NDMOA June 2011 Newsletter

North Dakota Museum of Art NEW EXHIBITION AT THE NORTH DAKOTA MUSEUM OF ART JUNE 21, 2011 - SEPTEMBER 11, 2011 PUBLIC RECEPTION: Tuesday, June 21, 5:30 - 7 pm.

Rena Effendi — Pipe Dreams A pipe dream is a fantastic hope that is regarded as being impossible to achieve. This exhibition is dedicated to the people of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, linked by the oil pipeline and their fading hopes for a better future.

– Rena Effendi

Rena Effendi. Female farmer in Tifnik village, one-andone-quarter miles from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Erzurum, Turkey, 2007.

Born in 1977 in Baku, Azerbaijan, nineteen-year-old Rena Effendi’s first job was as a translator for the Azerbaijan International Oil Company, a consortium of some of the world’s largest oil producers. In 2006, she received a commercial assignment from British Petrolium to follow the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline segment in Azerbaijan. Her images resulted in a corporate calendar outlining the achievements of BP’s social responsibility programme. In the course of her assignment, however, Effendi was confronted with the reality that the majority of people had not benefited from the oil wealth flowing under their feet. This motivated her to conduct her own independent investigation.

Rena Effendi’s series, Pipe Dreams, explores the lives of people living along 1,000 miles of pipeline through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey.

The result is a fascinating collection of black and white images which reflect the harsh realities of life as well as moments of unexpected beauty amongst the bleak landscape.

Rena Effendi. Fisherman with his nets in Bibi-Heybat oil village. Baku, Azerbaijan, 2006.

This social documentary photographer began shooting in 2001. Her international awards include the “Fifty Crows” Documentary Photography award and the Getty Images Editorial grant. She participated in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in 2005 and 2007. She was chosen by PDN magazine as one of thirty emerging photographers to watch. In 2008, Rena Effendi won National Geographic’s “All Roads” photography competition. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, including the 2006 “Visa Pour l’Image” Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France; the 52nd Venice Biennale; and the Istanbul Biennial (2009).

She lives with her family in Cairo, Egypt and is represented by the INSTITUTE for Artist Management Worldwide and the Moscow-based Agency.Photographer.RU.

“A STARRY, STARRY NIGHT” TURNS INTO AN ICELANDIC ADVENTURE

By Shana Wiley

Shana Wiley joins the Museum’s Art Odyssey trip to Iceland.

SAVE THE DATE: Autumn Art Auction: November 12, 2011 Benefit Dinner and Silent Art Auction: February 4, 2012 Summer Art Camps are completely full except for one space in Kim Fink’s Teen Painting Camp.

“THE GARDEN PATH” BUILD A GENERAL OPERATING ENDOWMENT The Museum Foundation proposes to build “The Garden Path,” a meandering stone walkway in the Museum Garden where peonies grow, summer concerts take place, and sculpture finds a home.

Work will begin this summer as individual stones are engraved and placed in the garden. Two sizes are available. The engraved message might include names, company logo, or be anonymous.

Gifts to The Garden Path Endowment Fund will supplement the Museum’s general operating needs, another step in securing financial stability for the Museum today and the generations that follow. The principle will be invested in perpetuity by the Museum Foundation; only income from the Fund’s invested assets will be transferred to the Museum.

Your gift may be eligible for a North Dakota tax credit of 40% in addition to the usual deduction on your Federal taxes.

Years ago, I used to play the lottery. I bought Powerball tickets and $1.00 scratch-off cards. I’d hold my breath a little as I scraped a coin across the card hoping to find three matching dollar signs, money bags, or bananas hidden beneath the shiny film. After many lottery tickets, sighs of disappointment, and notable lack of increase in my net worth, I abandoned games of chance entirely. This new financial strategy included raffles.

Fast forward to the evening of February 5, 2011, and the North Dakota Museum of Art’s Benefit Dinner and Silent Auction. Maybe it was the theme of “A Starry, Starry Night,” maybe it was the good company and fine artwork, or maybe it was the wine; regardless, I purchased one raffle ticket for a trip to Iceland with NDMOA’s Art Odyssey group. Much to my surprise and delight, I won. I was going to Iceland!

The Icelandic adventure began on May 18th when a group of six of us departed from Grand Forks and drove to the Minneapolis airport en route to Reykjavik. The trip ended with our return on May 24th. A memorable trip, indeed. What probably left the greatest impression on me was the graciousness and sincerity of the Icelandic artists. Several artists from the “Into the Tussock” exhibition, which was organized by the Museum in the summer of 2010, as well as others invited us into their studios, their homes, and their country with open arms and wide smiles. They took time to give us countryside tours, household receptions, and delicious home cooking. One of the artists upon seeing that our luggage had been lost in transit provided us with coats and sweaters, which we greatly appreciated given the chilly temperatures.

From waterfalls, geysers, and oceanic waves, to volcanoes and lava fields, to plush moss and biting wind, Icelanders are never far from the impact of nature. Seeing the landscape helped me better understand the Icelandic artist, his/her art, and the interdependency of the two. A lesson reinforced by a volcanic eruption during our visit.

My trip with the NDMOA Art Odyssey group was as fun as it was informative. I’m very appreciative to Laurel, who inagurated the annual trips years ago to introduce trustees, staff, and interested others, and the NDMOA staff for making this trip a reality. Just one question. . .

When is the next Powerball draw?

Note: Shana has been a member of the Museum since 2005 and often volunteers at events or the Information Desk.

