As part of the Saint Louis Art Museum’s continuing initiative to recognize young leadership and promote teen creativity, the Museum’s Teen Arts Council (TAC) was established in 2012. TAC is a small volunteer group of teens who serve as liaisons between the Museum and their peers. Its mission is for teens to be an active, creative and influential voice within the Museum and in the broader school and residential communities. TAC members play integral roles in implementing programs and spearheading events to establish and nurture diverse teen audiences.
This year, the Teen Arts Council embarked on a major project to publish the Museum’s first teen zine—a small, self-published booklet featuring original or found texts and images to communicate expressive messages. The Council’s zine, titled Personality, suggestive of its name, reveals the intrinsic difference and creative potential exhibited by each and every teen member. “As one flips the pages of Personality, he or she realizes that it has a piece of everyone in it,” said Grace Ray, one of the Council members. “Everyone took something that was important to them and made it into art for others to experience in diverse ways.”
Zines inherently have qualities of imperfection, distinctiveness, and spontaneity and are a great platform for teen expression. Personality was produced to foster teen-to-teen communication and various levels of teen engagement in the St. Louis area and across the country. In the future, the Teen Arts Council hopes to continue making zines to encourage other teens in the community to participate in the process by submitting artworks and literary works to be featured.
In direct relationship to the inaugural teen zine, the Teen Arts Council organized and juried an upcoming Young Artists Exhibition, which they also titled Personality. Now in its fifth year, the Young Artist Exhibition is an open call to all teen visual artists in St. Louis with the goal of exposing teen works to the Museum visitors. The Council selected 19 artworks from submissions by local teens which will be on view in the Museum’s Student Gallery. The artworks collectively respond to individuality, diversity, uniqueness, and difference.
On Sunday, May 7, 2017, from 2pm to 4pm the Saint Louis Art Museum will host a free public opening and we invite teens, families, local artists and supporters of the arts to join the Museum in recognizing and celebrating the city’s young and talented artists at the 2017 Young Artists Exhibition and Zine Launching Opening. This event will take place at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Student Gallery and Farrell Auditorium, and also will feature musical and theatrical performances by local teen groups. Light refreshment will be provided. The event is free and open to all and we look forward to seeing you.
2017 Young Artists Exhibition Opening
Saint Louis Art Museum Student Gallery and Auditorium
Sunday, May 7, 2017
2:00pm – 4:00pm
