Courtesy of SLAM

Claude Monet’s impressionistic masterpiece, “Agapanthus” (“Water Lilies”), is currently on display at the Saint Louis Art Museum. The 42-foot triptych, which consists of three panels, will be on display until Jan. 22.

The exhibition, organized by Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art at SLAM, is titled “Monet’s Water Lilies.” “It’s the first in its generation; it’s never been done before,” Kelly said. “These pieces have never been brought together before.”

The pieces lay in Monet’s studio for years after his death before eventually being auctioned to different collectors. They ended up in three museums.

SLAM received the central section, while the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and the Cleveland Museum of Art received the right and left sections, respectively. Recent collaboration between the three museums has allowed all the sections to be shown together.

“The exhibition was previously at the Nelson-Atkins Museum and will go to the Cleveland Museum next, after a break,” Kelly said.

The show consists of three studies for the work, “Agapanthus” itself and a small diptych, titled “Wysteria Numbers 1 and 2.” All are painted by Monet.

When viewers enter the exhibition, they are first presented with a short, black-and-white video; it shows Monet painting in his garden in Giverny, where he created the famed series “Water Lilies”—which includes “Agapanthus.”

Consisting of approximately 250 oil paintings, “Water Lilies” serves as an emblem of the Impressionist movement, the 19th-century artistic movement in France that emphasized the depiction of flowing light over form, often leading to the incorporation of motion into paintings.

Monet was one of the founders of the movement; the term Impressionism is taken from one of his early paintings.

Few works of art enter into the general public consciousness: pieces such as “Mona Lisa,” “Starry Night” and the Sistine Chapel come to mind. “Water Lilies” also falls into that category. Such is its influence that the state of France built the Musée de l’Orangerie, now considered one of Paris’ greatest museums, as a home for eight of the “Water Lilies” murals.

Kelly is aware of this, and factored it into the planning of the exhibition. “We can reach a wider audience,” he said. “The works are widely known and recognized.”

Beyond the film, the three studies are available for view. They all showcase different aspects of the lilies. The first, “Agapanthus,” painted between 1914-1917, is the darkest. It depicts two tall stems against a backdrop of reds and violets, and light reflects off the water. They reach upward toward lighter colors, possibly an impression of the sky in the pond.

“Water Lilies, Harmony in Blue,” painted at the same time, takes a lighter tone. Two groups of lilies float on blue-green water. Instead of an angry red, however, these lilies are a mix of white, yellow and pink.

The final study is titled merely “Water Lilies.” Rather than taking a broader view like the first two, this painting instead focuses on one group of lily pads with flowers—they take up the majority of the painting and are surrounded by water.

These three studies offer excellent examples of the Impressionist movement’s goal. Instead of trying to capture a single instant in time, each study focuses on a different moment. Monet then combined and repainted them to form the final work, allowing for the expression of movement over time; different sections of “Agapanthus” were painted at different times during the day, at different points during the seasons.

The final two works hang at the end of the exhibit. “Wysteria Numbers 1 and 2,” a diptych, display hanging wisteria, framed against a blue-black background. The wisteria appear to emerge directly out of the light, a roiling mix of blue, green, purple and brown. It complements and is secondary to the centerpiece of the exhibition, the triptych “Agapanthus,” which hangs on the opposite side of the room.

Measuring 42 feet in length, the painting is magnificent to behold. There are several lily pads, interspersed throughout a sea of blue-green and violet. The upper third is lighter, resembling the reflection of the sky, while the rest of the painting is darker, reminiscent of the bottom of the pond. Monet worked on it from 1916 until his death 10 years later, painstakingly going over each section numerous times. Some areas have as many as six layers of paint; over time, the remodeling became so extensive that the series of African Lilies, from which the painting takes its name, was painted over.

His hard work paid off, however. “The colors are luminous,” Kelly said.

Clusters of lilies emerge out of both the muck of the pond and the impression of the sky on the water. This creates an almost-smoky effect, with the lilies blending with the background, another mark of Impressionism.

