Exhibitions at ASI The two exhibitions currently on display at ASI present three artists all using one common material — paper. In the main exhibition from Sweden, Papier, Bea Szenfeld cuts, sews and sculpts paper fashions while Stina Wirsén puts ink to paper in her lively illustrations. The work of local artist Amy Sands sits somewhere in between.
uses post-digital printmaking processes, such as laser cutters and digital engraving early in her process. This has expanded her thinking about paper and print; it is a balance of the conscious and the mechanical.
Based in Minneapolis, Amy Sands creates oneof-a-kind paper works that integrate traditional and digital methods of printmaking. Through the support of a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, Amy’s latest body of work utilizes ASI’s textile collection to inspire new patterns that are translated into paper cuts and then printed.
Explore Amy’s work from small, delicate papercut prints on display in the Link (connecting the Nelson Culture Center to the Mansion) to life-size expression outdoors on ASI’s historic fence along Park Avenue.
Specifically, Amy has explored patterns and imagery from an old sample book of Swedish bobbin lace. The book belonged to Carolyn Hjelmerus, whose name can be seen on the cover of the book along with Knyppel Profver, or “Lace Tests”. Carolyn learned to make lace in Sweden and brought this book with her when she and her husband immigrated to Minnesota in 1889. Amy has long been exploring the concept of craft and women’s work in her art. Imagery sourced from textiles, lace and craft doilies emerge in her paper abstractions — paying homage to the history of women’s role in craft and the cultural value of the two. Amy’s work also pushes the boundaries of what has been historically defined as a print. Amy
6
The American Swedish Institute
Amy Sands’s exhibition, Lace Reimagined, and the main exhibition, Papier, will be on view through July 11, 2021.
KINDERTRANSPORT COMING JULY 21 Kindertransport (German for "Children's Transport"), was the organized rescue effort that brought thousands of Jewish children from Nazi Europe to Great Britain and other countries in the late 1930s. This award-winning exhibition is being copresented by the Greenberg Family Fund for Holocaust Awareness at Beth El Synagogue, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC) and ASI.
