Art Hounds: The fall season of arts begins
Cynthia Hall-Duran of St. Paul has been a fan of the AZ Gallery (also called Argyle Zebra Gallery) in Lowertown for a while, and she was able to attend the soft opening of their September show “Rejected.”
More than 2,200 artists, both emerging and professional, submitted their work to the State Fair’s Fine Arts show this year, and only 324 were on display. Plenty of quality work didn’t make the cut, and AZ’s “Rejected!” gives these photos, paintings and other works a second chance to be seen. Hall-Duran called the show delightful.
AZ Gallery is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. There’s an artist reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday. The show runs through Sept. 25.
Art lover Florence Brammer of West St. Paul said she can’t stop telling people about the Weisman Art Museum’s fall exhibition, surveying three decades of art by Piotr Szyhalski. “We Are Working All The Time!” displays an impressive array of Szyhalski’s work, including posters, painting, web projects and public performance.
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Raised and trained in Poland, Szyhalski is a professor of design and media arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Brammer singles out Szyhalski’s Labor Camp Report posters: a series of 225 hand-inked posters created daily over the course of eight months during the pandemic.
“To see them all together, chronologically hung, is really stunning,” Brammer said.
The show is open for public viewing now, but the gallery will host an opening bash on Sept. 15 at 7 p.m, its first such event since the pandemic hit. The exhibit will be on view at the gallery on the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus through Dec. 31.
Teacher, theater director and artist Justin Spooner of Minneapolis is looking forward to attending Exposed Brick Theatre’s Through Our Eyes Festival that starts this weekend. The festival spans two weekends and features two new plays back-to-back. “Freeing Assata” by interdisciplinary healing artist Sterling Miller takes on the incarceration and liberation of political activist Assata Shakur. Siddeeqah Shabazz’s play, “A Love Story in 8 Scenes,” which explores the clash of love and religion for one teenage Muslim girl.
Spooner appreciates that, in addition to showcasing two world premieres, the festival includes a series of short workshops, whose subjects include Spontaneous Storytelling, Decolonizing the Artist, and Exploring Childhood through your Senses. The festival starts Friday Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m. and runs through Sept. 18 at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis.