Each section can stand alone; they have for more than 50 years. However, when brought together the painting seems to flow together in ways the panels individually lack. The combination of the sections, the vastness of the work and the care and the delicateness with which it was executed stands testament to Monet’s ability and the importance of the work.

Though the exhibition is small, it is very concentrated. By examining only one work, it allows the viewer to see its evolution, from conception to the final result. The observer is allowed insight into the artistic process of Monet, resulting in a greater appreciation for his artistic process and the nature of Impressionism.

“Monet’s Water Lilies” is on display until Jan. 22. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students and are free on Fridays. Reservations are recommended.

“Precarious Worlds” delves into the rich German post-war art tradit

Grace Fung | Student Life

“Cloud-Specific” by artist Tomás Saraceno is on display at Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Saraceno’s work turns the gallery into an interactive space.

In the past hundred years, Germany has had a constantly-changing cultural and political nature—nationalism in the nineteenth century to the Great War, Nazism and World War II, the country’s reunification at the end of the Cold War—and as a result, this exhibition’s work often deals with flux and the melding of different styles.

Drawing comparisons to “Chance Aesthetics,” a previous Kemper exhibition, these artists attempt to balance abstraction with the substantial, mixing non-pictorial designs and concrete portrayals. The common themes of fragility and our human frailty underlie much of their work.

Upon entering the gallery, one of the first works seen is “Untitled (yet),” a painting by Franz Ackermann that acts as a keynote for the entire exhibition. The painting is a tangled mass of shapes—both concrete and abstract—with vine-like cables connecting them. One is able to discern a railway suspended in the air and what appears to be a housing unit. This, however, is the extent of the tangible nature of the work. The rest of the painting appears to be a series of abstract shapes and ropes set against a dark background. It brings to mind a tree house, lashed against a sapling with cords to stabilize it. The railroad and housing block thus serve as a sort of beacon of solidity against a backdrop of chaos. This perfectly balances the concrete and abstract nature of the exhibition and effectively acts as its thesis: That our tangible, palpable lives are counterweighted with some degree of tenuousness. They are, as the title of the exhibition states, precarious.

Next to “Untitled (yet)” hangs Corinne Wasmuht’s “Llanganuco Falls,” a depiction of Peru’s mountainous Huascarán National Park. Created by constructing a collage of photographs, projecting them onto a wood surface and painting it, the picture is complete with waterfalls, lush paths, pools and mountains. It is not purely realistic, however; in keeping with the exhibition’s theme, it blends the unrepresentable with the concrete. Much of the color is washed out, and sections of the painting seem to have been painted on top of, or at 90-degree angles to each other. It appears almost chopped and pasted together—which, in a sense, is true. The overall effect highlights the ease with which we can change or alter the world, demonstrating its impermanence and uncertainty.

Other notable works include two columns of mirrors by Isa Genzken, in which the viewer’s face is ruptured by the cracks in the glass, and Michel Majerus’ “mm6,” reminiscent of the 1950s British-American Pop Art movement, especially of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

“Precarious Worlds” is an excellent example of the trend in art to synthesize new forms out of old; the combination of realistic depiction with abstraction allows the viewer to notice the disparity—and, thus, the lack of stability—between life and the randomness that surrounds it.

Unlike “Precarious Worlds,” “Cloud-Specific” is the work of one artist, Tomás Saraceno. While “Precarious Worlds” chooses to focus on the insecurity and unpredictability of life and the world we live in, Saraceno instead concentrates on making the gallery an experimental, interactive space.

With a background in architecture, Saraceno blends science, art and architecture into something new. He draws on influences as disparate as Archigram, the avant-garde architectural movement of the 1960s known for its technology-inspired projects, and Buckminster Fuller, a former Wash. U. professor best known as the designer of the geodesic dome. In his work, Saraceno creates webs of spheres and plywood roped together with cords.

Saraceno has taken the age-old tradition of fusing science and art—exemplified by works such as Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolas Tulp”—and brought it into the modern era. Replete with 21st century materials, such as PVC films and solar panels, these creations hang suspended in the air. Some are made with balloons, some with plywood, all are connected to each other via rope. Reminiscent of neural networks and carbon rings, Saraceno’s opera of airborne objects—though technically separate works—blend together to create a visual symphony.

