Even Light Itself

Highlights and Recent Acquisitions from the Collection

May 8, 2021 - September 3, 2022

Jane L. Stern Gallery 

Without light there is no color and recognizing form is near impossible. Underlying the importance of light to our visual culture, these fundamental components continue to be used by artists in a spectrum of very unique and profound ways. Even Light Itself: Highlights and Recent Acquisitions from the Collection illuminates sixty artworks and objects from the permanent collection of Plains Art Museum — and reflects on light, color, form and shadow and the relationship with such prismatic subjects as aesthetics, ritual, culture, and symbolism. Artworks included are by Steven M. Andersen, Berenice Abbott, David P. Bradley, Keith BraveHeart, Alexander Calder, Dale Chihuly, Jacuelyn McElroy, Helen Frankenthaler, Luis A. Jiménez, Stuart Klipper, Truman Lowe, George Morrison, Norval Morriseau, Liselotte Moser, Catherine Mulligan, Stuart Nielson, Jon Offutt, Judy Onofrio, Linda Plotkin, James Rosenquist, Marjorie Schlossman, Mary Sherman, Victor Vasarely, Kathryn Lipke Vigesaa, Paul Wong, Adja Yunkers, and many others.

Plains Art Museum is home to over 4,200 international, national, and regional works of art and is primarily focused on collecting modern and contemporary art in a variety of styles, with strengths in regional art, American Modernism, and Native American work. Plains Art Museum is also home to a prominent collection of African artworks, some of which are presented in Even Light Itself: Highlights and Recent Acquisitions from the Collection.

Plains Art Museum thanks our generous members and donors for their support. Additional support provided by The McKnight Foundation, Bush Foundation, The Arts Partnership, 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.
left to right: Jacob Agam, French Postage Stamp, 1980, Lenticular image, 18 x 18 in., Gift of Donald D. Powell • Catherine Mulligan, Geno-Tech, David Hockney, 1983, glass, 44 x 12 x 26 in. • Terry McLarnen, Spirit Dances, 1978, Photograph, 11 x 14 in.

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.

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Bee in Flight

Ongoing
Bee in Flight

Community artist and school art teacher MeLissa Kossick, who guides youth classes at the Museum on art, gardens, and pollinators, has created an enchanting mosaic design in the Creativity Pathway in the Serkland Gallery called Bee in Flight.

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S.P.A.C.E.

Ongoing
S.P.A.C.E.
Kaleidoscope

The S.P.A.C.E. (Sculpture Pad Art Collaborative Experiment) project is a public art initiative undertaken collaboratively between Plains Art Museum, and the college art departments at North Dakota State University, Minnesota State University Moorhead, and Concordia College.

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The North Dakota Mural

Ongoing
The North Dakota Mural

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.

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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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