NEW EXHIBITION AT THE NORTH DAKOTA MUSEUM OF ART JUNE 21, 2011 - SEPTEMBER 11, 2011 LAURA LETINSKY — THAT WHAT MATTERS My last two extensive projects, To Say It Isn’t So, and an earlier series, Hardly More Than Ever, are comprised of still-life color photographs of arranged objects such as wrapping paper, plastic containers, Styrofoam cups, cans, leftover food bits, and found trinkets. I began this work in 1997 as observations of forgotten details, remnants of daily subsistence and pleasure. For many years I had been intrigued with Dutch-Flemish and Italian still-life paintings whose exacting beauty documented shifting social attitudes resulting from exploration, colonization, economics, and ideas about seeing as a kind of truth. I began this work in East Berlin where the unfamiliar context made me intensely aware of my own cultural and material relationship to food. I continued this project at my homes in New Haven, Rome, Berlin, and Chicago.

The still life genre is unavoidably a commentary on society’s materialmindedness and the way images promote a kind of promise of attainability. I am not interested though in the allure of the meal that awaits an unseen viewer’s consumption. Instead, I photograph the remains of meals and its refuse so as to investigate the relationships between ripeness and decay, delicacy and awkwardness, control and haphazardness, waste and plenitude, pleasure and sustenance.

Throughout my long-term photographic practice I wish to engage the photograph’s transformative qualities, changing what is typically overlooked into something splendid in its resilience. I want to look at what is “after the fact,” at what (ma)lingers, at what persists, and by inference, at what is gone. These projects are part of my ongoing photographic exploration of intimacy as the homely and the beautiful.

Laura Letinsky is a Professor and Chair at the University of Chicago, Department of Visual Arts. Museum and gallery exhibitions include Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; Casino Luxembourg; Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York; Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Nederlands Foto Institute; and The Renaissance Society, Chicago. Collections include the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Recent publications include After All, Damiani, 2010; and Hardly More Than Ever, The Renaissance Society, 2004. She is represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York.

LAURA LETINSKY photographs Top: Untitled, #80, ”Hardly More Than Ever” series, 2003.

Middle: Untitled, #77, “Hardly More Than Ever” series, 2003.

Bottom: Untitled, #2, “The Dog and The Wolf” series, 2008.

Letinsky received her BFA from the University of Manitoba in 1986 and her MFA from Yale University 1991.

The artist will attend the opening on June 21 from 5:30 - 7 pm followed

by Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles kicking off the Summer Concerts in the Garden.

THE MUSEUM IS IN GOOD HANDS: PAPAS ALL Installer Justin Dalzell with Weston Trevet, Accountant Eric Langenfeld with Selah Mae, and Chef Justin Welsh with Gracie Lou

MUSEUM WINTR CONCERT SERIES

SUMMER CONCERTS IN THE GARDEN

TAKES ON NEW SOUNDS NEXT SEASON

Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles — June 21, 2011, 7 pm. This six-member group out of Minneapolis plays everything from the accordion to the cello to the ukelele, creating a truly unique sound.

Artists in the winter Museum Concert Series will perform works that bridge western Classical Music with World Music.

Ying Quartet: Dim Sum — October 23, 2011.

These young Chinese performers will play short pieces by Chinese-American composers.

Gao Hong — December 4, 2011, performing on the Chinese Pipa, with her newest group Butterfly, including Nirmala Rajasekarm a world-renowned Carnatic veena virtuoso (plucked string instrument) who hails from southern India, and cellist Michelle Kinney.

Violinist Hahn-Bin — January 21, 2012, combines performance art with classical music resulting in stardom for this young performer who has become known as the Lady Gaga of classical music.

Syrian Clarinetist Kinan Azmeh collaborates with Sri-Lankan Pianist, Dinuk Wijeratne — February 19, 2012, in a blend of Middle Eastern music and jazz. Composer Azmeh recently released an album of new contemporary Syrian chamber music.

Dawn Avery, Mohawk cellist and composer, will perform with Percussionist Steven Alvarez (Athabascan, Mescalero Apache) — Date to be arranged. Her concert will draw from her North American Indian Cello Project and her own compositions.

Charlie Parr –– July 5, 2011, 6 pm, grew up in Austin, Minnesota, in a house filled with his father’s kind of music: field recordings by Alan Lomax released on the Folkways, Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, all reflected in his own music.

The David Wax Museum –– July 12, 2011, 6 pm. Recently anointed Boston’s Americana Artist of the Year (2010 Boston Music Awards), the group has been called “pure, irresistible joy” (Bob Boilen, NPR) and hailed by TIME.com for its “virtuosic musical skill and virtuous harmonies.” Combining Latin rhythms, call-and-response hollering, and donkey jawbone rattling, they have electrified audiences across the country” (The New Yorker).

The Blind Corn Liquor Pickers –– August 2, 2011, 6 pm. Long gone are the days of the Elvis-inspired rockabilly vocals and slap bass. In its place is an entirely new sound. Beth Walker, the new lead singer, rocks and wails though psychedelia and blues with a raw power reminiscent of the great folk-rock artists of the 60’s—Janis Joplin, Mama Cass, or Grace Slick.

William Elliott Whitmore –– August 9, 2011, 6 pm. Hailing from a horse farm on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River, Whitmore has been building a reputation as an absolutely stirring live performer able to convert crowds with just his banjo and voice.

Hoots and Hellmouth –– August 30, 2011, 6 pm.

The Philadelphia-based Hoots and Hellmouth was a crowd favorite last year. Hoots creates new music for old souls.

Bring blankets and lawn chairs, and buy burgers and hotdogs. Kids run freely, often dancing to the music at this family affair.

Tickets are $5 in advance, $8 at the door.