NDMOA August 2008 Newsletter

North Dakota Museum of ArtEWA TARSIA, GALA SATURDAY EVENING OPENING

AUGUST 23, 2008, 7 PM

On this August evening, the Museum will come alive with colorat Ewa Tarsia’s celebratory opening of her exhibition AbsoluteDot. Polish born and educated, this Canadian artist will beexhibiting both monoprints and relief paintings. Whereas sheworks in diverse media including painting, sculpture, tapestry,landscape design, and drawing, she is known internationally asa printmaker. She has showed in international print biennials inSpain, France, Poland, Austria, United States, England,Germany, Japan, and Korea. Most recently, Tarsia was includedin the New York’s International Print Center’s NEW PRINTS2008/Summer. This exhibition represents the evolution ofTarsia’s printmaking into personal techniques that meld theactual lucite printing plate into relief paintings on canvas.

As a printmaker, Tarsia is part of a tradition of artists whoacknowledge that their plates—the pieces of metal, plastic,wood and linoleum that they print from—are the true objects oftheir affection. Covered with marks, lines, and subtle traces ofcolor, printing plates are often as interesting as the imagespulled from them. Each plate is visually complex, offering afully active and engaged surface that, once transformed intosculpture, reveals both the artist’s obsessive process and thebeauty that motivates her to continue. As an environmentalist,Tarsia sees the irony of using plastic and paper to create imagesthat celebrate the beauty of the natural world. “It reflects oursociety,” she says of the work. “Plastic is everywhere.” Thesuccess of her artistic career in Canada was celebrated in June2007 when she was inducted into the Royal Academy of Arts.

The success of her passion for garden design was celebrated inthe January 2008 issue of Manitoba Gardner. Thus, it is fittingthat the Museum galleries will resemble the blaze of color andthe plant complexity of a summer garden, just as her ownWinnipeg garden is known far and wide for both its brilliantcolor and the plethora of plants that are only supposed toflourish much further south. Her husband Ludwik growsrhododendrons; Ewa grows everything else.

EXHIBITION CONTINUES THROUGH OCTOBER 5, 2008

Ewa Tarsia, detail, OVERPOPULATED (1,000 paintings),2008, new media on canvas.

Ewa Tarsia’s studio, summer 2008.

FINAL SUMMER CONCERT IN THE GARDEN

POST TRAUMATIC FUNK SYNDROME

AUGUST 26, 2008, 7 PM

MARY LUCIER: THE PLAINS OF SWEET REGRET TO TOUR TO

WESTERN NORTH DAKOTA THIS FALL

� Williston: September 11 (opening) – 21, Co-sponsored withChamber of Commerce. Diane Hagen, Executive Directorwill chair the event.

� Dickinson: October 2 (opening) – 12, Museum TrusteeKjersti Armstrong will chair the event.

� Bismarck: Tentative date, October 23 – November 2, details yet to be work out.

The National Endowment for the Arts awarded the Museum $40,000 topartially fund the Western North Dakota Tour primarily because Lucierfilmed the work in northwest North Dakota and at the Rough RiderRodeo in Devils Lake. Following the North Dakota sites, the exhibitionwill continue its national tour to:� Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

November 15 - February 15, 2009� Birmingham Museum of Art, April - June, 2009

THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION AWARDS $50,000 to the North

Dakota Museum of Art and Museum Director Laurel Reuter through itsinaugural round of the Curatorial Research Program. Reuter will use themoney to curate her next international exhibition, this one based in theMiddle East. Ten awards were given for a total of $295,500. Only twoinstitutions, including the North Dakota Museum of Art, received themaximum $50,000 allowed.

THE MUSEUM’S SUMMER ARTS DAY CAMP concluded on August 8.

All six week-long sessions filled. Thanks to scholarship supporters, oneyoungster from Rwanda, two from Uganda, one from Iraq, and manylocal children were able to attend. The camps were conducted byworking artists Memo Guardia, Adam Kemp, Greg Blair, Nancy Friese,Mike Hazard and Museum Director of Education Sue Fink.

