I often tell people that I believe St. Louis is the most culturally rich city per capita. We are neither New York nor Chicago. Well, I just got back from her 3,000 mile road trip to Dakota and was exposed to more art and culture than I could have imagined on a trip like this.
Our first stop was Sioux Falls, South Dakota’s most populous city. The arts are alive and well in Sioux Falls. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Sue Empire Arts Council was a leader in the art scene, awarding annual Mayoral Awards in several categories for the excellence displayed by the city’s residents. The Sioux Falls Sculpture Walk was the first evidence of the city’s spectacular Art Renaissance. It was fun to walk around and see both tourists and residents enjoying the elaborate and numerous works of art.
We also visited the Washington Pavilion, formerly Washington High School. This pavilion has been transformed into a stunning arts center that houses two performing arts spaces, a visual arts space and a science center.
What a special collection, the permanent Northern Plains Tribal Arts Collection is housed in the Egger Gallery in the Washington Pavilion in the Visual Arts Area. Contemporary native his artists such as Arthur Amiotte and Jim Yellowhawk present works that are a feast for the eye and soul.
Our next stop is Rapid City, South Dakota, home to some very high quality Aboriginal art galleries, and just outside the city is the world-class, world-famous Mount Rushmore National Memorial. . I could tell many times how the monument came to be. You can google it to get all the information, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his Gutzon Borglum, an actual sculptor. Borglum’s interest in the arts developed early, but he did not receive formal training until he attended a private school in Kansas. He lived and worked and had many commissions throughout the United States and Europe.
Borglum worked on the project in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Engraving was limited to jackhammers and chisels, but a visiting Belgian engineer taught Bolgram to use dynamite for precision work.
And of course, the Lakota Sioux warriors, the famous artist and sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and his family, and the granite canvases of the legendary past and present at the Crazy Horse Memorial, also in the Black Hills. , the elements that make up the future. of South Dakota.
Afterwards, I headed to Fargo, North Dakota, where I received a certificate stating that I had visited all 50 states. Plains She visited the Museum of Indian Art, and to her surprise, it displayed not only indigenous art, but also very important works of contemporary art. The programming at this museum was great and very impressive. We took a tour and were told that programming was reinventing the museum. Our guide told us that the staff are working on questions such as how useful the museum is to the community and how to get rid of people’s idea that museums are just collections of objects. In 2016, the museum received the prestigious Bush Award for Community Innovation and a grant to nonprofits that demonstrate leadership in creating collaborative opportunities that work to solve community problems. I was.
On our way home, we stopped in Minneapolis and spent just one day indulging in this sophisticated, art-filled city. Finally, we visited the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
I saw David Hockney’s exhibition “People, Places and Things” and saw some of his prints, paintings and recent digital work. He has published over his 60 years and some of his works highlight his literary and theatrical involvement.
I also saw the Los Angeles artist Liz Lerner’s exhibition “Don’t put it back like it was.” In this exhibition, Lerner explores the material and social possibilities of sculpture in innovative and surprising ways.
Our final stop was Des Moines, Iowa, and we soon went to the Des Moines Art Center, a world-class architectural collection. His original 1948 building was the work of Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen, who helped introduce modern architecture to the United States, and was proposed just a few years before the Arts Center’s commission. It has won major national competitions at the Smithsonian Galleries. His second architect for the Washington, D.C. Art Center, his Chinese-American IMPei, was in Washington, just as the 1968 addition to the art center was being completed, on the design of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. Won a very competitive commission. Completed in 1985, Richard Meier’s third building in the art center contrasts with both Saarinen’s horizontality and Pei’s humility. Two of his architects were early winners of the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious international award for architects established in 1979. Pei won in his 1983 and Meyer in his 1984.
These three buildings house a renowned collection of modern and contemporary art. The special exhibition at the time of my visit was “Images Unbound”, which dealt with the appropriation of art. According to a quote from the exhibition brochure, “Artists have also turned inward to consider how technological advances have reshaped the art world itself. Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichten Stein, Shelley Levine and many others have questioned how the ability to reproduce images has changed our experience of art.”
What a journey and what an enlightenment to see other arts institutions striving for the same goals in the art world and in the community.
Nancy Kranzberg has been involved in the art community for over 40 years on numerous art-related message boards.
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