david allio

The Gateway Arch – Gateway Arch Series
©2004 David Allio

Gateway Arch is a stainless steel-covered structure rising 630 feet above the Missouri landscape adjacent to the Mississippi River. Three flat surfaces and arc curvature provide multiple representational challenges for a visual artist. This architectural art installation in St Louis is currently the tallest monument under the control of the National Park Service.

Officially documented as a testament to westward expansion, upon critical consideration this simple arch contains complex visual cues that include the female principle, the occult, environmental issues, and an embedded cultural endorsement of colonialization across North America. Art does not exist in a void but within a social context, and over the next few weeks, through a series of original black-and-white photographs, you will be given an opportunity to see a variety of intimate visual compositions of this structure. With the revelation of each new image in the Gateway Arch Series you are asked to pause and consider not just what you are looking at but the multiple layers of embedded visual representation within this public monument.