The main attraction of the exhibit is “One Cloud Module,” a new take on the inflatable castle. Made out of aluminum, a PVC pillow, transparent film and solar cookers, visitors are allowed to bounce and roll around the inside of the work. This ability to interact with the work allows closer inspection, permitting the viewer to become a part of the exhibition, instead of merely an observer.

A large photograph occupies the back wall of the gallery. A variety of buildings—including the St. Louis Arch in the lower left corner—take up the lower half of the chromogenic print. It is the upper half, however, to which the viewer is drawn. This portion of the wall has been digitally altered, and appears to be filled with floating replicas of the works dangling in the gallery. Black outlines of humans are visible, walking around the inside of the creations. This creates an unnerving duality; the human figures seem to make the picture more “real” while, rationally, the whole scene is unbelievable.

In “Cloud-Specific,” Saraceno successfully melds a variety of different disciplines to create something that evades a single label. It is not merely art, science or architecture—he fuses all three and takes off in a new direction with them. The exhibition is greater than the sum of its parts.

Despite their differences, the two exhibitions successfully accompany each other. They are unified by their examination of the limits of art and life. “Precarious Worlds: Contemporary Art from Germany” and “Tomás Saraceno: Cloud-Specific” are on display at the Mildred Kemper Lane Art Museum from Sept. 9 to Jan. 9. Admission is free.

First of all, hopefully you picked a resolution that means something to you and is important. Whether it’s something traditional, like seeing friends more, doing better in school or working out more, or something more off-beat, it has to be something that you truly care about if you want to be successful in achieving it. Otherwise, it becomes easy to stop worrying about it.

In order to fulfill your resolution, you need a plan. Change is hard—everybody knows that—and you have to force yourself to truly change how you act. Whether it’s setting up a strict schedule for going to the gym or running, spending a specific number of hours per week studying, or even scheduling times to see friends, you have to define what is going to happen. It may seem artificial and awkward at first, but as you slip into the routine, it will become easier.

Don’t attempt to go at it alone. When athletes train alone, they don’t accomplish as much as they do when they exercise with a group. The same is true for New Year’s resolutions. If you want to work out more, find a running buddy or someone to go to the gym with. If you want to study more, go to the library with someone—if you’ll be productive that way. In general, it’s better to let someone know about your goals. That way, they will be able to encourage you and push you to achieve them. Your internal motivation can only take you so far. In order to succeed, one often needs a nudge from outside.

Don’t feel discouraged if it’s very hard to keep up in the beginning. It takes a long time to form new habits and for them to sink in. The first few weeks are always going to be the hardest, but once you get through them, it will be much easier.

In the end, if you stumble, don’t give up. Every little slip isn’t the end of the world. If you’re several weeks along and you mess up, just remember that it’s only been weeks and it will take time to truly change. Instead of giving up, keep going—you don’t have to wait an entire year to make a new resolution.

The Steinberg Ice Rink

Located in Forest Park near the Central West End, the Steinberg Ice Rink is the largest outdoor skating rink in the Midwest. It offers public skating seven days a week—including holidays. If you’re inclined, you can also take skating lessons for a small fee. Entry is only $6, and skate rental is an additional $4, making it affordable for multiple outings. If your are in need of a bite to eat, the Snowflake Café, located next door, serves hot meals and snacks, as well as hot chocolate.

St. Louis Blues Games

While often overlooked by people unfamiliar with hockey, attending a Blues game truly is a unique experience. Located at the Scottrade Center downtown, the games are events that all sports fans can easily enjoy. Hockey arenas are known for their noise—even compared to other sports—so be prepared to shout yourself hoarse and leave with your ears ringing. There are even several “Student Nights” when you can get a ticket, soda and hot dog for $20. Check the Blues’ website (http://blues.nhl.com) for a list of the games, as only a few of them have this deal available.

