Convergence: Health & Creativity

New Work by Anne Labovitz

November 16, 2024 - May 11, 2025

William and Anna Jane Schlossman Gallery

Taking inspiration from a holistic nature of human experience, Convergence: Health & Creativity – New Work by Anne Labovitz is a body of work by noted international and Minnesota-based artist Anne Labovitz. The exhibition includes sculpture, installation, drawing, and public participatory works created specifically for the Plains Art Museum. These artworks are an examination and experimentation with light and color, and are underpinned by the concept of connecting health and creativity. Each work reflects extensive research and interviews with health care professionals and is manifested through the materiality, intense mark-making, abstracted text, and precise and intuitive color selection.

The interconnection of health and art provides space for creativity and the opportunity for us to consider ideas of wellness and emotive responses. The artist assembled the exhibition to be an active place for creativity, contemplation and conversation. Light, words, voices and text become mediums in the work.

This exhibition created specifically for the Plains Art Museum, will be informed by interviews with local healthcare professionals and organizations as well as creative research into the synthesis of Creativity and health. The presentation will include a solo exhibition of sculptures, drawings and public participation as well as an Plains Art Museum atrium installation.

Labovitz has previously undertaken extensive research in the connection between health and art, which manifested in her 2023 exhibition The Nexus of Well-Being and Art at Rochester Art Center. Interviews with healthcare professionals directly informed the exhibition. Labovitz’s previous project 122 Conversations: Person to Person: Art Beyond Borders addressed ideas of cross-cultural connections and co-creating through 60 one-on-one interviews, which toured to six countries and is currently on view at the Minneapolis-St Paul International airport.

Labovitz received a BA in Art and Psychology from Hamline University in St. Paul (1989) and an MFA from Transart, Plymouth University, UK (2017). She is currently an adjunct professor and mentor in the MFA program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in many private and public collections, including the Walker Art Center, Weisman Museum in Minneapolis and Mayo Clinic.

Plains Art Museum thanks our generous PlainsArt4All members, donors, and Organizational Partners for their support. Additional support provided by The McKnight Foundation; FM Area Foundation; The Arts Partnership with support from the cities of Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo; The FUNd at Plains Art Museum; and the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funds from the North Dakota Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program. Plains Art Museum is supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
left to right: 122 Conversations: Person to Person, Art Beyond Borders, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport installation Terminal 2, 2020 • Embracing Well-Being, 2023, 180 x 180 x 36 in., Acrylic on Tyvek

Opening Reception
Saturday, November 16, 6-9 PM, Free
Artist remarks at 7 PM

Please join us to celebrate the opening of Anne Labovitz’ newest artworks, inspired by her conversations with Fargo Moorhead community members. Featuring a large-scale, site-specific, installation in the museum’s Ruth and Seymoure Landfield Atrium and an immersive exhibition in our William and Anna Jane Schlossman Gallery, Anne’s work will inspire, connect, and delight. There will be light refreshments, cash bar, live music, and the opportunity to meet the artist.

Ongoing Exhibitions

No Time For Despair

Ongoing
No Time For Despair

To say that right now is the ideal time to make art that speaks directly to the people about social justice is an understatement. Because the very nature of art is to undertake or assume the role of a healer by shading light on the human condition.

View Exhibition

Bee in Flight

Ongoing
Bee in Flight

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Fragile Preservation

Ongoing
Fragile Preservation
A Tallgrass Community

While the Tallgrass Prairie is a community made up of a great diversity of species, Fragile Preservation represents a selection of them.

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