Plains Art Museum Blog
Lori Larusso’s ‘Pizza is a Vegetable’
Last November, Congress voted for a bill that allowed two tablespoons of processed tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable. The decision not only flew in the face of common sense, it also undermined efforts to create more nutritious school lunches, a move that could reduce childhood obesity and future healthcare costs.
Lori Larusso’s installation Pizza is a Vegetable is the newest in our ongoing Art = Food installation series comprised of site-specific works created for Cafe Muse. With her work, Larusso calls into question the various forces that contribute to a modern food culture that would allow pizza to be designated a vegetable, one that leans toward hypercapitalist interests and focuses less on our common health. Utilizing food imagery that calls to mind Michael Pollan’s concept of “pastoral fantasy,” Larusso points out the contradictions and complexities embedded in our food culture and illustrates how our expectation of fresh and healthy food is often exploited—primarily through advertising—to benefit the gargantuan food industry.
Lori Larusso currently holds the James Rosenquist Artist Residency at North Dakota State University. She was born in Massillon, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts and a minor in Women’s Studies. She earned an Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art’s graduate interdisciplinary program, the Mount Royal School of Art. Lori has worked in the community as an advocate and has also maintained a solid studio practice, continuing to show her artworks regionally, nationally and internationally.
Pizza is a Vegetable will hang in Cafe Muse through May.
From the future Center for Creativity
It doesn’t look like much yet, but construction work on the future Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity has taken a number of steps forward. Asbestos has been removed, walls and structural elements are being improved, and plumbing and electrical are being updated. Compared to the state of the building prior to the beginning of construction, the above photo represents a massive improvement.
We’ll keep you posted as construction continues. Until then, learn how you can help support the Center for Creativity, or watch this video to learn about the impact it will have on our community.
A memorable night of misfit cups
On Friday evening, we had a capacity crowd for Michael J. Strand’s talk “The Space Between: Art and Humanity.” Despite a shortage of seating and some technical difficulties, Michael delivered a memorable talk highlighting his approach to socially engaged projects and expressing the delight in the stories and lives he has been able to share through those projects.
The evening also served as a kickoff for Michael’s newest endeavor, The Misfit Cup Liberation Project, which asked participants to bring in little-used “misfit” cups and trade them in for a cup hand-thrown by Michael, but only if participants left the cup’s story along with the cup. Everyone was intrigued and delighted by the process, and the stories provided with the cups documented a wide array of emotions, from humor to bittersweet loss.
Click the thumbnails to embiggen.
Next week, show your love during Giving Hearts Day
Plains Art Museum is proud to be part of Giving Hearts Day 2012, sponsored by Dakota Medical Foundation. If you make an online contribution of $10 or more to the Museum at impactgiveback.org on Tuesday, February 14, your gift will by doubled by a generous match from the Otter Tail Corporation. We invite you to give from the heart and show some love for the Museum!
Mark your calendars for February 14 and bookmark impactgiveback.org!
Misfit Cup Liberation Project installation
Brittany Greenwood, a graduate student in architecture and a member of artist Michael Strand’s Engage U group, installs “orphanages” for the Misfit Cup Liberation Project, an ongoing project by Strand. Strand will put a hand-fired cup in each of the wooden “orphanages.” The public is welcome to bring in their own misfit cup and exchange it for one of Michael’s, provided they also leave a short story about their own cup. Michael will be speaking about this and his other recent projects in a talk at the Museum on Friday night.
‘Art on the Plains’ opens with a bang
We had a ball at the opening reception for Art on the Plains XI, held on Saturday, January 28. A boisterous crowd showed up to catch the first few glimpses of this regional juried exhibition, including an impressive showing from the featured artists, many of whom traveled to be part of the festivities.
Artists winning awards during the reception for their work:
1st place – Jamie Burmeister, for two works; a video installation entitled The Music Within My Head and an installation of ceramic figurines entitled vermin.me.
