2020 February Press Releases

Plains Art Museum Launches 2020 Buzz Lab Internship Program

Press Release
For Immediate Release (February 2020)

Fargo, N.D. – Plains Art Museum announces the seventh annual Buzz Lab teen internship program, taking place throughout Summer 2020. Buzz Lab is a paid internship for teens ages 12-18 who are interested in the arts, leadership, and the environment, and who want to make a positive impact on their community. This program is proudly supported by a generous grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Buzz Lab interns commit to eight days of learning and collaboration at Plains Art Museum and through field trips. Interns work with artists and scientists to learn and discuss the importance of pollinators, create original works of art, and share their art and knowledge with our community. Interns also develop and maintain the Pollinator Garden at Plains Art Museum.

Applications will launch on Thursday, February 27 at the Buzz Lab Launch Party at 5:30 pm. Following the launch party, applications will be available online here and at the front desk of Plains Art Museum. Applications are due by 9:00 pm on Thursday, March 26.

Plains Art Museum is your nonprofit art museum and education center, supported by over 800 individuals and organizations. The Museum and its Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity encompass the largest and only accredited art museum in North Dakota. It is located in downtown Fargo at 704 First Avenue North. For more information about visiting or supporting your art museum, visit plainsart.org.

Plains Art Museum Presents Limitless: A Celebration of Abstract Painting

Press Release
For Immediate Release (February 2020)

The Plains School of Abstract Painting and the Museum are proud to host a free evening of artist demonstrations and discussions celebrating the power and complexities of abstract painting on Thursday March 5, 2020 from 6:00 – 7:30 pm. Demonstrations will be led by Marjorie Schlossman and many of the other highly regarded members of the School, and discussion will be centered on a talk titled “The Abstract Arts” by renowned philosopher Theodore Gracyk.

When we think about abstract art, we often think that it dates to the early 20th century and the work of such painters as Wassily Kandinsky. Gracyk’s illustrated talk begins in a surprising place, in the middle of the eighteenth century, and then takes note of some nineteenth-century speculation on abstraction before taking up the case of twentieth-century painting. Comparing several distinct but familiar sets of criteria for distinguishing the arts, the talk explores the possibility that there are multiple abstract arts. Currently in his fourth decade of teaching at Minnesota State University Moorhead, Gracyk is the author of seven books on art and music and is coeditor of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

Plains Art Museum is your nonprofit art museum and education center, supported by over 800 individuals and organizations. The Museum and its Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity encompass the largest and only accredited art museum in North Dakota. It is located in downtown Fargo at 704 First Avenue North. For more information about visiting or supporting your art museum, visit plainsart.org.

Contact: Andrew J. Maus, Director & CEO, 701.551.6123, amaus@plainsart.org

Plains Art Museum Exhibits: Responsibilities and Obligations: Understanding Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ

Press Release
For Immediate Release (February 2020)

Plains Art Museum is proud to exhibit Responsibilities and Obligations: Understanding Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ now through August 15, 2020 in Ruth & Seymour Landfield Atrium. The exhibition features work by Clementine Bordeaux and Mary V. Bordeaux from Racing Magpie Gallery in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ is a phrase in the Lakota language and culture that loosely translates to “we are all related” or “all my relatives.” It is used by Lakota and non-Lakota alike. The phrase has been appropriated as an all-encompassing idea of inclusiveness. This exhibition is a reflective journey highlighting Lakota female perspectives surrounding the idea and concept of Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ. The project aims to engage Lakota artists, scholars and general audiences to reflect on the (mis) appropriation of this phrase through mixed and multimedia installations. The exhibition provides an opportunity to share the Lakota language and build understanding among the Titonwan communities of the region and the Native and non-Native populations in the Fargo Moorhead area through arts and culture.

Clementine Bordeaux is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate and was raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Bordeaux earned her graduate degree from the University of Washington, Seattle. Mary V. Bordeaux, Sicangu/Oglala Lakota, is the co-founder and owner of Racing Magpie. She received her BA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and MFA from the University of Arts, both in museum arts.

