This is Not Black and White

June 24, 2023 - June 10, 2024

Jane L. Stern Gallery   

Everything is more complex than it appears. This is Not Black and White is an exhibition featuring works from Plains Art Museum’s permanent collection that underscore spectrums of complexity. The works in the exhibition reflect a diversity of place, ethnicity, culture, gender, and medium but are aesthetically linked by artistic use of strong blacks and whites. Building on this diversity, This is Not Black and White employs equally complex interpretive approaches that are expansive rather than being only limited to the didactic. While we often think of black-and-white concepts as minimal, like a limited binary, moving beyond the surface of artworks often reveal nuanced layers of complexity, philosophies, questions, and truth-seeking. Building on a partnership between Plains Art Museum and Art Bridges, the visitor is welcomes to enter the space and employ their own experiences and relations to the works on the walls. 

Generous support for this project provided by Art Bridges.

While we encourage in-person visits to the museum to experience our exhibitions, we also think about ways to increasingly foster accessibility as well as reaching a geographically broad audience. To check out the exhibition’s public-facing checklist and to discover some additional information about selected featured works, click below.

left to right: Chakaia Booker, Untitled, 2022, Lithograph, 24 x 30 in. Permanent Collection • T.L. Solien, The Fall, 1984, Linocut, 46.5 x 32.5 in., Printed and published by Vermillion Editions Limited, Minneapolis, MN, Permanent Collection • Kerry James Marshall, Lost Boys: AKA BB, 1993, Acrylic and collage on canvas mounted on board, Art Bridges

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

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.

View Exhibition

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.

View Exhibition

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.

View Exhibition

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.

View Exhibition