Thematic postwar, contemporary art installation opening this fall

Exhibition of prints by Jasper Johns also opening in the East Building

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 29, 2026—Organized in new thematic groupings, a presentation of works from the Saint Louis Art Museum’s postwar and contemporary collection will open this fall in the East Building galleries.

Titled “Art After 1945,” the installation opens with a public celebration from 4 to 8 pm Nov. 6 featuring live music and gallery talks.  

“This is the most ambitious reinstallation of this collection since the East Building opened in 2013,” said Melissa Venator, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Modern Art. “Historically, these galleries were organized in chronological order by artistic movement. In this new presentation, each gallery will be self-contained and organized around simple concepts that invite new perspectives.” 

With more than 50 works across media—including some that have not been seen in a decade or more—the galleries are organized by themes of line, material, series, history, expression, color, play and blur. For example, the “Material” gallery focuses on works made from stone, including Richard Long’s sculpture “Mississippi Circle,” which features more than four tons of limestone rocks arranged in a circle on the ground. Portraiture—including Chuck Close’s “Keith” and Gerhard Richter’s “Betty”—is central to the “Expression” gallery, and more whimsical works, like Tamara Johnson’s “Cracker with Cheese” and Erwin Wurm’s untitled sculpture featuring a layer of dust inside an otherwise empty glass bell jar, are displayed in the “Play” gallery. 

Other artists featured in the installation include Alexander Calder, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kehinde Wiley, Claes Oldenburg, Leonardo Drew, Kahlil Robert Irving and Isamu Noguchi. 

“I hope this installation makes contemporary art feel more approachable,” said Venator, who curated the presentation. “You do not have to start with a movement or a date. You can start with what you see: the material, the scale, the color, the subject or the way one work changes how you look at another.” 

In addition to the themed sections, “Art After 1945” will feature a new-acquisition gallery with works rotating twice a year—starting with “Phrasing to the Floor, Softly, as in an Evening Sunset (for Nina),” a 2026 acquisition by Jennie C. Jones—and a temporary exhibition titled “Signs Under Pressure: Jasper Johns Lithographs.” 

“Signs Under Pressure”—curated by Venator and Clare Kobasa, SLAM’s associate curator of prints, drawings, and photographs—presents a selection of Johns’s prints from the 1960s and 1970s. When the American artist began making prints in 1960, he used lithography to transform some of his best-known subjects—the American flag, maps, numbers—in new ways through transfer, pressure and ink. “Signs Under Pressure” opens in Gallery 250 on Nov. 6 with the rest of “Art After 1945.” It remains on view until May 16, 2027.  

Nov. 6 also marks the opening of another exhibition at SLAM: “Unsettling the City: Julie Mehretu’s ‘Epigraph, Damascus’ ” allows for close looking at contemporary artist Julie Mehretu’s large-scale work “Epigraph, Damascus,” a 17-foot-long print that combines architectural renderings and abstract marks. It is on view through July 11 in Gallery 235 and Sidney S. and Sadie M. Cohen Gallery 234.  

CONTACT: Molly Morris, 314.655.5250, [email protected]  

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