Counterpublic plans sprawling, socially conscious show of public art for St. Louis in September
By Jeremy D. Goodwin | St. Louis Public Radio | Published April 7, 2026 at 4:09 p.m. CDT
More than 50 artists will participate in Counterpublic, the free art festival that began on Cherokee Street in 2019 at the Luminary gallery and assorted storefronts, and has grown to become one of the largest public art events in the country.
Organizers announced the artist lineup for the 2026 version of the triennial exhibition on Tuesday.
“We really want Counterpublic to be the city’s exhibition where everyone is invited, whether you’re comfortable with art or not. So there are many entry points. You don’t need to know anything before showing up. But we want people to take away a sense of agency and ownership — that the city really is a place for us to all collectively build together,” said Counterpublic Executive and Artistic Director James McAnally.
Counterpublic 2026 will open on Sept. 12 and run for three months.
Curators Jordan Carter, Raphael Fonseca, Stefanie Hessler, Nora N. Khan and Wanda Nanibush recruited artists to display their work — much of it newly commissioned and on view outdoors — around five main locations, mostly in St. Louis.
The theme of the festival’s 2026 iteration, “Coyote Time,” comes from the title of a piece by Alice Bucknell — a video game set inside the City Museum in Midtown. It refers to a term among game designers about the moment when a player can jump forward or return to safety. It’s inspired by the “Looney Tunes” scenario in which Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff but doesn’t realize it yet.
“I think that speaks to the moment we’re in as a region and as a nation,” McAnally said, “that moment of reflection where we’re maybe on certain ground, but the world is changing rapidly. The news cycle sort of presents us with this constant uncertainty. So we’re looking at ways that, as artists, as a region, we can look to a future — even though it feels so uncertain.”
One prompt that artists responded to was “near future,” said Kessler, the curator.
“I feel that at this moment, time is closing in on us. On the one hand, the present seems to be stretched out because there’s a constant barrage of news and events that are happening so fast before we’re able to process them, let alone react. And on the other hand, it also feels like the future is somewhat foreclosed, or seems ever harder to imagine as protections are stripped away,” Hessler said.
Newly commissioned work by Glenn Ligon and Rebecca Belmore will highlight more than a dozen pieces around the St. Louis riverfront, also including work by LI Yi-Fan, Alice Buckness and Cooper Jacoby, which reference emerging technologies amid the surrounding post-industrial landscape.
A series by Timmy Simonds will commemorate the history of Sumner High School in the Ville, with other work posted around the surrounding neighborhood – including an “alternative infrastructure” proposed by Dail Chambers and the People’s Art and Recreation Center — that argues for the need to rebuild and reimagine public space in the lingering aftermath of the May 2025 tornado.
Petrit Halilaj, Inès Kivimäki and Rirkrit Tiravanija are among the artists who will lead projects near the International Institute of St. Louis. The work in this cluster will reference the need for community and belonging, particularly among immigrant populations.
Artists Chris Carl and Carolina Caycedo will create large-scale work for NON STNDRD, the art space at the National Building Arts Center in Sauget, Illinois. Counterpublic will also release a climate impact report at the close of this year’s exhibition, which will propose environmentally minded best practices for similar public art exhibitions around the world.
Counterpublic organizers said the exhibition is meant to be both thought-provoking and welcoming.
“It’s going to be a very engaging exhibition with many surprising moments and many encounters of artworks in unexpected locations. So it’s purposefully designed to be very open and accessible,” Hessler said.
A launch party at the Garage in downtown St. Louis on April 23 will feature DJ NYARA and hip-hop artist and storyteller Sir Eddie C.
The Counterpublic exhibition originated as an event produced by the Luminary, which was led at the time by co-founders James McAnally and Brea Youngblood. The founders later left the gallery, and McAnally created Counterpublic as a standalone organization.
The nonprofit has since performed social action work outside of its exhibition schedule.
It facilitated the transfer of Sugarloaf Mound from a private landowner to the Osage Nation in 2024, after inviting Native artists Anita Fields and her son Nokosee Fields to create an art installation adjacent to Sugarloaf Mound for the 2023 Counterpublic exhibition. The site is the oldest human-made structure in St. Louis. Osage Nation previously owned the top of the historic site, but not the lower portions, into which modern homes were built.
Counterpublic also produced Circus of Life, a three-day festival at the Big Top in Midtown featuring performances and artist talks, in October 2025. Last year, the arts organization partnered with the International Institute to sponsor a public research position at the refugee resettlement agency.
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