SAVE THE DATES:Autumn Art Auction, October 25, 2008, exhibition opens October 14Benefit Dinner and Auction, February 7, 2009

Museum Receives $100,000 for its first year in theBush Foundation’s Regional Arts DevelopmentProgram II for mid-sized arts organizations. “RADPorganizations demonstrate exceptional anddistinctive artistic vision and programming,substantial community engagement andconstituent support, strong administrative andfinancial management, a serious commitment toplanning and ability to adapt to the changingenvironment.” The Museum was awarded over$800,000 over ten years during RAPD I. Sevenentities, including the Museum, have qualified forRADP II.

Post Traumatic Funk Syndrome (left) is Fargo's newest and hottestclassic rock/horn band. This twelve-piece group (six horns, keyboards,bass, drums, guitar, male and female vocals) performs the best ofclassic horn band hits.

From Mary Lucier: The Plains of Sweet Regret.Five-channel video installation.

RURAL SCHOOL INITIATIVE SCHEDULE

Marking the Land: Jim Dow in North Dakota

Minnewaukan, July 16 – 30, 2008Former St. James Church Pre-school

Whapeton, September 4 - 21, 2008Richland County Historical Society

Ellendale, October 7 – 26, 2008The Opera House Gallery of Art

Snow Country Prison:Interned in North Dakota

Ft. Totten, July 14 - Aug. 29, 2008 Cankdeska Cikana Community College

Pekin, October 5 – 18, 2008Nelson County Art Center

Ellendale, October 29 – Nov. 11, 2008The Opera House Gallery of Art

For booking informationContact Matt Wallace

701 777-4195

[email protected]

UPCOMING DISAPPEARED SCHEDULE

Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española enLa Antigua Guatemala

May 24 – July 20, 2008

Museo de arte moderno, Bogotá, ColombiaAugust 9 – September 24, 2008

Museum of the Americas, Office of American States,Washington, DC, USA

November 20, 2008 – February 8, 2009Opening November 20, 6 – 8 pm

November 17-18, George Washington University,Washington, DC, will sponsor a seminar on

torture in conjunction with the exhibition.

THE DISAPPEARED CONTINUES LATIN AMERICAN TOUR

The Museum’s exhibition, The Disappeared, opened in Antigua,Guatemala, on May 24. This may prove to be the most important venueof all in that Guatemala is at a critical juncture in coming to terms withits past where unofficial figures state that up to half-a-millionGuatemalans were killed in their thirty-five year civil war. The show issponsored by the Spanish government through the Centro deFormación de la Cooperación Española en La Antigua, which is housedin a splendid, ancient monastery. The young staff raised almost$100,000 to support the show and the activities surrounding it fromsuch places as the Soros Foundation, Oxfam, Ibis, and the UnitedNations High Commission for Human Rights, with good fundingcoming from various entities within the Spanish government.

The exhibition spaces are a series of loggia, which open into elegantcourtyards. Because Antigua is a World Heritage Site founded in theearly 16th century, no nails could be driven into the original structure.Installation was a challenge for the team of five from the North DakotaMuseum of Art, but ultimately it became a powerful and elegantexhibition.

The Ambassador from Spain and the Guatemala Representative for theUN High Commission for Human Rights opened the exhibition to anoverflow crowd of hundreds. A few days after the opening, GuatemalanPresident Alvaro Colom came for a private tour. He was followed by theVice President and a host of ambassadors, including the U.S.Ambassador James M. Derham.

Press has been terrific. The Museum’s work has been supported by theOtto Bremer Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the VisualArts, and the Lannan Foundation.

Watch for news of the exhibition in Bogotá, Colombia, another countryripped apart by civil war.

Nancy Friese, RIVER, Etching on Gampi paper,Edition 1 of 40, 15 x 15 inches.

