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![Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi](https://www.slu.edu/mocra/_img/niederlander-axis-mundi-inst-jv-720-min.jpg)
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi
September 14, 2014 to December 14, 2014
MOCRA's first site-specific installation, created by Los Angeles-based artist Rebecca Niederlander, utilizes multiple elements to create an abstracted environment of color, form, and contemplative space exploring the necessary connection among ourselves, others, and the world around us.
The axis mundi is a connector between heaven and earth, a point of beginning and ending. The convergence of the four compass points, it bridges the known and unknown, the experienced and the believed. The axis mundi is a universally shared phenomenon: Norse mythology has the cosmic ash tree Yggdrasil, which unifies the nine homeworlds, while the Bodhi Tree was the site of the Buddha’s enlightenment. The Biblical tradition situates the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. The axis mundi serves as the unifying construct for the first site-specific installation at MOCRA, an exhibition that reflects on the communities we exist in physically and those we share existentially—our ever widening and intersecting personal and collective axes mundi—utilizing multiple elements to create an abstracted environment in which color, form and the contemplative nature of MOCRA's space work collaboratively.
Axis Mundi highlights significant architectural features of MOCRA’s nave gallery and emphasizes the space's original purpose as a chapel for Jesuits who studied philosophy at Saint Louis University. The exhibition centers on a tall, glistening white structure that reaches from the floor to the ceiling thirty feet above, a tether signaling our globally connected existence without referencing a specific tradition. Four wall hangings from Niederlander's Essential Drawings series, imagery initiated from detailed photographs of her physical sculptures and then redefined through continued expansion and contraction, surround the suspended structure. Finally, two of the chapel’s ten stained glass windows are exposed yet covered with translucent film so that the figural imagery of the windows is abstracted to reference the undefined and unifying light that guides humanity.
Rebecca Niederlander grew up in St. Louis but relocated to Los Angeles in 1995. Her site-specific sculptural installations are labor-intensive abstractions that use repetition and the inherent ephemeral nature of the materials to address the individual's position within the larger intergenerational community. She is also co-founder of the social practice BROODWORK, in which she curates, writes, speaks and designs actions and objects that explore the interweaving of the creative practices and family life—in particular, parenthood.
Recent projects have included commissioned works for the Los Angeles International Airport and the Trajector Art Fair in Brussels, Belgium, as well as BROODWORK: It’s About Time at OTIS College of Art and Design, which explored the relationship of time to the creative process and family. Niederlander is a recipient of numerous grants including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Durfee Foundation, and the Cornell University Council of Creative and Performing Arts.
above:
Installation view of Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi at MOCRA, 2014. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.
MOCRA Director Terrence Dempsey, SJ, discusses Axis Mundi on St. Louis Public Radio's "Cityscape"
Watch a TEDx talk by Rebecca Niederlander in which she discusses her activities with BROODWORK.
Exhibition |
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![]() Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral |
![]() Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
![]() Erika Diettes: Sudarios |
![]() Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan – Images from the Phenomenal World |
![]() Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu |
![]() Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade |
![]() Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi |
![]() Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT |
![]() Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade |
![]() Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah |
![]() A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown |
![]() Patrick Graham: Thirty Years – The Silence Becomes the Painting |
![]() Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion |
![]() Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art |
![]() James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer |
![]() MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday |
![]() Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears |
![]() Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace |
![]() MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit |
![]() Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit |
![]() The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture |
![]() Arshile Gorky: The Early Years – Drawings and Paintings, 1927–1937 |
![]() Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds |
![]() Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness |
![]() DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea |
![]() Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis González-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria |
![]() Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl |
![]() Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen |
![]() Avoda: Objects of the Spirit – Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn |
![]() Tony Hooker: The Greater Good – An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study |
![]() Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation |
![]() Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration |
![]() Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana |
![]() Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985–1995 |
![]() Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium |
![]() Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses |
![]() MOCRA: The First Five Years |
![]() Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante | Holy Stones |
![]() Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections |
![]() Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem |
![]() Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece |
![]() Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter |
![]() Consecrations Revisited |
![]() Keith Haring: Altarpiece – The Life of Christ |
![]() Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief – paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980–1994 |
![]() Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective |
![]() Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists |
![]() Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS |
![]() Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One |
![]() Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater |
![]() Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
![]() Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
![]() Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
![]() Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
![]() Visible Conservation |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two – Three Major Installations |
![]() Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition |
![]() MOCRA: 25 |
![]() Gary Logan: Elements |
![]() Gratitude |
![]() Surface to Source |
![]() Quiet Isn't Always Peace |
![]() Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings |
![]() Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections |
![]() Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest |
![]() Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE |
![]() This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection |
![]() Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos |
![]() Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual |
![]() Selections from the MOCRA Collection |