Operation Metro Surge resistance takes center stage in State Fair art
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The Lynx, “Heated Rivalry,” the cost of gas, the Artemis mission, “Frog and Toad,” climate change, corn dogs, the surveillance state, Tilt-a-Whirl, quinoa: a mixture of hot topics and state fair staples served as common inspiration for submissions in the crop art and fine arts exhibitions.
The most prevalent trend, however, was artwork inspired by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge in operations this past winter and how Minnesotans responded.
“Humans look to art to process experience, both collective and personal, the full spectrum from joy to trauma,” said fine arts superintendent Jim Clark. He was speaking to a crowd at the Fine Arts preview Aug. 25. “We celebrate that here. There is a broad survey of what's on the hearts and minds of Minnesota artists today. I'm very proud to be a part of this and to support human expression.”
Early on, crop art superintendent Marta Shore recognized that artists would be responding to ICE.
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“Of course, of course, Operation Metro Surge,” Shore said, nodding.
Shore said many crop artists came to her during the surge and said, “Marta, you have to let us swear this year, with everything that’s happened.”
Profanity is against the fair’s extensive crop art rules, so Shore said no. But on Jan. 23, the day many Minnesotans participated in a general strike, Shore decided to make a piece that showed one way artists could bend that rule to express themselves.
Her seed mosaic shows a duck and ice emoji; below, it says, “c’mon autocorrect.”
"Here's how you say what you want to say while still meeting the rules,” she said.
Crop artists used all sorts of word play and resistance imagery in the record-breaking 594 submissions this year (143 more pieces than 2025, which itself was a record-breaking year).
The rebel loon is everywhere, such as longtime crop artist Gayle Deutsch’s yellow-and-black piece “Leave Minnesota Aloon” based on the original artwork Andi Fink made for protest buttons.
There are depictions of whistles, which Minnesotans used to alert neighbors to the presence of immigration agents, as well as portraits of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the boy from Columbia Heights who received national attention after agents detained him while he wore a blue bunny hat, and Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents.
There are a few crop art pieces (and fine art pieces) depicting MPR News journalist Sam Stroozas, who ran out of her home in a robe and slippers — in the middle of winter — to document a car crash involving federal agents. A photo of Stroozas at that moment taken by a Minnesota Star Tribune photographer went viral.
Artists also fused ICE and art history. Artist Jennifer Nelson recreated Pablo Picasso’s 1937 antiwar painting “Guernica” using a loon, an “ICE OUT” protest sign, a fallen Alex Pretti and Conejo Ramos.
“I thought there was a fitting parallel between these incidents about the high price paid by ordinary people when aggressive regimes try out new tactics of war,” Jennifer Nelson said in an artist statement. “As well as a fitting juxtaposition of the darkness of living such an experience and the light we shone through it in our own resistance and care for one another.”
First-time crop artist Bethany Nagan of Inver Grove Heights recreated the 1830 painting “Liberty Leading the People,” by Eugène Delacroix. Here, Nagan swapped Lady Liberty for a loon holding a Minnesota flag, and guns for signs.
“A painting about one of the French Revolutions, and it really rang like an echo to me,” Nagan said. “I changed all of the weapons into protest signs because I think that is the tool that we use.”
There were so many crop artworks about Operation Metro Surge this year that the manager of cropart.com created a special resistance collection on the site.
Crop art at the State Fair has a strong tradition of responding to politics, current events and resistance themes. That’s less true of the Fine Arts Competition, which this year accepted 343 pieces out of 3,185 submissions. The juried show is typically more apolitical, with artists finding inspiration in a broader array of topics. That changed this year. While there is still an abundance of classic landscapes, portraits and abstracted works, there were artworks of all mediums responding to Operation Metro Surge and the resistance movement.
“Cities of Strength,” a large-format collage by White Bear Lake artist Kristi Abbott, won the Minnesota State Fair Foundation Friends of the Fair Award. The piece features the architecture and landscapes of Minneapolis and St. Paul with a crowd at the capitol holding a cluster of protest signs that say "Resistance," “Are you OK?” and “Alex.”
The dynamic painting “Red Sun Rising” by Minneapolis artist Meg Koenitzer features everything from the tipi prayer camp at the Whipple Federal Building and the protesters who dressed up as handmaidens to Renee Good’s van and, of course, a rebel loon.
“Signs of Refusal” is a photo compilation by Minneapolis photographer Drew Arrieta that features, in a grid, 117 photos of stop signs in Minneapolis. Each one is altered by a sticker or paint to say, “Stop Ice.” The artwork won two awards: The Metropolitan State University Gordon Parks Gallery Photography Award and the Minnesota Museum of American Art Award. The latter means it will enter the St. Paul museum’s permanent collection.
“Operation Metro Surge is so deeply entrenched and within everyone's spirit in Minnesota,” said Arrieta, who traveled on foot and by bike to capture as many of these signs as he could. “We're still continuing to move through that, and art is a really beautiful way to do that.”
Correction (Aug. 30, 2026): An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Fine Arts Superintendent Jim Clark's last name.