Sledding at Art Hill

To take full advantage of the snow, head over to Art Hill in Forest Park. The hill stretches from the St. Louis Art Museum down to the Grand Basin—reminiscent of a miniaturized gardens of Versailles—which allows for an excellent sledding experience. Be warned, though—it gets crowded.

Skiing

For those of you looking to get out of the city, consider driving 30 miles to Hidden Valley Ski Area, located in Wildwood, Mo. Offering a variety of trails—suitable for a wide range of skiers and snowboarders—the park has something for everyone. Group or private lessons are available for those who are interested. A day pass costs between $38-$64, depending on whether or not you rent equipment. Luckily, it doesn’t have to snow to make Hidden Valley a worthwhile trip; they have their own snowmaking machines. The park is open in the afternoons and evenings during the week and all day on the weekend.

Hot chocolate tour

What better way to discover St. Louis during the winter than through cupfulls of everyone’s favorite seasonal beverage—hot chocolate. For the thickest, richest cup of cocoa you’ve ever had, head to Bailey’s Chocolate Bar in Lafayette Square. Listed on their “Liquid Dessert” menu, all of Bailey’s hot chocolates are made from the finest chocolates and simplest ingredients. Ranging from sweet to rich to spicy (and with additions of liqueurs and spirits available), these cups are sure to please all diners. Other hot chocolate hot spots include Bissinger’s Chocolatier in the Central West End, where you can enjoy your cocoa with thick homemade whipped cream while sitting on a leather chair in front of the fire place—the quintessential way to spent a wintry afternoon. St. Louis’ landmark restaurant, Fountain on Locust, is also a worthy competitor with their mug of rich hot chocolate and fresh whipped cream.

With additional reporting by Hana Schuster.

Evan Wiskup | Student Life

“Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other” invites the audience to participate in the artwork. The exhibit is open at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum through Jan. 10, 2011.

Much of Neuenschwander’s art is dependent on audience participation, from adhesive circles on the floor that catch the dirt and detritus of the visitors’ shoes to “Joe Carioca and Friends” (2005), a blank comic strip that museum guests fill in. In fact, this interaction between artist and viewer is one of the unifying themes of the exhibit.

This is not something new for Neuenschwander.

“The first piece I made that engaged the public was a landscape several years ago,” she said. “[Often,] it’s the people from the museum [or the public] who get to participate.”

In “First Love” (2005), a visitor describes the first person they fell in love with to a police sketch artist, who then renders the person’s face. The image is then placed on the wall behind them. The wall starts out blank and slowly fills up throughout the exhibit’s run. In previous exhibitions, it has been so popular that museums displaying the work have been forced to require reservations in advance. As the wall gets covered with sketches, one is struck by the stark, somber look they all have. This seems to get carried over from the portraits to the people describing them, as people often appear quiet and subdued while talking to the sketch artist.

Participation is not limited to the visitors of the exhibition, however. “Rain Rains” (2002), made out of aluminum buckets, water, steel cable and a ladder, is the best example of this. Water trickles out of the buckets suspended from the ceiling into buckets on the floor. Every four hours, the museum staff empties the water from the lower buckets back into the hanging ones. The effect is almost Zen-like, reminiscent of Japanese gardens designed to aid meditation. One can walk amongst the buckets and both watch and listen to the water drip out of them.

Though audience participation is pervasive throughout the exhibit, it is by no means the only theme present. Time—more specifically its passage—is, perhaps, the most important topic Neuenschwander explores. “A Day Like Any Other” (2006), from which the exposition draws its title, is the most literal and direct example of this. 24 modified flip clocks, with all their numbers replaced by zeroes, are located throughout the museum. This work is a favorite of both the artist and her friends, and she remarked that one of them told her, “The clocks are about the human condition. One day they will not work anymore.”

Another work that concerns itself with time is “One Thousand and One Possible Nights” (2008), a series of photographs of confetti collages. The photos are spread out, representing the months, weeks and days that the exhibition is running. From far away, the collages look like white bubbles against a black background; it is only when the viewer gets close to the photograph that they can see the photos for what they really are. Coupled with the clocks, they provide a dramatic and somewhat unsettling demonstration of the passage of time.

