Posted March 04, 2026in Art News
March brings great news for Des Moines’ art scene. As part of Civic Music’s centennial celebration, Bria Skonberg visits Sheslow Auditorium with her bright vocals and Louis Armstrong School trumpet. She is perhaps the hottest act in jazz, having led the Mighty Aphrodite Jazz Band, the Big Bang Jazz Band
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Posted February 04, 2026in Art News
The juiciest story in the art world last month was that of Thomas Doyle, a Kansas-born con man who has been arrested numerous times under at least five different names. Wall Street Journal’s Jenny Strasburg catapulted Doyle to the big time as far as infamy goes telling how he conned
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Posted December 31, 2025in Art News
Listen to the elite guardians of American culture, and you might think the art world is self-destructing. The New York Times writes that the Broadway musical is doomed — by bad ticket sales, $250 average ticket prices, and audiences that prefer old classics. They have been saying that about opera
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Posted December 03, 2025in Art News
The year 2025 was a very good one for Des Moines’ art scene. The news poured sweet and clear. Oyoram, the French-Israeli genius who now headquarters in Sherman Hill, installed “TimePiece” on the north façe of the Fitch Building. Transforming itself 24 times a day, his 3D led clock dazzles
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Posted November 05, 2025in Art News
Last month, Steve Logsdon turned the sesquicentennial architecture of his Lucca café into evidence of a personal awakening. Two years ago, Logsdon told us it would be absurd to put art on his restaurant’s brick walls. In October, he covered the walls, upstairs and down, with more than 50 supersized
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Posted October 01, 2025in Art News
Change is running amok in the art world. Galleries have reigned as supreme discoverers and arbiters of new and great things since the 19th century. Now, that seems to be changing, at least in cities where street traffic is influenced by crime problems. LA Louver, one of Los Angeles’ most
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Posted September 03, 2025in Art News
September is a self-contradiction. It is our ninth month, yet named as if the seventh. It marks the end of summer and the beginning of the end of all things perennial. It is the time of year that makes us most conscious of time. Time measures, organizes and judges everything
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Posted August 06, 2025in Art News
Des Moines supported the arts in record numbers this July, and not just for free stuff like Fourth of July Pops and various street festivals. We came about a new civic pride watching Des Moines Metro Opera (DMMO) and Des Moines Community Playhouse (DMCP) productions in completely full houses the
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Posted July 02, 2025in Art News
The late Des Moines artist Don Dunagan liked to say, “Artists are somewhat cool, but art thieves get the hot girls.” He had a point. I asked my Internet Movie Database (IMDb) app how many movies have been made about artists, and it returned 75. The same question about art
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Posted June 04, 2025in Art News
One hundred years ago, Elsa Neumann, Gertrude Shloss and Elizabeth Cowles — the original grand dames of Des Moines culture — created Civic Music Association of Des Moines (CMADM) and were determined to convince the world’s best musicians to perform in the city. By sheer force of their personalities, and
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