Event Link: https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/convergence-heath-creativity/

FEE: FREE to Admission

November 16, 2024 - July 13, 2025

William and Anna Jane Schlossman Gallery

Taking inspiration from a holistic nature of human experience, Convergence: Health & Creativity – New Work by Anne Labovitz is a body of work by noted international and Minnesota-based artist Anne Labovitz. The exhibition includes sculpture, installation, drawing, and public participatory works created specifically for the Plains Art Museum. These artworks are an examination and experimentation with light and color, creating installations of visual optimism. Each work reflects extensive research and interviews with health care professionals from the Fargo, West Fargo, Moorhead area. Labovitz’s process is manifested through the materiality, intense mark-making, abstracted text, and precise and intuitive color selection.

The interconnection of health and art provides space for creativity and the opportunity for us to consider ideas of wellness and emotive responses. The artist assembled the exhibition to be an active place for creativity, contemplation and conversation. Light, words, voices and text become mediums in the work.

The artworks are infused with words spoken by interviewees. This approach requires attentive and meditative concentration on and with the subject. Whole body listening, or what Labovitz calls Relational Listening, is a creative practice, rooted in the idea that it is a basic human need to be heard and feel seen. This process fosters a dynamic of emotional intimacy that is both provocative and visceral. The interconnection of health and art provided space for creativity and allowed Labovitz to consider ideas about wellness and how the audience might respond emotively to art and each other. Keywords gleaned from the research and interviews include connection, community, hope, love, and rest.  These words can be found embedded in the artworks.

In what has become a signature element of many of Labovitz’s exhibitions, visitors will be offered an opportunity to participate and contribute to the content of the exhibit. The participatory Well-Being Wall II invites visitors to create their own artwork and exhibit it on the large grid wall.

This exhibition created specifically for the Plains Art Museum, will be informed by interviews with local healthcare professionals and organizations as well as creative research into the synthesis of Creativity and health. In addition to her solo exhibition, Labovitz large-scale, site-specific installation in the Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium will be unveiled.

Labovitz has previously undertaken extensive research in the connection between health and art, which manifested in her 2023 exhibition The Nexus of Well-Being and Art at Rochester Art Center. Interviews with healthcare professionals directly informed the exhibition. Labovitz’s previous project 122 Conversations: Person to Person: Art Beyond Borders addressed ideas of cross-cultural connections and co-creating through 60 one-on-one interviews, which toured to six countries and is currently on view at the Minneapolis-St Paul International airport.

Labovitz received a BA in Art and Psychology from Hamline University in St. Paul (1989) and an MFA from Transart, Plymouth University, UK (2017). She is currently an adjunct professor and mentor in the MFA program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in many private and public collections, including the Walker Art Center, Weisman Museum in Minneapolis and Mayo Clinic.

Event Link: https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/?type=current

FEE: Free to attend the museum

MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies to open at Plains Art Museum

MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies travels to Plains Art Museum from Macalester College’s Law Warschaw Gallery in St. Paul, MN. The exhibit will be on view from January 18 to May 25, 2025, in Plains’ Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium and Xcel Energy Gallery.

Over the past two decades, Mickey Smith has documented significant cultural shifts in academic and public libraries, primarily across the United States, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the South Pacific. Her photography captures the evolution of libraries, from traditional card catalogs and stacks to digitization and the advent of artificial intelligence, highlighting their role as stewards of knowledge.

The exhibition features Smith’s acclaimed projects VOLUME, Denudation, and As You Will: Carnegie Libraries of the South Pacific alongside new mixed-media installations made from deaccessioned library materials donated to the project by academic libraries. Through this confluence of Smith’s oeuvre, Morphologies explores the dynamic nature of library lifecycles with striking imagery, like her trademark — never lit nor touched — captures of in-situ bound periodicals. Smith’s work considers not only the ways in which books are revered, but how libraries adapt to changes, including repurposing buildings and transitioning from physical books to online resources.

Mickey Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Photography from Minnesota State University Moorhead (1994) and
a Diploma in Jewelry Design from Hungry Creek Art & Craft School in New Zealand (2019). Mickey is an advocate and spokesperson for Harbour HoSpice Auckland. Since 2003, Smith’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States, in New Zealand, China, and Russia. Her works belong to numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art Library, Sheldon Museum of Art, and Weisman Art Museum. She has received grants and awards from the McKnight Foundation, CEC ArtsLink, Americans for the Arts, and Creative New Zealand.

“Seeing this exhibition at the Plains Art Museum feels like a homecoming. As an art student at MSUM, I spent countless hours in the Livingston Lord Library, devouring materials which profoundly shaped my perspective as an artist.”

- Mickey Smith, Artist

“We are thrilled to showcase MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies at Plains Art Museum. This compelling body of work offers a timely exploration on the shifting role of libraries in the digital age. Smith breathes new life into deaccessioned books, inviting contemplation on the preservation of knowledge, the intersection of digital and analog forms of media, and the complexities of information access in today’s world.”

- Danielle Gravon, Chief Curator and Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Plains Art Museum

An accompanying illustrated publication is co-edited by exhibition curator Heather Everhart and Laura Wertheim Joseph, PhD (newly appointed head curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum), and includes essays by Everhart + Joseph, Shannon Mattern, PhD (Professor of Media Studies and Art History at the University of Pennsylvania), and Aisling Quigley, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Liberal Arts at Macalester College).

The exhibition travels to Lincoln, NE in fall 2025, jointly presented by the Eisentrager-Howard Gallery at the University of Nebraska and Fiendish Plots.

For artist information, artwork details and images, public program details, or purchase information, please contact: Heather Everhart, director & curator, Law Warschaw Gallery / heverhar@macalester.edu

MICKEY SMITH: Morphologies is generously sponsored by Karen & Leslie Desnick and Dual Purpose/Dual Citizen Brewing Company Law Warschaw is an academic gallery, gratefully located on the sovereign Dakhóta land of Mni Sóta Maḳoce.

Plains Art Museum thanks our generous PlainsArt4All members, donors, and Organizational Partners for their support. Additional support provided by The McKnight Foundation; FM Area Foundation; The Arts Partnership with support from the cities of Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo; 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. Additional support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

Exhibition Tour Thursday, January 30, 6-6:45 PM, Free

Explore Morphologies, a captivating exhibition that documents the transformation of libraries in the digital age.

EVETN LINK: https://www.hisawyer.com/plains-art-museum/schedules/activity-set/1168774?source=all-activities
FEE: $175

Figure Drawing: Six Tuesdays, January 21 through February 25, 6-9 p.m.

 Connect with other local artists in these informal drawing sessions featuring a live model, led by a skilled professional artist. This welcoming environment is designed for artists of all experience levels to improve their skills, experiment with new techniques, or simply enjoy drawing in a supportive setting. Participants are encouraged to bring their preferred drawing materials, whether charcoal, pencils, or other media.

Event Link: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?class_id=fmct~123484

FEE: Tuition: $350

More Information

PETER PAN (9TH-12TH GRADE)

June 30 - August 3rd

TIme: 9:00am-4:00pm

Enrollment level is the grade most recently completed.

Location: Studio 13

This summer, embark on a whimsical journey to Neverland with our enchanting production of Peter Pan! Watch as Peter, the boy who never grows up, leads Wendy, John, and Michael Darling on an unforgettable adventure filled with pirates, fairies, and lost boys. Help us bring this timeless tale to life with stunning sets, vibrant costumes, and captivating performances that will delight audiences of all ages.

This full-day camp will be held at the Studio 13, 715 13th Ave E, Suite 101, West Fargo.