The exhibit is home to other works, including a series of twisted votive paintings lacking both text and characters.These works contain only architecture, a smattering of unusual sculptures, and a few films. They are in keeping with the main themes of time and the role of the audience as both spectator and contributor.

Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other is on display at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum through Jan. 10, 2011. To schedule a session for First Love, send an e-mail to kemper-ed@wustl.edu or inquire at the visitor services desk. Both the exhibition and the sketch are free.

Courtesy of the artist; David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; and Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan.

Elad Lassry, Tomatillos, 2010. Chromogenic print, 11 x 14 inches.

What do Elad Lassry and Richard Artschwager have in common? Beyond their mutual occupations as artists working in the latter-half of the 20th century—and into the 21st—almost nothing.

They use radically dissimilar materials, grew up on different sides of the United States and are associated with separate artistic movements. Yet together they form the basis of the fall exhibition series of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

Each artist’s pieces are primarily housed in their own rooms. The artists work with a variety of mediums, in different styles, covering multiple topics.

Elad Lassry’s exhibit, “Sum of Limited Views,” is the first of the two expositions that viewers see upon entering the museum. Lassry, an Israeli artist raised in Los Angeles, spreads out 36 chromogenic color prints across four walls, and the effect is striking.

The prints, all about 8.5 by 10 inches, are dwarfed by the huge white walls of the room, creating a dramatically minimalist atmosphere. Different topics and themes are scattered across the prints as well. Lassry switches from the concrete to the abstract with seamless fluidity, juxtaposing such varied subjects as people, miniature statues, geometric patterns and eggs.

In one notable photo, “Man 07,” a picture of a man is manipulated to give him a second set of eyes directly below his original pair, mixing the surreal with the realistic. In another, called “Guinevere,” Lassry takes the upper half of a nude woman’s body, blurs it until we cannot recognize any individual features, and places her over a green Benday dot background, reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein’s work.

Though most of Lassry’s work involves individual photos, there are also three mini “series” in his exhibit. One, a collection of three motion pictures shot on 16mm film, tracks people as they dance, interact with each other and stare at the camera. Located in its own blacked-out room, the piece appears bizarre and confusing, as is somewhat common for video art. The effect, however, is rather relaxing—a dramatic shift from viewing the rest of the art in the museum.

Another series, titled “Laurel Canyon,” follows a young boy playing basketball with a companion. Because of the lack of information, we are forced to come up with our own backstory. Is his companion his brother or friend? Where are they playing? Why is the boy wearing nice clothing and Converse?

This reliance on the viewer’s imagination is commonplace in Lassry’s art. By asking the audience to take part in this step of the artistic process, Lassry invites them to become a part of the exhibition, successfully engaging the viewer in ways many artists are not able to do.

The second exhibition, titled “Hair,” is dramatically different from the first. Artist Richard Artschwager is known for his association with Op Art, the artistic movement that utilizes optical illusions. This is fitting, as much of his work is hard to decipher visually and leaves one struggling to understand it. One section of the exhibit is freakishly reminiscent of Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the 2006 film known for its fantastical and surreal characters and sets.

Artschwager uses rubberized hair and the padding found within furniture to achieve this effect. In one corner, he creates shapes that recall characters from the film, aptly titled “Satyr,” “Sitting Woman” and “The Lovers (Study).” The viewer can only make out the outline of the shapes, which appear to be twisting and roiling.

Besides these works on the wall, there are three free-standing pieces that look as if they were ripped from the maze in the movie: a table with attached chairs, some form of hedge-like lawn ornament and a grand, high-backed chair.

Not all of Artschwager’s work evokes del Toro’s twisted subconscious. One acrylic piece titled “Untitled (Joanne Chesimard)” features a famous convict and Black Panther Party member painted in dull, bleak colors. The work is pockmarked by small gashes in the paint that are scattered across the entire surface. Unlike the rest of the artist’s work, “Untitled” is definitively rooted in reality and makes a clear statement about its purpose and the artist’s beliefs.

