2024 – when diversity, equality and inclusion trumped everything else
12/4/2024
Scott Charles Ross’ Ukraine War art series raised enough money to allow eight Ukrainian students to remain in the U.S. to pursue college degrees.
Jim Duncan will further reckon the year in Des Moines arts in his The Daily Umbrella column the last two weeks of the year. It’s free to subscribe, and no other medium covers the food and arts scene to the DU’s extent. www.thedailyumbrella.com
2024 was a transitional year for Des Moines’ art scene. Put that in bold type with exclamation points and underlining. Like a blackjack player being fed the dealer’s hold card, the state’s most prestigious arts institute, Des Moines Art Center, quadrupled down on its long, strange bet on Caribbean art and artists.
Following a most interesting February show “States of Becoming,” which told multiple stories of diaspora through the Caribbean to the USA, DMAC followed with three more derivative exhibitions progressively simplifying Caribbean art.
DMAC is now the vanguard of a new thinking in which diversity, equality and inclusion trumps exceptionalism. If you have not “woke” enough to realize that that is a good thing, they unveiled a 2025 preview that includes a fourth and fifth derivative exhibition of Caribbean folk art. A Haitian art show will follow a Dominican artist’s solo show next year.
Moberg Gallery did not get the memo that genius had been redefined to include most anything. They spent most of 2024 as impresarios of the old-fashioned belief that great painters can change the world with righteous ideals. They hosted Scott Charles Ross twice, once with his fundraising exhibition of Ukrainian war art. Ross raised enough money, after follow-up shows at Grinnell College and UNI, to pay for legal aid to allow nine Ukrainian high schoolers to pursue higher educations in Iowa.
Moberg also hosted two shows of Teo Nguyen, this old white art lover’s idea of a breakout genius. Teo also committed to reimagining war in “The Politics of Unworthiness,” which flat out was the best show in Iowa all year. He painted landscapes made infamous by photographers of the Vietnam War — minus any traces of violence. By denuding landscape of such, he revealed the magic ghosts of his animist spirit.
Teo returns to Moberg Dec. 6 with an exhibition of Midwestern landscapes. He says they are imbued with ghostly charisma as much as his landscapes of war, which have moved on to a museum in France.
China’s moving on up
The United Kingdom has been ousted from its status as the world’s second-largest art market. China now accounts for 19% of global art sales, with the U.K. falling back to 17% of global sales. Apparently, the Chinese perceive art as a safe harbor in a real estate crisis. (Forbes)
Touts
Olson-Larsen Gallery’s Winter Sampler, beginning Dec. 13, brings an all-star lineup of the gallery’s artists. Michael Brangoccio, Christopher Chiavetta, Mary Merkel-Hess, Anna Lambrini Moisiadis, Jonathan and Allison Metzger, Tim Schiffer, Jim Sincock, Debra Smith, and Molly Wood.
After recording its earliest ever sell out for next summer’s opening night, Des Moines Metro Opera partners with Varsity Theater on Dec. 11 for a screening of “Maria.” That U.S., German and Italian collaboration is about the latter days of supreme diva Maria Callas, with Angelina Jolie in the title role. Roger Pines, dramaturg at the Lyric Opera of Chicago for more than 25 years, will lead a Q&A before the show. The film debuts on Netflix the same day. https://varsitydesmoines.com/showtimes/maria-qa-with-des-moines-metro-opera-12-11-24-700-pm/
The Ceramics Invitational at Mainframe Studios on December’s First Friday will celebrate the talent of local and regional ceramic artists, with a range of functional and sculptural works. This will include open artist studios, live music, food and drinks.
Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus’ Winter Concert at Hoyt Sherman Place, Dec. 7. We need these guys more than ever this year because their message is that harmony can raise rooves and sooth souls. $25-35 via Ticketmaster.
