North Dakota Museum of Art ETHIOPIAN ARTIST ELIAS SIME AT THE NORTH DAKOTA MUSEUM OF ART MARCH 27 – MAY 31, 2012 PUBLIC OPENING TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 6 – 8 PM Sime will speak about his work Co-curators Meskerem Assegued and Peter Sellars will be present and will participate in the informal gallery talk at the opening. “Eye of the Needle: Eye of the Heart” is a large retrospective survey that covers twenty years of one of Ethiopia’s most original and prolific contemporary artists, Elias Sime. Included are over 100 works made from such things as yarn stitches, tattered fabric, buttons, stuffed goat skins, discarded plastic shoes, animal horns, and bottle tops collected from the streets and sprawling markets of Addis Ababa. Sime transforms them into collages and stitched canvases, into floor and wall sculpture, and into installations. According to Peter Clothier of the Huffington Post, “Community is an essential part of his work: family and friends join with him in the creation of his art, and he spreads small wealth and creativity amongst the local children by rewarding them for bringing him the results of their scavenging. He is, in a real and pragmatic sense, a social activist.”
Elias Sime, Portrait, 2007. Clothes and yarn on canvas, 29 x 20 inches. Photo Santa Monica Museum of Art.
MAY 3, 5 PM — READING FROM NIGHT SHADOW, a 2009 play by Amoussa Koriko just published in France by Harmattan and presented in conjunction with Elias Sime’s exhibition. The animated reading will feature a professional woman dancer, a drummer, and two actor-readers. According to this UND French language instructor from Togo in West Africa, “As a playwright and director, I wanted to explore through this reading Africa’s cultural heritage as a background for the unfolding of the story in a play that deals with the complexity of war in Africa.” Koriko founded the Grand Forks African Arts Arena to share African arts and culture through presentations in schools and in the community.
Elias Sime, Monkeys, Frogs and Television, 2006. Mud and straw, Dimensions variable. Photo courtesy of the Santa Monica Museum of Art
Near Left: Amoussa Koriko Far Right: Elias Sime March 2012
Confirmed North Dakota Sites for “Winged Shadows” touring with Museum’s Rural Arts Initiative include: April 9–23, 2012, Ashley Public School, North Dakota. May 2012, Wahpeton Zoo & Red Door Gallery, North Dakota. October 4–6, 2012, Minot State University for the three-day NotStock Celebration and continuing through the following week, North Dakota. November 5–16, Audi Theater in Cando, North Dakota.
Victoria Neel, Untitled, 2011. Gouache on paper, 12 x 18 inches. “Winged Shadows” touring show.
UPCOMING EVENTS March 25, 2012, 2 pm, Dawn Avery Concert March 31 and April 28, 10 am–noon, Family Day in the Museum Galleries. No charge. March 27, 6–8 pm, Museum opening of Elias Sime and Young Dakota Artists April 23–27, Guillermo Hart of Argentina will be at the Pekin Community Center for a workshop. Rural Arts Initiative project. April 24, 6 pm Hart will speak in the Museum. April 14–15, Big Ron Hunter concerts April 30–May 4, Icelandic artist Helgi Hjaltalin Eyjolfsson will be at Cando public schools. Workshop sponsored by the Museum’s Rural Arts Initiative. Public lectures at 4 and 5 pm in Cando’s Audi Theater. May 13, 2012, Antique to Chic, 3–5 pm Shop, shop, shop at this Mother’s Day fundraiser for NDMOA children’s programs where lots of used costume jewelry changes hands.
Touring exhibition “Contemporary Beading” will be available for twelve months beginning January 2013. Currently open for booking. MUSEUM COLLABORATES WITH MUSIC MAKER RELIEF FOUNDATION April 14–15, 2012, Big Ron Hunter, “the happiest Blues man around,” will perform on Saturday evening at 7 pm and at a Blues Brunch on Sunday from 11–1 pm. He follows Ironing Board Sam who was at NDMOA in February. Big Ron Hunter is a Southern Blues singer who accompanies himself on the acoustic and electric guitar. Saturday evening concert $10 for adults. Brunch, $25 for adults and $10 for students. Both events free for children 12 and under. YOU CAN HELP! Museum Seeks funds to support a new program: Saturday Nights at the Museum. Once a month the Museum will introduce artists, writers, musicians, and other key people in our cultural and intellectual life, to perform, talk, share drinks and munchies. Free, including babysitting on the lower level. Join the committee for the Summer Concert Series. Donate jewelry to Antique to Chic. Join the Building Committee to plan for the Museum’s future. We lost our volunteer gardener. Looking for someone to donate a couple hours a week plus spring and fall cleaning. Join Strategic Planning for statewide Artist-in-Residence Program. Danielle Masters (left) has joined Museum staff as Collections Care Specialist to maintain and oversee the preservation and handling of the permanent collection. Danni will focus on preventative care, which involves maintaining a secure environment, routine inspections of the artwork, safe handling, and rigorous documentation. An art history graduate from the University of Minnesota Moorhead, Danni volunteered at NDMOA for a year in the early 2000s, working in installation and art handling. She moved to Minneapolis and immersed herself for three years in art conservation at the Minnesota Historical Society, the Midwest Art Conservation Center, and in the private firm Caplow Custom Frame and Restoration. She returned to Grand Forks to marry Les Moore, Director of Technology at ICON Architectural Group. According to Museum Director Laurel Reuter, “I never dreamed I could find someone with Danielle’s skills, knowledge of her field, and sweet disposition right on our doorstep. I am so grateful to have her join us.”
