moffatt, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Vik Muniz, Simone Nieweg, Julian Opie, Gabriel Orozco, Elizabeth Peyton, David Reed, Robin Rhodes, Gerhard Richter, Pipilotti Rist, Milton Rogovin, Alexander Ross, Thomas Ruff, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Tom Sachs, Lisa Sanditz, Julian Schnabel, Andre Serrano, Joel Shapiro, Cindy Sherman, James Siena, Kiki Smith, Erik Spehn, Mary Sprague, Frank Stella, Mary Ann Strandell, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Wayne Thiebaud, Michael Thomas, Wolfgang Tillmans, James Turrell, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, Rachel Whiteread, and Erwin Wurm.
Contemporary Masterworks: St. Louis Collects is organized for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis by Paul Ha, Director; Shannon Fitzgerald, Chief Curator; and Andrea Green, Curatorial Assistant.