Artschwager’s exhibition, though wildly dissimilar to Lassry’s, manages to complement it. While Lassry often focuses on minimalism, Artschwager’s art cannot be overlooked. His fantastical shapes and figures force the viewer to look once, twice and a third time in order to fully capture and appreciate his work.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, located in Grand Center, is ten minutes from the Grand Metro stop and five minutes from the Saint Louis University campus. Admission is free to students, and both exhibitions run until Jan. 2, 2011.

Matt Lanter | Student Life

Above, a sculpture from the exhibit “Gesture, Scrape, Combine, Calculate: Postwar Abstraction from the Permanent Collection” at the Kemper. The exhibit runs until Sept. 20.

The art itself, consisting of post-World War II abstract expressionism from the 1940s to the 1970s, keeps with the theme. The museum chose to draw entirely from its own permanent collection for the exhibition, a decision made more and more over the past several years because of the economic recession, and this decision has its risks. A show can be limited by the depth of the museum’s holdings and often falls short of complete. But in this case, the curator manages to maintain the exhibition’s strength across its entirety, thanks to the depth of the Kemper’s postwar collections.

Walking into the room, the first thing you see is Roberto Matta’s painting, titled “Abstraction.” Punctuated by brief colorful scenes blurring in and out of view, the canvas is awash with an amorphous blue-gray storm. Where the shapes begin to become distinct and vivid, it is reminiscent of Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings for Edwin Campbell, the founder of Chevrolet Motor Company. Considered the first true abstract artist, Kandinsky was a leader of the movement for years, and Matta follows ably in his footsteps. He combines formless chaos with barely-defined forms, creating a dramatic contrast and drawing the viewer’s eye across the entire work.

Just to the left of “Abstraction” hangs “Golden Brown Painting” by Arshile Gorky. This work takes a dramatically different tone than Matta’s, as Gorky has chosen to paint a specific topic: the land surrounding his Connecticut home. It is not a traditional landscape, however; it echoes Vincent Van Gogh’s work of half a century before, displaying dramatic colors not normally found in nature. Gorky takes Van Gogh’s well-known distortion of forms to an extreme, blending the topography around his house with the building itself. This creates a sinkhole in the center of the painting, into which everything seems to be collapsing.

On the far side of the room sits Ibram Lassaw’s “Eden Now,” the exhibition’s most eye-catching sculpture. Suggestive of Alberto Giacometti’s famous emaciated figures, Lassaw has created a skeletal shape redolent of the expanding spheres that children play with. Made of metal, parts of the bronze look like they have been fashioned from misshapen human torsos, and, in one horrifying instance, a metal lizard claw appears to be grasping futilely outward. While looking at the tortured shapes that are the fundamental building blocks of the work, it feels at times like they will come alive and begin screaming and struggling for freedom.

The final section of the show, in the corner just to the left of the entrance, warrants particular notice. It consists of three works: “Gran Ferro M1,” “Cuadro No. 82” and “Blanco y Grafismos.” All of the pieces blend together to create a disturbing, eerie sensation. “Gran Ferro M1,” by Alberto Burri, is perhaps the most somber piece in the entire exhibit. It consists of several rusted iron plates welded and nailed together. The work echoes the influence of war and manufacturing on society.

Immediately following this are the remaining two pieces, by Manolo Millares and Antoni Tàpies, respectively. They are by far the two most violent works in the show; gouges, savagely torn burlap and stains abound across the surfaces of the pieces. This almost unholy trio manages to end the show on a negative and primal note. It’s a fitting ending, considering that many of the artists in the exhibition lived through World War II.

Sitting in the center of the gallery, the room acts as a cathedral to the exhibition. Light streams down onto the paintings, both from the windows located at the top of the walls and the track lighting on the ceiling. “Gesture, Scrape, Combine, Calculate” may be drawn only from the Kemper’s holdings, but it still manages to adroitly encapsulate the abstract expressionist movement in 16 works of art.