2nd place – Keith Taylor. He has two photographs in AOP: Hill, The Badlands, and Rain Cloud, The Badlands.
3rd place – Raina Belleau, for her work Dignity in Dexterity.
Receiving honorable mentions were: Amber Fletschock, Mark S. Manke, and David Sebberson.
AOP XI will remain up until May 20 in the 1st and 3rd floor galleries, and it’s a perfect opportunity to brush up on the work of our region’s most exciting artists.
Special thanks to Dave “Bulldog” Arntson of Milestones Photography for the photos.
A tiny swarm of tiny “vermin”
If you come to tomorrow night’s opening of Art on the Plains XI, be on the lookout for a tiny swarm of “vermin.” These little figures, each made by Jamie Burmeister, congregate in groups in the AOP galleries. They’re also hanging out by our stairs, gazing longingly out our 3rd floor windows, and spying on riders in our elevator. See how many you can find the next time you visit. These ceramic figures, which go by the name vermin.me, are part of a worldwide installation project of the same name.
Incidentally, Burmeister is also behind the interactive installation The Music Within My Head, a rocking chair that plays video and music as the viewer rocks back and forth. You can see a snippet of video here.
“Today it is artists who are asking the large, substantive questions of our world.”
(With Art on the Plains XI, we’re examining the rich landscape of the artistic upper Midwest. The juror for AOP XI, Hesse McGraw, assembled an exciting exhibition that displays the complexities of visual art in our part of the world and, in turn, takes aim at preconceptions of the Midwest and reinforces its ingenuity.
McGraw is the curator at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha. He provided the following interpretation of AOP XI for our gallery guide. He will also deliver a gallery talk this Saturday night at the AOP opening reception.)
Hesse McGraw, chief curator at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art
The 47 artists in the Art on the Plains XI live and work in the global Midwest. Although their work emerges fervently from the terrain, culture and ethic of the Plains, it resists and upends the quaint color of this exhibition’s title.
Far from the provincial assurance of American Gothic, this exhibition collectively asserts unease with the flat stereotypes of our home. The image of the Plains presented by their work is a both/and Place — exotic and xenophobic, nostalgic and adventurous, homespun yet rigorous, desaturated, but no less ecstatic.
Werner Herzog’s 1977 film Stroszek gave us a weird and painfully impossible Middle America. That is still here, but this middle ground is contested, its landscapes are more surreal than pastoral, and rural depopulation has prompted a hopeful gallows humor. Rather than sink under the weight of knowing too much — having global perspective but a provincial everyday — these artists create a space of openness, belief and ingenuity. They have rejected cynicism to celebrate the authentic absurdities of life in the Midwest.
The exhibition careens through the fault lines of Middle America: shrinking cities, corporate agriculture, race and class divisions, and meat and potatoes culture. Their works graciously reveal a place whose politics are more complex than stark red and blue and where taste is a battleground.
The last three years — since the last Art on the Plains exhibition — have been a singular and tumultuous period. In the wake of the global economic collapse of 2008, our political structures have become increasingly constipated with useless oppositions and brinksmanship. Yet within this landscape, and self-punishing extremes such as Kansas’ elimination of its state arts commission — artists continue to advance the frontiers of our culture.
Today it is artists who are asking the large, substantive questions of our world. Their training — in deep ingenuity, creative agility, learning to solve problems by asking a different question — is fundamental to locating new ways out of our extant ills. We are living through an ideal moment to recognize the transformative impacts of art and artists on our world. In contrast to the extremities of our political and media landscapes, one finds radical normality in artists. Theirs is a benevolent danger, intense pragmatism and hyper-rationality.
Art on the Plains XI works to defray caustic misconceptions, even as it opens new veins of thinking through our region. These artists explode our view, granting restlessly expansive perspectives of this specific world.
–Hesse McGraw, 12.21.2011
We’re taking some credit for the lack of snow
Part of the concept drawing for "Lucent Gale", the second-place proposal for the Winter Wonderland competition, by Drew Holmgren, Collin Johnson, and Tali Johnson.
