Chloë Bass: Wayfinding, originally commissioned by The Studio Museum in Harlem, opened in its second iteration at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. The second phase expanded the number of site-specific sculptures from twenty-four to thirty-two, all gesturing toward the structural and visual vernacular of public wayfinding signage. Phase two begins with and revolves around four central questions, poetically penned by the artist and featured throughout the park in billboard form: How much of care is patience? How much of life is coping? How much of love is attention? How much of belief is encounter?

The works in the exhibition were organized into four sections. Each is anchored by a billboard posing a question that explores human emotions ranging from compassion and desire to anxiety and loss. Like Phase 1, Phase 2 also includes a site-specific audio artwork narrated by the artist and local collaborators.The audio artwork draws from several sources: quotes from the City of St. Louis’s Mow to Own Program (a program where citizens can acquire properties adjacent to their own by caring for the site for two years), Google and Yelp reviews of the Pulitzer, reports on aging and disorientation from the National Institutes of Health, landscape architecture teaching guides, and the artist’s personal narrative. It also incorporates many of the phrases written on the sculptures. The audio guide is performed by me, artist Damon Davis; poet, storyteller, and podcaster Cheeraz Gormon; and theater artist Ron Himes.

The exhibition guide features commissioned essays by Linda Earle and Jessica Lynne.

Wayfinding is a sub-project of Obligation to Others Holds Me in My Place, a study of intimacy at the scale of the immediate family.