Past MOCRA Events
Browse the chronological list of events at the Saint Louis University Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA), or search for a specific event. Click “View” for more information about an event. If you need further information about an event, please contact us.
Day With(out) Art
December 1, 2009
MOCRA observes the twentieth anniversary of Day With(out) Art, a national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis, by exhibiting The Promise, an important work by the late New York artist Adrian Kellard. The Promise will remain on display during regular museum hours through December 13, 2009.
Adrian Kellard was a rising artist in the 1980s. His large-scale carved wood block panels evoke both medieval shrines and the woodblock prints of 20th-century German Expressionists, but their bright colors and folksy quality make them accessible to a wide range of audiences. For Day With(out) Art, MOCRA will feature one of his last works, The Promise, which references the legend of St. Christopher, who carried the infant Jesus across a turbulent river. Kellard depicts himself in the role of St. Christopher. The Promise asserts the possibility of hope and compassion in the midst of suffering.
The Promise was included in the 1992-93 international traveling exhibition From Media to Metaphor: Art about AIDS, and in the 1994 exhibition Art’s Lament: Creativity in the Face of Death (organized by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston). Kellard’s own life was cut short by AIDS. He died in the fall of 1991 at the age of 32.
above:
Adrian Kellard, The Promise, 1989. Latex on wood. 75 x 45 x 2 in. Courtesy of the Estate of Adrian Kellard.
Listen to a conversation about Adrian Kellard on Episode 2: Adrian Kellard
Listen to a conversation about the origins of Day With(out) Art on Episode 3: Thomas Sokolowski
