The Midwest Art Quarterly
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St. Louis, MO
Laumeier Sculpture Park
Monika Weiss: Metamorphosis (Sound Sculpture)
August 24, 2024–December 15, 2024
Weiss’s composition is austere and ethereal, which fails to manifest the dirge (an ancient Greek form) it’s meant to. But in critically failing, Weiss touches on the complicated problem of art’s self-distancing from ritual in the modern world — terrible because we’ve lost the functional magic of art, progressive because we’re forced to imagine new modes of representation adequate to our modern reality’s alienated feelings. The power of Weiss’s composition is mysterious and its meaning vague, as though it is yet to be determined. Certainly, women aren't out there in the woods wailing and tearing at their skin. What, then, is a dirge for us?
—Bret Schneider