Bill Christman's Gallery/Consignment Shop Aims to Make the Loop Weird Again

When pondering the beaten down state of St. Louis' art and music scenes, Bill Christman has a theory on who is to blame: It was those damn Germans.

The city had been founded by the French, the prolific St. Louis artist recounts, before the Germans came along in the 1840s, prior to the Civil War. The newcomers had money, education and skills, and soon they more or less took the town over. The French, he notes, just kind of let 'em have it.

But while the Germans' oft-touted efficiency brought considerable growth to the region in the decades that followed, the more laissez-faire attitude of the city's founders, with their focus on art and music and culture and whimsy, is decidedly more Christman's speed.

"So my motto is, 'Make St. Louis French Again,'" Christman says with a laugh.

It's not that he thinks St. Louis has a dearth of talent — on the contrary, he knows we have a wealth of gifted artists that call the city home. But he's of the opinion that St. Louis suffers from low self-esteem, that we think of ourselves as second-rate, that we think if you don't move away to New York or Chicago or LA, you must be a nobody. His fondest wish, he says, is for that self-assessment to change.

So in the name of being the change he wants to see in the world, Christman is putting his time and money where his mouth is and opening an outsider art gallery and antiques consignment shop in the Delmar Loop, which serves as the catalyst for this afternoon's meeting with an RFT reporter.


The gallery concept is called the MOFO, or Museum of Fabulous Outsiders, and will occupy one half of 6388 Delmar Boulevard. The consignment shop, dubbed Rio Del Mar, takes up the second half and will be helmed by Christman's childhood friend Buzz Wall, a photographer and antiques dealer he's known since grade school.

Wall was actually supposed to be at our meeting today, Christman says, but life got in the way. "Buzz has the best of intentions, but often his love of music and marijuana distracts him," Christman explains.

Loop regulars have no doubt noticed the curious storefront, situated right next door to Avalon Exchange, as its proprietors have worked to get it up and running. For months now it's had a hand-painted sign out front that reads Alien Robot Expo, along with various art and ephemera related to mechanical men and extraterrestrials in its windows. Alien Robot Expo was actually originally going to be the name of the art gallery, Christman says, and the plan had been to display a ton of Area 51-esque souvenirs long collected by one of Christman's associates, but he scrapped that idea out of fear that some of those smaller items might walk away when the doors opened to the general public. Thus, the name change to MOFO.

There's still plenty of that type of stuff inside, though — like the row of life-sized robots built out of old ovens and scrap metal and other various stuff the less artistically inclined among us might call "junk." It's just more difficult to pilfer. And it's joined by other oddities including a functioning, hand-cranked wooden statue of Bob Dylan playing the guitar; a bedazzled portrait of Mark Twain; a huge, carved-wood sculpture depicting a battle between two falling angels; a rack of quirky, vintage clothing with newly embroidered details; and an electric chair that purports to have been the site of John Dillinger's death (a dubious claim indeed, considering the late bank robber met his demise in a hail of bullets). The overall vibe is what you'd get if you crossed Joe's Cafe, which Christman founded, with the City Museum, where Christman's work is also on display, with Maplewood's Treasure Aisles Antique Mall.


On the gallery side of the space, Christman plans to display works from local outsider artists — many of them friends whose work Christman admires.

"I call them 'homegrown unknown," he says. "Because their work is, to me, quite brilliant, but they don't get a chance to show, because art in St. Louis is kind of uppity, and I would say if you're not in that circle — which is a very small circle — you're an outsider. So to the extent that St. Louis doesn't have an outsider art place, this is it."

Some of the first artists whose work will be on display are Tom Rassieur, a former employee of Christman's old sign business whose work Christman describes as "goofy, unusual furniture"; Theresa Disney, a folk artist and former student of Christman's from his past life as an art teacher, who does large paintings on roofing tar paper; Jim Arnitz, who creates elaborate and often site-specific sculptures out of found materials; and painter Jane Mudd, a friend of Christman's who attended Fontbonne University, which Christman derides as a "podunk school" before offering that the legendary Bob Cassilly was also an alum.

"These people are heroes to me, because they make art and they never get any money or recognition — it's the sheer devotion," Christman says.

While Christman is speaking, a woman wanders into the not-yet-open shop’s very open front door. As she bends down to look at some framed art on the wall in the consignment portion of the space, Christman addresses her in a slightly brusque manner.

“Excuse me ma’am, can I help you?” he says.

“Oh sorry, I was just seeing around. Is that OK?” she replies.

“Go ahead," Christman says. "Just don't steal anything."

"Oh I won't," she promises.

After a few minutes, the woman asks about the price of a piece that caught her eye.

"Are you rich?" Christman inquires, to which she says she is not. "No one will ever admit to being rich, because then the price just goes up like that," Christman muses.

After a little haggling the woman leaves empty-handed, saying she has to think about it but she'll be back. After she leaves, Christman gives himself a small pat on the back for navigating the interaction in a largely courteous manner.


"Damn near hurts me to be polite to people when actually my temptation is to be rude and mean-spirited," he laughs. "I'm trying to control it."

Luckily, Christman still has a little bit of time to get his patter down before the visitors begin arriving steadily. Together, the MOFO and Rio Del Mar are set to open on April 1 — April Fool's Day. The timing is intentional, Christman says: "That way if we don't manage to get it open, we can say we were just joking."

It's all part of Christman's bid to make St. Louis in general — and the Loop in particular — more vibrant, more strange, more colorful. More French, some might say.

"I guess the idea is to try to slightly revive the old Loop before it became less — I don't know, it lost some of its mojo, whatever the heck you call it," Christman says. "So this is more eccentric, eclectic and probably will fail."

He pauses for a moment. "But what if it didn't?"


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