The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis has received a $75,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, to support a major new installation by contemporary artist Nicole Miller.
Known for her evocative video and multimedia projects, Miller frequently examines themes such as subjectivity, forms of mediation, agency, and race. The new installation, one of Miller’s most ambitious to date, will explore the concept of synesthesia through an intricate, multi-sensory choreography of elements. These range from a 24-channel soundscape and sequences of laser-light animations to a shallow pool of water and fountain with programmed jets.
A core aspect of Miller’s practice is working with young people, especially youth of color, in ways that showcase their humanity and complexity. The new installation builds on such recent video projects as Athens, California (2016) and To the Stars (2019), both of which examine how societal pressures and the violence of racism shape the experiences of youth growing up in the United States, including how they are perceived by others.
Miller’s immersive, multi-channel soundscape will move the viewer through the space of the exhibition. Comprising a chorus of voices, including teens in St. Louis, as well as poets, writers, singers, educators, and historians discussing topics such as the imagination and what it means to be alive, these personal and private reflections will be transformed into light and water in what the artist describes as a kind of “ecstatic translation.”
Miller’s installation will debut in spring 2022 in the Kemper Art Museum’s Garen Gallery. Nicole Miller is organized for the Kemper Art Museum by Meredith Malone, curator.
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The foundation manages an innovative and flexible grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the foundation has given nearly $250 million in cash grants to over 1,000 arts organizations in 49 states and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide.
The Kemper Art Museum previously received Warhol Foundation funding for the exhibitions Multiplied: Edition MAT and the Transformable Work of Art (2020), Sharon Lockhart—Lunch Break (2010), and Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany (2007).
