david adjaye to present his first-ever permanent public artwork at counterpublic 2023

Counterpublic returns to st.louis with artwork by David Adjaye

David Adjaye is to unveil a monumental earthwork next year as part of the Counterpublic 2023 triennial in St. Louis, Missouri. On view from April 15 to July 15, 2023, the second edition of the contemporary art event will consider the entanglements of time in the city—its complex histories, charged present, and many possible futures—in one layered exhibition from Jefferson Avenue to St. Louis Avenue.

image courtesy of Counterpublic (also main image)

Adjaye’s exhibit will be displayed at The Griot Museum of Black History, anchoring the triennial at its northernmost end on St. Louis Avenue. His first-ever permanent public artwork will be created using materials adjacent to the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing estate as a means of engaging with communal memory. The racially-segregated high-rise development was built in 1954 in St. Louis and demolished just three decades later in 1972.

David Adjaye, Assase, 2021, installation view at Gagosian. Photo by Dror Baldinger. © David Adjaye.

Counterpublic 2023 is led by curators Allison Glenn, Diya Vij, Dream the Combine, New Red Order, and Risa Puleo. As well as David Adjaye, over 30 other artists, architects, collectives, and community organizers have been commissioned to consider public memory and reparative futures. Along the Brickline Greenway, St. Louis-based artist Damon Davis will create a mile-long monument to Mill Creek Valley, formerly the largest Black neighborhood in the city, which was leveled in the service of ‘urban renewal’ in the 1950s.

The southernmost end of the triennial meets the site of the last remaining Indigenous Mound in St. Louis, which formerly played host to over 100 mounds and is thus known colloquially as ‘Mound City.’ New Red Order, in partnership with Osage Nation, will create a new film that documents efforts to repatriate the mound.

Damon Davis, Rendering of Mill Creek Valley commemorative monuments. Image courtesy of the artist, Great Rivers Greenway and St. Louis CITY SC.

Damon Davis, Rendering of Mill Creek Valley commemorative monuments. Image courtesy of the artist, Great Rivers Greenway and St. Louis CITY SC.

Cannupa Hanska Luger, Future Ancestral Technologies: New Myth, 2021. Courtesy of Garth Greenan Gallery and the artist. Image by Gabe Fermin.

Jordan Weber, Prototype for poetry vs. rhetoric (deep roots), 2021. Image courtesy of the artist and the Walker Art Center.

project info:

event: Counterpublic 2023 

location: St. Louis, Missouri, USA

dates: May 15 – August 15, 2023

curators: Allison Glenn, Diya Vij, Dream the Combine, New Red Order, Risa Puleo