The North Dakota Mural
The landscape in North Dakota is the sky—the stars at night, the clouds in the daytime. At night I thought about the stars and light-years and the speed of light and everything that was sort of inexplicable.
— James Rosenquist, Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art
With the installation of The North Dakota Mural at Plains Art Museum in 2010, James Rosenquist returned to his home state in a big way. Drawing on his childhood memories of the Great Plains, he created a work that speaks to the wide open spaces, huge vistas, and ocean-like skies of the region. Using his signature style of mixing different images together at varied scales, he invites us to contemplate how nature, society, culture, agriculture, industry, and history relate to each other in this particular place. The heavens of stars, nebulae, and galaxies depicted in the upper half of the painting make us ponder our place in the universe as much as our location on planet Earth.
The North Dakota Mural was commissioned by Plains Art Museum as part of a major capital campaign. Many in the local arts community have worked toward this long-standing dream of acquiring a major work by this important artist and local son. Plains Art Museum thanks James Rosenquist for his in-kind donation of creative work and an anonymous donor who supported the commissioning of this artwork. Additional thanks go to the National Endowment for the Arts and an anonymous donor for supporting installation costs.
-
"At night I thought about the stars and light-years and the speed of light and everything that was sort of inexplicable."
Other Exhibitions
Conversation Pieces
Plains Art Museum is home to over 4,000 diverse national, regional and local works of art. Art communicates ideas and feelings between artists and viewers, but art pieces are also often in dialogue with other works of art.
View ExhibitionRecent Work by Hannaher’s, Inc. Print Studio
Plains Art Museum is one of the few art museums in the U.S. to have a prominent and dynamic print studio. This exhibition highlights the experimentation that has happened in Hannaher’s, Inc. Print Studio from October 2016 to present.
View ExhibitionThe Buffalo in the American Living Room
Born in Breckenridge, Minnesota in 1937, Fritz Scholder, a member of the Luiseño Tribe of California, was an influential Native American artist who inspired generations of Native American artists with his commentary on the contemporary Native American experience.
View ExhibitionJescia Hoffman Hopper
Wonderlust is an immersive experience: a mixed media installation intended to take the viewer on a trip through the imagination and back to the childhood realm of impossible worlds.
View ExhibitionRegalia
Regalia is an exhibition highlighting the work of Linda Whitney in Plains Art Museum’s Mothers of Invention exhibition series. Mothers of Invention celebrates Midwest women whose artwork deserves greater critical review and elevated art museum audiences.
View Exhibition