Now Open at Plains Art Museum: Hazel Belvo: Heart and Soul
Press Release
For Immediate Release (September 2022)
Fargo, North Dakota – With much anticipation, Plains Art Museum is pleased to announce Hazel Belvo: Heart and Soul is on display through May 27, 2023 in the Museum’s William and Anna Schlossman Gallery.
Hazel’s work is the fifth exhibition in Plains Art Museum’s“Mothers of Invention” series, which acknowledges and elevates the contributions of influential, late-career women artists in the Upper Midwest. Over her almost 70 year-long career, Hazel Belvo has been a prominent contributor to both the arts and feminist advocacy in the region. Hazel co-founded the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota (WARM), was Chair of the Fine Arts Dept. at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), and taught at the Grand Marais Artist Colony.
Born in Ohio and educated at the Dayton Art Institute, Hazel started her artistic explorations with the painting of individual cellular structures. Over time, her imagery would develop to include expansive landscapes, powerful trees, and portraits that expressed love, determination, and strength. This exhibition features works from throughout her career, including recently produced paintings and a selection of Hazel’s travel journals.
Supporting Programs for Hazel Belvo: Heart and Soul include an artist talk on Thursday, November 3 and the Printing in Pairs workshop, Juxtaposition, on Friday November 4. Visit https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/hazel-belvo-heart-and-soul/ for cost, time, and membership discount information.
This exhibition is made possible thanks to support from the Demarest Bowers Morrow Exhibition Fund, FM Area Foundation and the Museum’s community of PlainsArt4All members and donors.
Plains Art Museum is the largest art museum in the Dakotas and Western Minnesota. It is general admission free and educationally-focused thanks to strong and growing support from over 800 households and businesses. The Museum manages a permanent collection of over 4,000 objects, organizes and presents dozens of annual exhibitions, facilitates public art projects, and leads over 200 educational programs and experiences for all ages each year. The Museum, and its Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity, are located at 704 First Avenue North in downtown Fargo. For more information about visiting or supporting your art museum, visit plainsart.org.
Contact: Andy Maus, Museum Director / CEO, amaus@plainsart.org, 701.551.6123.
Plains Art Museum to Open Unseen Traces in the Work of Ann Johnson
Press Release
For Immediate Release (September 2022)
Fargo, North Dakota – Plains Art Museum is thrilled to host Unseen Traces in the Work of Ann Johnson through March 11, 2023 in the Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium.
Reflecting on her 2022 Lawndale Contemporary Art Center installation, See Me, Ann “Sole Sister” Johnson is matter-a-fact about the intent: “This is about being seen. Seeing the women in the shadows.” Incorporating experimental printmaking on found objects to produce “work that breathes conversation” and “question humanity,” Ann “Sole Sister” Johnson occupies that threshold between ancestral legacies and historical futures.
The artist, Ann Johnson, occupies a space—on, among, and with ancestral spirits—that is at once both “magical and distressing,” to bring forth artistic work that examines family, community, and Black Womanhood. Ann “Sole Sister” Johnson presents us with an intricate polymer intaglio process on cotton and infuses an assimilation of found objects with contemporary imagery. With other poignant processes, Johnson honors those women in the shadows and captures “layers and levels of womanhood” via a “transfer printmaking process on vintage and aged-metal ironing boards.” She discerns and embraces the intimacies of family portraits and personal stories by rendering them legible against the surfaces of objects that hold symbolic and historical significance.
Supporting programs for Unseen Traces in the Work of Ann Johnson include an Artist Residency from October 17-22, a free artist talk with Johnson on Thursday October 20, and the four-session youth workshop, Writing the Self: Poetics and Portraits with special guest, Ann “Sole Sister” Johnson and teaching artist, Stephanie Lemmer. Visit https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/unseen-traces/ for additional date and time information.
Born in London, England, UK, and raised in Wyoming, USA, Ann Johnson received her MA in Humanities (University of Houston-Clear Lake) as well as her MFA from the Academy of Art University (San Francisco) with a concentration in printmaking. Her work has been exhibited at: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The Museum of Printing History, Houston, TX; Women and Their Work Gallery, Austin, TX; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; Tisdale Beach Institute, Savannah, GA; Charles H. Wright Museum, Flint, MI; The Apex Museum, Atlanta, GA; and, at the California African American Art Museum located in Los Angeles, CA.
Plains Art Museum thanks our generous PlainsArt4All members, donors, and Organizational Partners 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.
Plains Art Museum featured exhibition: Waŋna niš niyepi: Continuity of Culture, Crow’s Shadow
Press Release
For Immediate Release (September 2022)
Fargo, North Dakota – Plains Art Museum, in partnership with Crow’s Shadow Institute for the Arts, is honored to bring Continuity of Culture to the Fred Donath Jr. Memorial Gallery through February 22, 2023.
This exhibition highlights contemporary prints from Crow’s Shadow’s permanent collection in conversation with Indigenous objects from Plains Art Museum’s permanent collection. Pairing these artworks brings layers of complex narratives across time and space, reinforcing contemporary
Indigenous experience.
Despite Indigenous People’s historical (dis)placement by modern society, the historic items from the collection were created by contemporary people of their day, and these artworks still serve the same function within Indigenous culture today as it did ten, fifty, or over a century ago. Crow’s Shadow’s prints by contemporary art stars Marie Watt, Wendy Red Star, Jeffery Gibson, Raven Chacon, and many more reflect the continuity of culture, but also a need for contemporary artists to express themselves as individuals.
Supporting programs for this exhibition include a Soapstone Carving workshop on November 4-6 with Inkpa Mani and Embellished Birchbark Basketry with Penny Kagigebi on Saturday November 12. For more information about class times, cost, and member discounts, visit https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/wanna-nis-niyepi/.
This exhibition is made possible through the support of the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Plains Art Museum is the largest art museum in the Dakotas and Western Minnesota. It is general admission free and educationally-focused thanks to strong and growing support from over 800 households and businesses. The Museum manages a permanent collection of over 4,000 objects, organizes and presents dozens of annual exhibitions, facilitates public art projects, and leads over 200 educational programs and experiences for all ages each year. The Museum, and its Katherine Kilbourne Burgum Center for Creativity, are located at 704 First Avenue North in downtown Fargo. For more information about visiting or supporting your art museum, visit plainsart.org.
Contact: Andy Maus, Museum Director / CEO, amaus@plainsart.org, 701.551.6123.
Wendy Red Star, Her Dreams Are True (Julia Bad Boy), 2020, Lithograph, 20 1⁄4 x 20 in, Edition of 25