“I came to North Dakota because I wanted to see where TeddyRoosevelt went after his wife died. It turned out to be a place where youcould empty your soul into the sky,” writes American landscapephotographer Greg Conniff. He is one of thirty-six artists from across theUnited States whose work is included in Remembering Dakota, on viewthis summer at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks.Curated by Museum Director Laurel Reuter, this timely exhibition addsanother chapter to the history of art in and of North Dakota.

Artists in the exhibition: Marlene Alt, Tom Arndt, Todd Arsenault, Jeff Brouws,Wendy Burton, Greg Conniff, Ward Davenny, Lynn Davis, Joe Deal, JamesDean, Jim Dow, Terry Evans, Charles Forsman, Nancy Friese, Emmet Gowin,David Graham, Gudmundur Ingólfsson, Todd Hebert, Abner Hershberger, StuartKlipper, Peter Latner, Brian Lesteberg, Roddy MacInnes, Guy Nelson, JustinNewhall, Anna Pedersen, Robert Polidori, Dirk Reinartz, Ingrid Restemayer,Frank Sampson, Fritz Scholder, Jes Schrom, Paul Shambroom, Todd Strand, PeterHaakon Thompson, and Steve Tourlentes.

REMEMBERING DAKOTA CLOSES AUGUST 12, 2008

THE RURAL SCHOOL INITIATIVE is an educational outreach program thatbegan as a pilot project in 2004 with $25,000 from the State Legislature.It is designed to encourage and empower rural school children, theirteachers, and their communities to actively participate in learningthrough the arts. Specifically, the North Dakota Museum of Art toursexhibitions tied to classroom curriculum throughout North Dakota, andthen works to engage rural children, their families, and theircommunities in an on-going relationship with the art in the exhibitionsand the ideas that are integral to each show. The exhibits are mountedby Museum staff (using temporary walls built to travel) in whateveravailable space is offered such as banks, schools, community centers,historical sites, and empty buildings. NDMOA offers training sessionswith volunteer docents and teachers, develops on-line lesson plans, andpays for bussing for schools within a fifty-mile radius. NDMOA staffattend the openings. As of October 2007 three exhibitions have beenseen in thirty-four towns (as far as 400 miles from the Museum), with anadditional 181 participating school districts within a fifty-mile radius ofthe host community for a total of 14,646 participants. Over 100,000eight-page tabloids have been inserted into newspapers that serve thesmall communities (mostly weeklies). The fourth exhibition will begintouring in February 2008. In three short years the Rural Arts program hasbecome enormously successful because it fills an actual need for art inevery corner of the State, places where the visual arts are oftennonexistent.

TAKING ART AS FAR AS 400 MILES FROM THE MUSEUM

ART DOES MATTER

MUSEUM BOARD OF TRUSTEES

David Hasbargen, ChairKjersti Armstrong, Victoria Beard, David Blehm,Julie Blehm, Ann Brown, Chad Caya, W. Jeremy

Davis, Virginia Dunnigan, John Foster, BruceGjovig, Jean Holland, Kim Holmes, Sandy Kaul,

Rick Mercil, Dianne Mondry, Laurel Reuter, AlexReichert, Pat Ryan and Wayne Zimmerman

EMERITUS TRUSTEES, Corinne Alphson, Barb Lander,Darrell Larson, Robert Lewis, Douglas McPhail,Sanny Ryan, Gerald Skogley, and Anthony Thein

MUSEUM FOUNDATION BOARD

Betty Monkman, ChairW. Jeremy Davis, Kevin Fickenscher, Nancy Friese, Bruce Gjovig,Daniel E. Gustafson, David Hasbargen, Margery McCanna Jennison,Laurel Reuter and Al Royse

Luis Gonzáles Palma, HERMETIC TENSIONS,1997, silver gelatin prints.

HARRIET AND PLAYFORD THORSON established an Endowment for

General Operating through the Museum Foundation with a gift of$10,000. Harriet has volunteered weekly at the Museum since 1989.Now retired, Playford taught history at the University for decades.

