PHXDW Poster Contest Entry

Me & Malevich 1988

Pompidou again, photo by Ted Fisher.

Learn about Malevich.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimir_Malevich

Beuys Piano 1988

Yes, it's a grand piano covered in felt. Joseph Beuys is one of my all-time favorites so when I spotted this at Pompidou in '88, I took a shot. I guess in France they let you take pictures in museums. Love those French and thank you Lynn Stadum.

Exhibition Poster 2002

Exhibition Announcement 2004

Playback Print Ads 2003/2004

Don't get me wrong. Jim and Laura are great people but I don't think they ever made enough money off their magazine, Playback StL, to pay their freelance contributors. I did some design work for them here and there and they generally paid me in ad space, which I found an equitable arrangement at the time. I took advantage of the deal by announcing exhibitions and services, as you see.

Paper Exhibition Announcement 1997

TAG Iron-On's 2000

Exhibition Review 2010

Here's a write-up by Jessica Baran for the Riverfront Times that I don't think I ever saw until now...

It's Getting Light: New Works by Christopher Gustave and Julie Malone

Repetitive and multilayered geometries are the basic grammar of this exhibition of work by two St. Louis-based artists. Malone composes glossy oil paintings of the accumulated squares that come of a quick brushstroke, building the surface to reveal similar underlayers of dabbed chromatics and occasionally emphasizing the shape of the painted gesture with a drawn square outline. Gustave cuts small squares of paper and layers them in ascending sizes, creating tiny piles of color that are then affixed to a paper page or wood panel in idiosyncratic grids. Anonymous pills make their way onto these piles, and do formal service to the image by their offsetting pale hues and circularity. The exhibition appears like a chronicle of non-dramatic narratives — the kind inflected by mid-daylight, affective moods, weather in flux and the dim bruise of tedium — that over time manage to implicate something larger or incite a revelation by default.

Through February 12 at Hoffman Lachance Contemporary, 2713 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314-960-5322 or www.hoffmanlachancefineart.com. Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sat and by appointment.

SW Lozenge at Mangia Italiano 2009

Okay, this thing was originally made for the Endless Summer show at Mad Art in the summer of 2004, I think. Well, it didn't sell there and hung at some other shows (despite what a pain in the ass it was to schlep around) and finally wound up decorating a wall at St. Louis, South Grand, hipster hub, Mangia Italiano along with a rotating supply of smaller works all of which were treated with a total lack of respect by the staff there. Fortunately, It wasn't long after I took the Lozenge down that collector Mr. Todd Heilman purchased the piece at a reasonable price (and trade for a camera he had).

Spring Collection 2002

Here's another piece that displayed at the 2002 Forest Park show. I hardly even remember making this, though I do remember collecting springs for years. I'd love to say this sold to some lucky art-lover but, to tell you the truth, I lost track of this thing and now all that's left is this picture.

Surface No.1: 578 Objects 1995/2000

This one got started while I was living in San Francisco. I was running my frame shop on Sutter St. and saving all the mat blades I had used for customer work. Once I had accrued enough, I threw them in a bleach solution and let them rust. Then I air-dried them on the window sill for a few days, coated them with urethane and laid them out on my canvas with felt risers for a dimensional, drop-shadow effect. As you can see, I used nothing to measure or regulate the position of the blades and so they go quite skew in the middle, an accident I always loved. Any pigment on the canvas (over gatorboard)is gesso and I left the edges raw for a long while but then when I got to St. Louis I splashed beeswax on them. Refinished and repaired the outer frame as well. Also made a good effort of cleaning and resurfacing the blades (the thing was five years old by then) but mostly succeeded in cutting up my fingers pretty good, so I refinished the blades in my own blood. The piece finally, after showing in San Francisco, Los Angeles and St. Louis, sold to real estate developer Robert Wood and hangs in his offices to this day.

Fur 2005

The Mad Art Gallery in St. Louis was organizing their first benefit show for stray rescue called Mad Arf. What they did was they connected a selection of artists to rescued animals and the artists were meant create works having, in some way, something to do with their assigned animal. Mine was a nicely behaved, if a bit scruffy, old dog named Hogan. I came in one Saturday and met with him and his owner (whose name I forget) and did a roll of film with the intent of using the images in whatever I was about to make. "Lost and Found" was the result; an assemblage piece which incorporated the above picture with the hand in it.

Frozen Faces No.2 2006

I love taking pictures of statues for some reason but I can't, for the life of me, remember where I shot all these. Chicago, maybe, or St. Louis.

TAG Group Artists 2000

Here are my photographs of the artists I selected to participate in the first TAG Group "Retrospective". I made up a catalog for the show and that's where the pictures got used. So, great, here's who these guys are: Erin Kuechler, Rosa Maria Arenas, Lance Gibler, me, Alexa Hoyer, Judy Krogstad, Tim Mancinas, Mandy Marzoratti, Mike Pagano, Scott Pondrom, Ed Reynolds, Burke Richardson, Todd Thomas and Dan Zipperer.