Past Exhibitions

John Hitchcock

John Hitchcock

Traces of the Plains, 2013, Naugahyde screenprint, wooden structure and video installation, 20' L x 20' W x 5' H

Tim Schouten

Tim Schouten

Left: Robert Lives Here (Spirit Lake), 2012-2013, Mixed media, 48"H x 72" W Right: 2012-2013, Text Paintings, Mixed media, 10 units: 8" H x 10" W Faces (Spirit Lake), Acrylic on panel, 32 units: 8" H x 10" W

Mary Lucier

Mary Lucier

Drum Songs With the Cikana Candeska Drum Group, Spirit Lake, May 23, 2013, shot at the exhibitions opening reception. Video projection and sound.

Rena Effendi

Rena Effendi

April 2013, C-Type print, 40cm x 40cm and 100cm x 100cm

Bill Harbort

Bill Harbort

Passing Through Spirit Lake, 2013, Printed polypoplin backdrop with cut plexiglass and pouring medium, 14' H x 19' W

Terry Jelsing

Terry Jelsing

Conference of Mothers for Sunniva, 2013, Mixed media, 15' H x 16' Dia.

SONGS FOR SPIRIT LAKE

May 24 - June 28, 2013
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Project Space, NYC, NY

October 18 - 31, 2013
Cankdeska Cikana Community College, Ft. Totten, ND

February 8 - May 28, 2014
North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND


In 2012, the Museum was one of ten art institutions in the country to receive the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation's Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant, a three-year grant designed to encourage artistic collaboration and innovation. Through this grant the Museum commissioned six artists to work with the people of the Spirit Lake Reservation. The commissioned artists were asked to create work in responds to contemporary life on the mixed-race, multi-cultural, poverty-ridden Spirit Lake Dakota Sioux Reservation. The show includes images of today’s painted and photographed inhabitants of Spirit Lake, sculptural investigations into Tribal family structure, poetic reflections on tough social issues faced by today’s Spirit Lake people, and work based in the mythic roll of the bison in Northern Plains Indian culture. An exhibition of the first round of work displayed at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Project Space in New York’s prestigious Chelsea Art District. The artists invited the Cankdeska Cikana Drum Group to perform at the New York opening. After the exhibition closed in New York it traveled back home to the Spirit Lake Reservation and opened at the Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Ft. Totten, North Dakota. The exhibition continued on to the North Dakota Museum of Art. The artists are photographer Rena Effendi of Baku, Azerbaijan who now lives in Cairo; Bill Harbort, a New Yorker transplanted to Minot, North Dakota, who left a lucrative graphic design career to teach art to college students; and John Hitchcock, of Southern Cheyenne and Northern European descent who teaches at the University of Wisconsin. They are joined by North Dakota sculptor Terry Jelsing, Manitoba painter Tim Schouten, and New York video installation artist Mary Lucier who has completed two major works about loss in North Dakota.

 

North Dakota Museum of Art Press Release

Rauschenberg Foundation Press Release

Terry Jelsing, Songs for Spirit Lake
Memorial for Robert Rauschenberg by Mary Lucier
Rena Effendi  2014, Observed Portraits, 2nd prize singles.
Unsteady ground
Vivid landscapes explore natural beauty and complicated histories
 

 

 


This project is supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s Artistic Innovation and Collaboration Program, which supports fearless and innovative collaborations in the spirit of Robert Rauschenberg.
 
Appreciation to 126 backers who supported Songs for Spirit Lake by donating $10,208 to the Museum's first KICKSTATER campaign to bring Songs for Spirit Lake home.