“Gesture, Scrape, Combine, Calculate: Postwar Abstraction from the Permanent Collection” is on display until Sept. 20 at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University. Admission is both free and encouraged.

View more photos.

Though the most common example is college rankings—best exemplified by the infamous U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” issue—our schools are ranked at the elementary and secondary school levels as well, first with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and more recently with Race to the Top. These K-12 programs are designed to improve public school performance, using federal money as an incentive.

All of these systems seek to create definitive and quantitative measures by which to determine school caliber. This is an admirable goal. After all, who wouldn’t want to know once and for all where his or her school falls? However, none of the ranking systems succeed, primarily because no system can find a fair, objective way to categorically rate educational institutions.

At the high school level, government programs designed to improve school quality have been met with much criticism. For one, relying on standardized testing to measure performance has created an environment in which students are taught to the test, neglecting other valuable aspects of education that do not show up on an exam. Economic woes compound these problems: As city and state education budgets are slashed, schools turn more and more to federal funding, thus increasing pressure on teachers and students to conform to the standards required by national education reform laws.

In college, rankings cause different problems. Schools attempt to “game” the system to climb higher, thus improving their reputations, which allows them to rise again. For instance, because admissions rate is a significant factor in many rankings, the University of Pennsylvania fills nearly 40% of its class with early decision applicants, allowing it to lower the acceptance rate of the regular decision round—the more significant round. And this is only one example among many. A pattern of decisions—admissions and otherwise—based on rankings may prevent real academic improvement among schools not listed at the top of the rankings, as the most talented students continue to primarily seek out colleges located near the apex, and not those that will actually educate them well.

I put forward two propositions: Either create a more holistic approach to rankings, or abandon them all together. Given a natural human inclination to compete and define impartially what is “better” or “worse,” however, it is unlikely that the latter will ever come to fruition.

But steps toward a better ranking system have already been taken. In 2007, the Annapolis Group, a consortium of about 130 liberal arts colleges, announced its intent to stop participating in the U.S. News & World Report survey, instead collaborating with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities to develop an alternative process of ranking schools.

Much more recently, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a new system, one based around an evaluation of each school’s core required curriculum. Under this methodology, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Stanford—the top five schools in U.S. News & World Report—received a D, C, F, B, and C, respectively (Columbia, with a B, is known for its core curriculum). These rankings are likely to be disregarded and scoffed at—true, they are incomplete—but they suggest that alternative systems for valuing a college education are on the rise.

These measures bode well, but are not satisfactory. The issues surrounding the rankings systems are unlikely to be resolved in the near future, as colleges at the top of the processes will wish to keep their position, while colleges on the bottom will arguing for different evaluations. But further action must be taken to ensure that rankings—if they must exist—are enacted in a fairer fashion.

The station was designed by noted architect Theodore Link, and construction on it began in the early 1890s. Work was completed in 1894, and at the time of the station’s opening, it was the largest and busiest station in the world, serving over 100,000 passengers a day. During the early 20th century, it established itself as the most important train station in the Midwest, and, as a result, was a pivotal force in shaping American life during that period. Keep in mind that this was before the construction of passenger aircraft or the interstate highway system. Railroads were the primary mode of transport across long distances.

The station itself is constructed in the High Victorian style—specifically the Romanesque Revival style—common of late 19th-century train stations. This is marked by the simple arches found within the station and the abundance of windows. Most notable is the “Allegorical Window,” a masterpiece featuring three women, corresponding to the three great train stations of the late 19th century—New York’s, St. Louis’, and San Francisco’s.

After its completion, the station functioned as the main gateway to the West—a moniker by which St. Louis is known—for many years, processing up to 400 trains a day before and during World War II.

After the war, however, service began to decline and continued to slide until 1961, by which time many of the tracks had been replaced with parking lots. The station gained national prominence again briefly in 1948, when Harry Truman was photographed there with the famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” Chicago Tribune headline—incorrectly referring to the results of the presidential election, in which Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey. Throughout this period, however, it became more and more fiscally impractical to continue to operate the station, which had very high overhead due to its large size and elaborate design.

