Counterpublic 2023 is a triennial civic exhibition that considers the entanglements of time in the city of St. Louis: complex histories, a charged present, and many possible futures all existing together in one singular exhibition. Through more than 30 commissioned art and architectural installations, ephemeral institutions, time-based performances, serial publications, and both temporary and permanent inscriptions in the physical and cultural landscape of St. Louis, Counterpublic 2023 intervenes into the infrastructures of the city in order to reimagine altered paths forward. Working in and around historical houses and museums, the last remaining Indigenous mound in “Mound City” in partnership with the Osage Nation, the former site of Pruitt-Igoe and other displaced communities, the exhibition is a reparative act of communal memory rooted in the land and its coexistent histories, with a rhythm meant to rattle the foundations of other futures.

James McAnally is the founder and artistic director of Counterpublic. McAnally is the cofounder and executive director of The Luminary, an expansive platform for art, thought, and action based in St. Louis, MO, as well as the cofounder and editor of MARCH: a journal of art and strategy (formerly Temporary Art Review). He also serves as a founding member and chairperson of Common Field, a national network of artist organizations and organizers. McAnally has presented exhibitions, talks and lectures at venues such as the Walker Art Center, Queens Museum, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation with Ballroom Marfa, The Contemporary, Baltimore, and has served as a Visual Arts panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, Joan Mitchell Foundation and numerous other fellowships. His publications are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Brooklyn Museum, Getty Research Institute and more and published in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Art Journal and others. McAnally is a recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing.

Katherine Simóne Reynolds is a curator and an artist, Reynolds’ practice investigates emotional dialects and psychogeographies of Blackness within the “non,” and the importance of “anti-excellence.” Her work tries to physicalize emotions and experiences by constructing pieces that include portrait photography, video works, choreography, and sculpture. She has exhibited and performed work within many spaces and institutions including SculptureCenter, New York; Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Saint Louis; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Luminary, Saint Louis; and an upcoming solo exhibition at the Knockdown Center in Queens. She has exhibited in national and international group and solo shows, has spoken at The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, The Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Black Midwest Initiative Symposium at the University of Minnesota.

Curatorial Ensemble for Counterpublic 2023 includes: Diya Vij, associate curator at Creative Time in New York City; Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers, licensed architects, artists, and principals of Dream The Combine, based in Minneapolis, MN and Ithaca, NY; New Red Order (NRO), a “public secret society” collaborating with self-described “informants,” to subversively yet earnestly interrogate desires—individual and collective—for indigeneity; Risa Puleo, an independent curator based in Chicago; and Allison M. Glenn, Senior Curator at New York’s Public Art Fund.

Counterpublic is a civic exhibition that weaves contemporary art into the daily life of St. Louis, addressing pressing questions, historical legacies, and the possibilities of the city’s future through responsive artistic projects. Counterpublic is a beacon of creative thinking and community engagement—an inclusive art platform that expands social, political, and civic horizons and models an altered art world. Counterpublic rotates to key focus areas around the region with each edition, seeding transformative cultural commissions towards generational change. Counterpublic was founded by The Luminary in 2019 and incorporated into an independent platform in 2021.