RURAL SCHOOL INITIATIVE SCHEDULE

Marking the Land: Jim Dow in North Dakota

Minnewaukan, July 16 – 30, 2008Former St. James Church Pre-school

Whapeton, September 4 - 21, 2008Richland County Historical Society

Ellendale, October 7 – 26, 2008The Opera House Gallery of Art

Snow Country Prison:Interned in North Dakota

Ft. Totten, July 14 - Aug. 29, 2008 Cankdeska Cikana Community College

Pekin, October 5 – 18, 2008Nelson County Art Center

Ellendale, October 29 – Nov. 11, 2008The Opera House Gallery of Art

For booking informationContact Matt Wallace

701 777-4195

[email protected]

UPCOMING DISAPPEARED SCHEDULE

Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española enLa Antigua Guatemala

May 24 – July 20, 2008

Museo de arte moderno, Bogotá, ColombiaAugust 9 – September 24, 2008

Museum of the Americas, Office of American States,Washington, DC, USA

November 20, 2008 – February 8, 2009Opening November 20, 6 – 8 pm

November 17-18, George Washington University,Washington, DC, will sponsor a seminar on

torture in conjunction with the exhibition.

THE DISAPPEARED CONTINUES LATIN AMERICAN TOUR

The Museum’s exhibition, The Disappeared, opened in Antigua,Guatemala, on May 24. This may prove to be the most important venueof all in that Guatemala is at a critical juncture in coming to terms withits past where unofficial figures state that up to half-a-millionGuatemalans were killed in their thirty-five year civil war. The show issponsored by the Spanish government through the Centro deFormación de la Cooperación Española en La Antigua, which is housedin a splendid, ancient monastery. The young staff raised almost$100,000 to support the show and the activities surrounding it fromsuch places as the Soros Foundation, Oxfam, Ibis, and the UnitedNations High Commission for Human Rights, with good fundingcoming from various entities within the Spanish government.

The exhibition spaces are a series of loggia, which open into elegantcourtyards. Because Antigua is a World Heritage Site founded in theearly 16th century, no nails could be driven into the original structure.Installation was a challenge for the team of five from the North DakotaMuseum of Art, but ultimately it became a powerful and elegantexhibition.

The Ambassador from Spain and the Guatemala Representative for theUN High Commission for Human Rights opened the exhibition to anoverflow crowd of hundreds. A few days after the opening, GuatemalanPresident Alvaro Colom came for a private tour. He was followed by theVice President and a host of ambassadors, including the U.S.Ambassador James M. Derham.

Press has been terrific. The Museum’s work has been supported by theOtto Bremer Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the VisualArts, and the Lannan Foundation.

Watch for news of the exhibition in Bogotá, Colombia, another countryripped apart by civil war.

Nancy Friese, RIVER, Etching on Gampi paper,Edition 1 of 40, 15 x 15 inches.

“I came to North Dakota because I wanted to see where TeddyRoosevelt went after his wife died. It turned out to be a place where youcould empty your soul into the sky,” writes American landscapephotographer Greg Conniff. He is one of thirty-six artists from across theUnited States whose work is included in Remembering Dakota, on viewthis summer at the North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks.Curated by Museum Director Laurel Reuter, this timely exhibition addsanother chapter to the history of art in and of North Dakota.

Artists in the exhibition: Marlene Alt, Tom Arndt, Todd Arsenault, Jeff Brouws,Wendy Burton, Greg Conniff, Ward Davenny, Lynn Davis, Joe Deal, JamesDean, Jim Dow, Terry Evans, Charles Forsman, Nancy Friese, Emmet Gowin,David Graham, Gudmundur Ingólfsson, Todd Hebert, Abner Hershberger, StuartKlipper, Peter Latner, Brian Lesteberg, Roddy MacInnes, Guy Nelson, JustinNewhall, Anna Pedersen, Robert Polidori, Dirk Reinartz, Ingrid Restemayer,Frank Sampson, Fritz Scholder, Jes Schrom, Paul Shambroom, Todd Strand, PeterHaakon Thompson, and Steve Tourlentes.