We issued a press release yesterday with an update on Winter Wonderland, a winter Defiant Gardens project. For the project, we joined forces with artist, and NDSU assistant professor of landscape architecture, Stevie Famulari, and the NDSU Memorial Union Gallery to hold a juried display of snow sculptures the first week of February.
At least, we’d planned to do that. In case you haven’t noticed how limber your back feels from lack of shoveling, we don’t have enough snow for the designers to build the structures. So, the decision was made to cancel the event. On the one hand, it’s a shame that we’re unable to present this fun, winter-only spectacle … but on the other hand, we’re going to take a little credit for that limber back. From the release:
“We think that this project shows the power of art to not just change lives but to change the weather,” said Colleen Sheehy, director and CEO of the Museum. “The mere planning and organizing of ‘Winter Wonderland’ overturned weather predictions that promised a very snowy winter caused by El Nina, and produced the snowless, warm season we’ve enjoyed this year. That was an inadvertent impact of this project.”
…
“Our arts community, in preparation for toughing out our typically intense January and February temperatures and snow in a creative way, would like to take credit for our lack of snow by simply planning this event,” Famulari said.
Of course, we say all this with tongue in cheek; the lack of snow has derailed a lot of cold-snubbing fun in our area. The St. Paul Winter Carnival also cancelled its snow sculpture competition and the Beargrease Sled Dog Race, another regional favorite, also had to cancel this year’s event. All of these represent a dint in our respective economies and deprive us all of a needed reprieve from the winter doldrums.
You can, at the very least, see the designs that were meant to be part of Winter Wonderland. They’ll be on display at the Memorial Union Gallery January 12 – 26 and here at the Museum February 3 – 12.
Get hands-on with some upcoming activities
Now that we’re getting back into our routines after the holiday season, it’s a perfect opportunity to take in one (or two, or more) of our upcoming activities and get inspired to build more creativity into your day-to-day life. Here’s a look at what we have coming up.
For the kiddos
Kid Quest, our popular art-making event for the whole family, continues into the new year and continues to inspire the next generation of artists. To register for a free Kid Quest event, call 701.232.3821 ext. 101, or click here to register online. Upcoming dates are:
- February 4 – Furious Felters. Get your hands into fabric and felting, just like the artists in this year’s Unglued Craft Fest to be held Saturday, February 25 at the Museum.
- March 10 – The Great Art Free for All. We give you the supplies, you take them into bold new directions.
- April 7 – Don’t Throw That Away. Celebrate Earth Day by re-purposing your rubbish into fun creations.
Kid Quest is sponsored by Xcel Energy Foundation, Village Family Magazine, and Minnesota Public Radio.
Art for Two
Our Art for Two events are a perfect way to spend creative time with a child (aged 5-12) and encourage them to expand their abilities. These workshops are $22 for Museum members, $25 for non-members. Call to register, or register online here.
- Saturday, February 11, 2 – 4 p.m. My Personal Piggy Bank. Get a handle on your finances with a recession-proof, paper maché piggy bank.
- Saturday, April 14, 2 – 4 p.m. Your Own Storybook. Explore the world of book art by recreating your own story in a one-of-a-kind art book.
Activities for adults
Learn some new skills with your digital camera and stretch out in our sunrise-lit 3rd floor raw space.
- Artful Yoga at PAM. Tuesday mornings at 8:30 a.m., January 31 – February 28. $5/class for members, $10 for nonmembers. Drop-in, no registration required. Instructor Knoedel will lead you through a one-hour beginner’s class to limber you up for the day.
- Digital Photography for Beginners. Five Saturdays, January 21 – February 18, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. $80 for members, $88 for nonmembers. Get better photos from any digital camera by learning more about your camera and learning about composition and subject matter. You’ll need to supply your own camera, but any camera will do. Call 701.232.3821 ext. 101 to register, or register online here.