Mary V. Bordeaux (Sicangu/Oglala Lakota) is the co-founder and owner of Racing Magpie, a collaborative space with a Native art gallery and artist studios. She received her BA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and MFA from the University of the Arts both in museum studies with an emphasis on exhibition design and planning. Bordeaux is currently working on her educational doctorate at Saint Mary’s University, researching Lakota epistemology.  She has held curatorial positions with The Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School and The Indian Museum of North America at Crazy Horse Memorial.

Layli Long Soldier earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Bard College. She is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and WHEREAS (2017). She has been a contributing editor to Drunken Boat; in 2012, her participatory installation, Whereas We Respond, was featured on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Whereas received the prestigious PEN/Jean Stein Book Award in 2018. In 2015, Long Soldier was awarded a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Poetry. She is also a recipient of a 2016 Whiting Award. A citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Long Soldier lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her daughter.

Plains Art Museum is your nonprofit art museum and education center, supported by over 800 individuals and organizations. The Museum and its Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity encompass the largest and only accredited art museum in North Dakota. It is located in downtown Fargo at 704 First Avenue North. For more information about visiting or supporting your art museum, visit plainsart.org.

Contact: Andrew J. Maus, Director & CEO, 701.551.6123, amaus@plainsart.org

Plains Art Museum Spring Gala: Surreal Soirée

Press Release
For Immediate Release (February 2020)

Fargo, North Dakota –Plains Art Museum and Presenting Sponsor Bell Insurance announce Spring Gala: Surreal Soirée on Saturday May 2, 2020 from 7:00 pm – Midnight. Tickets are available for purchase at http://bidpal.net/plainsartgala2020 for $100 through April 15, and $120 per ticket thereafter.  Museum members will also receive a special discount. For members Tickets will be $90 until April 15 and $100 afterwards.

Bell Insurance Presents Spring Gala: Surreal Soirée will be an awe-inspiring experience, inspired by Surrealism and the current Museum exhibition Salvador Dalí’s Stairway to Heaven. Supported by hundreds of attendees and dozens of sponsors each year, this community event is one of the area’s most anticipated fundraisers and art parties. Enjoy live music from Jessica Vines, hors d’oeuvres from VIP Restaurant and Catering, desserts from Nichole’s Fine Pastry, and the area’s largest public wine tasting, courtesy of Happy Harry’s Bottle Shops.  The mad geniuses at Livewire are back again this year for a stunning visual and audio experience to further enhance this year’s spectacles from FM Aerial Movement Arts and Josie the Circus Cat, and the Surrealist Fashion Show by designer, Hugo Sarmiento.  Also, the Spring Gala will once again include one of the region’s largest and most diverse art auctions, which is your connection to the amazing creativity and innovation in the Upper Midwest.

This year’s Spring Gala co-chairs are Brian and Sara Halverson, Ryan and Megan Bergseth, and Lucas and Jenna Sandman.  Attire at the Spring Gala is often creative, but wear whatever makes the event fun for you! Take inspiration from the theme, or just put on your going-out-on-the-town best.

The Spring Gala is not only Fargo’s most anticipated art party. It is also an incredible fundraiser that provides tens-of-thousands of dollars in support of the Museum’s educational programs and the PlainsArt4All General Fund, which enables the Museum to offer free general admission for all visitors.

The Museum’s Spring Gala has grown so much that Plains Art Museum is also announcing a second Spring Gala event – the Spring Gala Dinner. To mark the opening of the Spring Gala Art Auction on Sunday, April 5th, this surreal dinner will be located in the gallery – a truly one-of-a-kind experience that will enable Gala party-goers and non-party-goers alike to support your art museum this spring. An extravagant meal will be prepared by Maxwell’s Restaurant & Bar and a centerpiece will be made by artist Olivia Bain just for dinner attendees. For ticket information for the Spring Gala Dinner, please contact Sarah Anstett at (701) 551-6106.

Plains Art Museum is your nonprofit art museum and education center, supported by over 800 individuals and organizations. The Museum and its Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity encompass the largest and only accredited art museum in North Dakota. It is located in downtown Fargo at 704 First Avenue North. For more information about visiting or supporting your art museum, visit plainsart.org.

Contact: Andrew J. Maus, Director & CEO, 701.551.6123, amaus@plainsart.org