REMEMBERING DAKOTA CLOSES AUGUST 12, 2008

THE RURAL SCHOOL INITIATIVE is an educational outreach program thatbegan as a pilot project in 2004 with $25,000 from the State Legislature.It is designed to encourage and empower rural school children, theirteachers, and their communities to actively participate in learningthrough the arts. Specifically, the North Dakota Museum of Art toursexhibitions tied to classroom curriculum throughout North Dakota, andthen works to engage rural children, their families, and theircommunities in an on-going relationship with the art in the exhibitionsand the ideas that are integral to each show. The exhibits are mountedby Museum staff (using temporary walls built to travel) in whateveravailable space is offered such as banks, schools, community centers,historical sites, and empty buildings. NDMOA offers training sessionswith volunteer docents and teachers, develops on-line lesson plans, andpays for bussing for schools within a fifty-mile radius. NDMOA staffattend the openings. As of October 2007 three exhibitions have beenseen in thirty-four towns (as far as 400 miles from the Museum), with anadditional 181 participating school districts within a fifty-mile radius ofthe host community for a total of 14,646 participants. Over 100,000eight-page tabloids have been inserted into newspapers that serve thesmall communities (mostly weeklies). The fourth exhibition will begintouring in February 2008. In three short years the Rural Arts program hasbecome enormously successful because it fills an actual need for art inevery corner of the State, places where the visual arts are oftennonexistent.

TAKING ART AS FAR AS 400 MILES FROM THE MUSEUM

ART DOES MATTER

MUSEUM BOARD OF TRUSTEES

David Hasbargen, ChairKjersti Armstrong, Victoria Beard, David Blehm,Julie Blehm, Ann Brown, Chad Caya, W. Jeremy

Davis, Virginia Dunnigan, John Foster, BruceGjovig, Jean Holland, Kim Holmes, Sandy Kaul,

Rick Mercil, Dianne Mondry, Laurel Reuter, AlexReichert, Pat Ryan and Wayne Zimmerman

EMERITUS TRUSTEES, Corinne Alphson, Barb Lander,Darrell Larson, Robert Lewis, Douglas McPhail,Sanny Ryan, Gerald Skogley, and Anthony Thein

MUSEUM FOUNDATION BOARD

Betty Monkman, ChairW. Jeremy Davis, Kevin Fickenscher, Nancy Friese, Bruce Gjovig,Daniel E. Gustafson, David Hasbargen, Margery McCanna Jennison,Laurel Reuter and Al Royse

Luis Gonzáles Palma, HERMETIC TENSIONS,1997, silver gelatin prints.

HARRIET AND PLAYFORD THORSON established an Endowment for

General Operating through the Museum Foundation with a gift of$10,000. Harriet has volunteered weekly at the Museum since 1989.Now retired, Playford taught history at the University for decades.

North Dakota Museum of ArtEWA TARSIA, GALA SATURDAY EVENING OPENING

AUGUST 23, 2008, 7 PM

On this August evening, the Museum will come alive with colorat Ewa Tarsia’s celebratory opening of her exhibition AbsoluteDot. Polish born and educated, this Canadian artist will beexhibiting both monoprints and relief paintings. Whereas sheworks in diverse media including painting, sculpture, tapestry,landscape design, and drawing, she is known internationally asa printmaker. She has showed in international print biennials inSpain, France, Poland, Austria, United States, England,Germany, Japan, and Korea. Most recently, Tarsia was includedin the New York’s International Print Center’s NEW PRINTS2008/Summer. This exhibition represents the evolution ofTarsia’s printmaking into personal techniques that meld theactual lucite printing plate into relief paintings on canvas.

