Crews were still hauling sculpture pieces into place at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis last week as the institution readied its 12th Great Rivers Biennial, a show that hands three local artists $25,000 apiece and a gallery to fill with concrete, cast bronze and shredded canvas. The exhibition opens Thursday at 6 p.m. and runs through February 7, 2027.
Photographer David Carson documented the September 4 installation for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, capturing preparator Tejay Bowman and a crew — Chuck Tucker, Mad Green and Erica Buss — positioning Lauren dela Roche's cast bronze sculpture, Aqueduct, in the gallery. Vincent Stemmler was also on hand that day reviewing his own installation as it went up, per the same Post-Dispatch coverage. The biennial is a collaboration between the museum and the Gateway Foundation, designed to support local artists across the greater St. Louis area.
Three Winners, One Bigger Check
This year's award marks a jump for the program. According to a press release from Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Gateway Foundation raised the unrestricted cash award for each Great Rivers Biennial recipient from $20,000 to $25,000 this cycle. Vaughn Terrell Davis Jr., Lauren dela Roche and Vincent Stemmler each received that $25,000 in unrestricted funding, and each now has work on view in the exhibition.
Getting there wasn't easy. The museum's release notes that a pool of 93 regional applicants was narrowed to 10 semi-finalists before an independent jury — which included senior curators from the Walker Art Center, Berkeley Art Museum and Rice University — unanimously selected the three winners following in-person studio visits. Established in 2003, the Great Rivers Biennial is now in its 12th edition and has recognized 36 local visual artists across the St. Louis metro area since its founding.
Concrete, Canvas and Feed Sacks
Stemmler, who holds degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, built a piece called Standing Figure with Bird (Damon), 2026, which incorporates concrete, rebar, a plastic bird and a wood pallet. The Post-Dispatch's photos show the interdisciplinary artist inspecting the sculpture during setup. Stemmler previously presented a solo show titled Doom Scroll during a 2023 residency at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, and his practice frequently folds local clay, silt, rebar and concrete into architectural assemblages.
Davis, a St. Louis native with a BFA from Webster University, pours richly pigmented acrylic paint onto raw canvas and then manipulates it by cutting, shredding and unraveling parts of the dried material. He created an outdoor torn flag sculpture for Laumeier Sculpture Park in 2023 and is also participating in St. Louis's Counterpublic 2026 exhibition this fall.
Dela Roche, a Santa Rosa native who now lives near St. Louis and is represented by Eric Firestone Gallery in New York, paints on quilted vintage feed sacks and received a 2024 residency at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. Her Aqueduct sculpture, the cast bronze piece the installation crew maneuvered into the gallery, joins works already held in permanent collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Hessel Museum of Art.
A Museum With Deep Roots on the Riverfront
Founded on the Mississippi riverfront in 1980, CAM St. Louis operates as a non-collecting institution and moved in 2003 into its current 27,000-square-foot, Brad Cloepfil-designed building in the Grand Center Arts District, next door to the Tadao Ando-designed Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Dean Daderko serves as the museum's Ferring Foundation chief curator overseeing the exhibition.
The Gateway Foundation, which co-presents the biennial alongside the museum, is marking its own 40th anniversary in 2026. Founded by Aaron and Teresa Fischer, the foundation has invested more than $136 million into St. Louis public art, park lighting and civic spaces such as downtown's Citygarden since 1986, according to Sophisticated Living St. Louis.
Timed to a Citywide Art Wave
The biennial's Thursday opening lands squarely inside a busier-than-usual season for St. Louis art. As reported by the St. Louis American, the opening coincides with the launch of Counterpublic 2026: Coyote Time, a citywide civic art triennial running from September through December across five historic St. Louis sites and pairing artists with neighborhoods to explore climate, education and public memory.
The last Great Rivers Biennial, in 2024, featured artists Saj Issa, Basil Kincaid and Ronald Young and ran from September 2024 through February 2025, with that cycle spotlighting ceramics, textiles and video work, according to the museum. This time around, the show features three local artists working in an entirely different set of materials, continuing a program that has quietly built a track record of turning regional studio visits into national attention.
