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From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art.

Austin ArtWorks Festival brings visual art, music, books and film downtown 

Gretchen Ramlo has been involved with the 

 since the beginning, but lately she has stepped back and is looking forward simply to attending this year. The free annual festival takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 29.  

The festival includes more than 80 juried artists working in a variety of artistic media as well as a stage with live music. This year’s author’s tent includes authors writing romance, crime and thrillers, and Austin history. 

The festival kicks off Friday at 4 p.m. with a talk by mystery writer 

. Ramlo says she is looking forward to that event as well as a film screening of the documentary “The Life & Art of Eric Anfinson.” 

Artists respond to Operation Metro Surge in Northeast Minneapolis exhibition 

Tricia Heuring is artistic director of Public Functionary in Northeast Minneapolis. She’s excited about a group show taking place in her neighborhood at a nontraditional space: findfurnish on Central Avenue. Titled 

“The Radical Act of Having Each Other’s Back,”

 the exhibit features the work of 26 artists created during and since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements' Operation Metro Surge. There is an opening reception Thursday, Aug. 27 from 6 to 9 p.m., and the exhibition remains on view through Sept. 20. 

At the center of the exhibit, four graffiti writers have created their own black-and-white version of Picasso’s painting “Guernica,” his response to the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War. Heuring says this version, and the show, allows artists to reclaim the narrative following the height of ICE enforcement activity during Operation Metro Surge. Visitors can add magnetic pieces to the Guernica mural as a way of interacting with the story it is telling. 

“I really hope this is the first of many, many shows by artists processing what's been happening in our cities and and in our country. And I really hope that it inspires more artists to start opening up about the narratives that they want to share, so that we can continue just resisting and talking about the things that are happening.” 

Dede Decker transforms latch hook into contemporary fine art 

Jess Reyes is an artist and arts administrator in St. Paul.

 at Fresh Eye Gallery in Minneapolis, which runs through Sept. 27. 

Reyes says: “I'm drawn to artists who embrace intuitive making, blur the boundaries between craft and fine art and create work that is both joyful and deeply personal. As a fiber artist myself, I feel a particular connection to Dede's practice. I'm fascinated by the way she transforms latch hook — a medium many people associate with craft kits — into contemporary fine art through her own original designs. Dede's work also resonates with my own belief that fiber belongs firmly within contemporary art.” 

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Emily Bright

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Art Hounds recommend Austin’s downtown arts festival, a Minneapolis exhibition responding to ICE activity and Dede Decker’s contemporary latch-hook art.

Art Hounds: An arts festival, art responding to ICE and latch-hook reinvention

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