Throughout the ’60s and early ’70s, minimal transportation services continued to operate out of the station, until Amtrak pulled out of the station in 1978, citing financial reasons. Amtrak service currently operates out of the Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center.

In 1985, following a $150 million remodeling—the largest conversion project to that date in the United States—the station reopened as a hotel, currently a Marriott, with a mall attached.

In addition to the shopping center, Union Station houses a plaza for concerts, festivals and other miscellaneous events.

Though not the architect’s intention, the shopping mall seems to have meshed well with the design of the station. A mixture of eclectic, almost art nouveau architectural trappings now lie alongside more modern storefronts. The juxtaposition seems to work, however. It is strangely reminiscent of Platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter films, full of dark railroad metal. At the same time, the current era leaves its mark on the station, with bright signs and restaurants like the Hard Rock Café.

The St. Louis Union Station is a remnant of past generations, when railroads were the primary form of cross-national transportation. Its historical significance is undeniable though it has greatly changed, and it remains a notable and important location to see. I strongly encourage Wash. U. students to visit and explore the station. The Grand Hall—an arched, highly ornate lounge—is especially worth a visit.

St. Louis Union Station can be reached by light rail or by car. If using public transportation, take the MetroLink east to Union Station and walk one block north. If driving, follow I-64 E and take exit 38C. The station is located at 1820 Market Street.

Beginning at 3 p.m. and running for the better part of two hours, the event consisted of students flinging almost 20,000 multicolored water balloons at each other and, when the balloons were depleted, engaging in an all-out mud fight.

Holi, celebrated by many South Asian religions, is a festival marking the onset of spring. Traditional rituals and celebrations vary by region, but Ashoka has taken a rather unusual approach. “It’s known as the festival of color, one where everyone just lets loose and gets excited,” said Priya Nagarajan, a junior who is one of the co-cultural chairs of the student group. “Normally they use colored powder, but we just a took a spin off of that and used multicolored water balloons because we thought it would be more fun and muddy.”

The event itself has always been crowded, and this year’s Holi drew over 500 people, more than had attended the event in the past according to Parsa Bastani, a sophomore who is the other co-cultural chair of Ashoka.

“People love it. From what I can tell, everyone seems to have a ball when they’re at Holi, especially when the weather’s good. We were crossing our fingers this time because of the clouds, but we lucked out,” Nagarajan added,.

Students, like freshman Jaime Rosenthal, thoroughly enjoyed themselves at Holi.

“It was ridiculous to just fool around and tackle people in the mud and get that dirty but just not care about it, Rosenthal said.”

Despite its popularity, the public’s view of Holi is rather limited. Most students only see and experience the celebration itself, not the preparation and cleanup. The event requires careful planning by the 12 member executive board, and around 15 others assisted.

“We start planning at the beginning of the spring semester. In January, we start figuring out how to organize it. We have a lot of teams to fill up water balloons because we can’t fill 20,000 balloons on our own,” Nagarajan added.

As an added incentive for filling balloons, Ashoka offers prizes for groups of students that fill the most balloons within a set period of time.

The work continues after the fight, as members of Ashoka have to pick up the Swamp.

“It’s a lot of work. We have to pick up all the balloon remnants, and that took a while, about four hours,” Bastani said.

In addition to removing balloon fragments, Ashoka is responsible for hosing off event participants, cleaning out all utilized multipurpose rooms, emptying trash cans, and collecting all suppiles used for the event.

While the work required to execute Holi is intensive, the event is always well known to students.

“I think that people just know about it. I mean, we do our PR and stuff, like putting up signs, but still people just seem to know about it because it’s a long-standing tradition,” Nagarajan said .

Though Holi is Ashoka’s main event in the spring, it is not all the group is known for. Leading up to the celebration, Ashoka sponsors South Asian Awareness Week and, in the fall, Diwali, the dance performance celebrating the holiday Diwali.

Said Nagarajan, “Diwali might be even bigger than Holi. Holi is pretty big, but Diwali is something more.”