Art Hounds: Farmers, fireflies and a Shakespeare festival

'Shoua Cuts Dahlias, or Sua txav paaj'
"Shoua Cuts Dahlias, or Sua txav paaj, 2014" is a digital archival inkjet print by Mike Hazard, whose "Seeds of Change" exhibit runs through July 31 at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in downtown St. Paul.
Courtesy Minnesota Museum of American Art

This week on Art Hounds: Fireflies, festivals and photos of farmers.

Photo historian George Slade is going to see Mike Hazard's exhibition "Seeds of Change." Hazard has been documenting the work of the Hmong Farmers' Association for years. Slade says Hazard has a habit of falling in love with his subject matter, and the results show in his work. He says Hazard is a modest man, so he's happy to see him finally getting the recognition he's due. The exhibition runs through July 31 at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in downtown St. Paul.

Mia Artist Liaison Nicole Soukup highly recommends paying a visit to the Weinstein Gallery, which is showing the work of David Rathman and Cameron Gainer. Soukup describes Rathman's latest series of ink and watercolors as vignettes from night scenes that compel the viewer to create a narrative. Gainer's video installation also deals with the night — more particularly, a certain rare species of firefly that lights up the night for three weeks each year. Soukup says the work is a haunting examination of how precious life is against the backdrop of love and death.

Greg Peterson, vice chair of the River Arts Alliance in Winona, is a fan of the annual Great River Shakespeare Festival. This summer the festival is presenting the comedy "As You Like It" and the tragedy "Julius Caesar." In addition, the company is mounting a new musical called "Georama," about a once-famous (but now barely known) painter who created a three-mile long moving panorama to celebrate the Mississippi River. Performances of all three shows run through July 31.

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