As a printmaker, Tarsia is part of a tradition of artists whoacknowledge that their plates—the pieces of metal, plastic,wood and linoleum that they print from—are the true objects oftheir affection. Covered with marks, lines, and subtle traces ofcolor, printing plates are often as interesting as the imagespulled from them. Each plate is visually complex, offering afully active and engaged surface that, once transformed intosculpture, reveals both the artist’s obsessive process and thebeauty that motivates her to continue. As an environmentalist,Tarsia sees the irony of using plastic and paper to create imagesthat celebrate the beauty of the natural world. “It reflects oursociety,” she says of the work. “Plastic is everywhere.” Thesuccess of her artistic career in Canada was celebrated in June2007 when she was inducted into the Royal Academy of Arts.

The success of her passion for garden design was celebrated inthe January 2008 issue of Manitoba Gardner. Thus, it is fittingthat the Museum galleries will resemble the blaze of color andthe plant complexity of a summer garden, just as her ownWinnipeg garden is known far and wide for both its brilliantcolor and the plethora of plants that are only supposed toflourish much further south. Her husband Ludwik growsrhododendrons; Ewa grows everything else.

EXHIBITION CONTINUES THROUGH OCTOBER 5, 2008

Ewa Tarsia, detail, OVERPOPULATED (1,000 paintings),2008, new media on canvas.

Ewa Tarsia’s studio, summer 2008.

FINAL SUMMER CONCERT IN THE GARDEN

POST TRAUMATIC FUNK SYNDROME

AUGUST 26, 2008, 7 PM

MARY LUCIER: THE PLAINS OF SWEET REGRET TO TOUR TO

WESTERN NORTH DAKOTA THIS FALL

� Williston: September 11 (opening) – 21, Co-sponsored withChamber of Commerce. Diane Hagen, Executive Directorwill chair the event.

� Dickinson: October 2 (opening) – 12, Museum TrusteeKjersti Armstrong will chair the event.

� Bismarck: Tentative date, October 23 – November 2, details yet to be work out.

The National Endowment for the Arts awarded the Museum $40,000 topartially fund the Western North Dakota Tour primarily because Lucierfilmed the work in northwest North Dakota and at the Rough RiderRodeo in Devils Lake. Following the North Dakota sites, the exhibitionwill continue its national tour to:� Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

November 15 - February 15, 2009� Birmingham Museum of Art, April - June, 2009

THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION AWARDS $50,000 to the North

Dakota Museum of Art and Museum Director Laurel Reuter through itsinaugural round of the Curatorial Research Program. Reuter will use themoney to curate her next international exhibition, this one based in theMiddle East. Ten awards were given for a total of $295,500. Only twoinstitutions, including the North Dakota Museum of Art, received themaximum $50,000 allowed.

THE MUSEUM’S SUMMER ARTS DAY CAMP concluded on August 8.

All six week-long sessions filled. Thanks to scholarship supporters, oneyoungster from Rwanda, two from Uganda, one from Iraq, and manylocal children were able to attend. The camps were conducted byworking artists Memo Guardia, Adam Kemp, Greg Blair, Nancy Friese,Mike Hazard and Museum Director of Education Sue Fink.

SAVE THE DATES:Autumn Art Auction, October 25, 2008, exhibition opens October 14Benefit Dinner and Auction, February 7, 2009

Museum Receives $100,000 for its first year in theBush Foundation’s Regional Arts DevelopmentProgram II for mid-sized arts organizations. “RADPorganizations demonstrate exceptional anddistinctive artistic vision and programming,substantial community engagement andconstituent support, strong administrative andfinancial management, a serious commitment toplanning and ability to adapt to the changingenvironment.” The Museum was awarded over$800,000 over ten years during RAPD I. Sevenentities, including the Museum, have qualified forRADP II.

Post Traumatic Funk Syndrome (left) is Fargo's newest and hottestclassic rock/horn band. This twelve-piece group (six horns, keyboards,bass, drums, guitar, male and female vocals) performs the best ofclassic horn band hits.

From Mary Lucier: The Plains of Sweet Regret.Five-channel video installation.