NORTH DAKOTA MUSEUM OF ART RECEIVES SIGNIFICANT PRINT COLLECTIONS FROM WELLS FARGO AND AN ANONYMOUS DONOR Among the artists included in the gift are Carroll Dunhan, Helen Frankenthaler, Katsura Funakoshi, Bill Jensen, Terrence La Noue, Robert Motherwell, Elizabeth Murray, John Newman, James Rosenquist, Susan Rothenberg, Julian Schnabel, Steven Sorman, Donald Sultan and Terry Winters. The work will be unveiled in an exhibition June 7–July 31. FAMILY DAYS AT THE MUSEUM are scheduled for the last Saturday of each month from 10 am until noon. No charge. MUSEUM RECEIVES COVETED ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG GRANT $150,000 over three years to bring seven artists to collaborate on new work addressing contemporary life on the Spirit Lake Reservation. MUSEUM CONCERT SERIES brings Mohawk composer, classical cellist, vocalist and Grammy-nominated performer Dawn Avery to the Museum on March 25 at 2 pm and to Mayville State University the next evening. She will be joined by percussionist Thiraza Defoe from Wisconsin’s Ojibwa and Oneida tribes. Avery led the Smithsonian’s North American Indian Cello Project from which she will play commissions by composers Timothy Archambault, Tio Bencenti, Brent Michael Davids, Louis Ballard, Ron Warren, Raven Chacon, as well as her own composition In Two Worlds (1722, ca. /2007) which intertwines with J. S. Bach. Non-members $15, members $13. Students and military, $5 at the door. Children 12 and under are free. Tickets supported by the Myra Foundation.
Susan Rothenberg, Stumblebum, 1985-86. Twelve-color lithograph, edition 4 of 40, 86.5 x 42.5 inches. Published by ULAE. Anonymous gift.
UNIVERSITY EXTENDS METERED PARKING time in front of NDMOA from sixty minutes to ninety. Now you can come for lunch in the Museum without getting a UND parking ticket. You can also park in a metered public lot one block east of the Museum. Call the Museum if none of these are available. The Museum buys parking from UND for special events in areas designated by an arrowed sign. Don’t feed the meters whenever the signs are up. SUMMER CONCERTS IN THE GARDEN ANNOUNCES 2012 SCHEDULE
April 14 - 15
June 19, Dessa • • • July 17, William Elliott Whitmore • • • July 24, The Pines • • • August 7 or 14, The David Wax Museum (tentative) • • • August 21, She Keeps Bees SUMMER ART CAMP SCHEDULE June 25–29, Michelle Brusegaard • • • July 2,3,5 and 6, Memo Guardia and Sue Fink • • • July 9–13, Memo Guardia • • • July 16–20, Sheila Dalgliesh • • • July 23–27, Mollie Douthit • • • July 30–August 3, Adam Kemp
Matt Anderson, Reclamation, 2008. Digital drawing, 34 x 90 inches. “Young Dakota Artists” exhibition.
“YOUNG DAKOTA ARTISTS” AT NDMOA MARCH 27–MAY 31, 2012 Co-curators, Greg Blair, Director of the gallery at Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD, and Matthew Wallace, Director of NDMOA’s Rural Arts Initiative, selected twenty-one North and South Dakota artists under forty “who are living and working in the States.” According to the Curators, “Young Dakota Artists” is an attempt to bring some of these voices together to provide a snapshot of the vibrancy and diversity of the landscape occupied by some of these young creative people." WINGED SHADOWS: LIFE AMONG BIRDS TO TOUR WITH MUSEUM’S RURAL ARTS INITIATIVE Begun in 2004, the Rural Arts Initiative is an educational outreach program to encourage and empower rural school children and their families, their teachers, and their communities to actively participate in learning through the arts. The North Dakota Museum of Art tours exhibitions throughout North Dakota (funded by the State of North Dakota) and Northwest Minnesota, installs them in community spaces, trains docents and attendants, provides online lesson plans that are integrated into school curricula, and funds bussing for schools within a fifty-mile radius of the host community. Left center: Victoria Neel, Luzon Bleeding-heart Pigeon in “Birds without Sky,” 2011. Gouache on paper, 8.5 x 13 inches. Courtesy of Jason McCoy Inc. Left: Julian Schnable, Mujer Primaveral, 1995. Hand-painted fifteen-color screenprint with poured resin, 40 x 30 inches. Edition of 80. Gift to the Museum by an anonymous donor.
North Dakota Museum of Art 261 Centennial Drive Stop 7305 Grand Forks, ND 58202 Phone: (1) 701 777-4195 www.ndmoa.com ndmoa@ndmoa.com