Although residents of the East Coast and West often joke that the metropolitan area and related places are a “land of flyover,” a new exhibit at the Saint Louis Museum of Art is blowing that notion out of the way. ‘water.

“Art Along the Rivers: A Bicentennial Celebration”, which opened on October 3, will run through January 9 in the main exhibition galleries of the Forest Park monument. Members of the museum and children under 5 can access it free of charge; ticket prices for non-members range from $ 6 to $ 12.

Melissa Wolfe, the museum’s curator of American art, and Amy Torbert, associate curator of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for American Art, oversee Art Along the Rivers. Wolfe and Torbert have also edited a 224-page fully illustrated catalog to accompany the exhibition.

As its subtitle suggests, “Art Along the Rivers” commemorates the 200th anniversary of Missouri’s admission to the United States on August 10, 1821, as the nation’s 24th state. The riverside layout of the exhibition also aims to highlight the “living cultural heritage” of the metropolitan area, according to a press release from the museum.

“Art Along the Rivers,” the press release continued, brings together “156 objects produced or collected over 1,000 years and from cultures that include the ancient Mississippian, Osage (Wazhazhe), French, African American and German, among others. These communities have each developed rich artistic traditions that have a vibrant legacy for artists and designers today.