Posted December 04, 2019in Art News
Tales are told with irony, sarcasm and understated glee. “Of Our Time: Contemporary art by indigenous people from the permanent collection” is the latest show at the Des Moines Art Center. It’s also a delightful stroll through the precarious history of American Indians since the invasion of the Europeans and
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Posted November 06, 2019in Art News
In her introduction to “Monument Valley,” the Des Moines Art Center’s latest exhibition, curator Laura Burkhalter explains why a show about the history and mythology of a Navajo Tribal Park in Utah and Arizona is a good fit for an Iowa museum. John Wayne, the actor whose work with John
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Posted October 02, 2019in Art News
“Kicking Abstract and Taking Names” The autumn art season kicked off with female artists dominating the galleries. Drake’s Anderson Gallery hosted “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” with an accompanying poster show and pair of lectures. Olson Larsen Galleries will present “Women’s Work” beginning Oct. 11 through Nov. 30. That show
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Posted September 04, 2019in Art News
A celebration of three centuries of Japanese printmaking Ukiyo-e is the most influential school of art that most Americans never heard about. It had a huge effect on the Impressionists, particularly on Monet and Degas. It continued to influence artists like Frida Kahlo well into the 20th century. Translated as
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Posted July 31, 2019in Art News
Gardening and art are intermingled in the mindset of Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen. Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen are Iowa’s original digital couple. They were transferring images to computer prints back when they had to drive to Omaha to use computers and printers big enough to work to their
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Posted July 03, 2019in Art News
The Grundigs defied the Nazis, buying a press and distributing pro-Jewish and Communist points of view. Lea Grundig is little known in the U.S. That’s a shame. She and her radical Communist husband Hans lived in Dresden during Germany’s most modern Dark Age, the two disastrous World Wars and the
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Posted June 05, 2019in Art News
The local art scene is continually improving. After writing about art in Des Moines for more than 30 years, I marvel most at how much things have become more cosmopolitan. Nothing illustrates this more than Moberg Gallery. When they opened 15 years ago, they were an all-metro gallery. Every artist
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Posted May 01, 2019in Art News
Molly Wood replicates still-life paintings of the masters by raising her plants indoors and lighting her photos exclusively with natural light. Olson-Larsen Galleries is celebrating its 40th anniversary with an exhibition that includes 70 pieces by 55 artists from its four decades in town. Memorial photo montages are also included
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Posted April 03, 2019in Art News
“The Elephant in the Room: Animal as Model” is the latest exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center. From Aesop to Brer Rabbit, from the bulls of Chauvet Cave to “The Lion King,” from Egyptian myth to “Animal Farm,” animals have been portraying humans as parables. For perhaps 40,000 years,
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Posted March 06, 2019in Art News
Des Moines lost its most celebrated artist. “All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.” Edgar Allen Poe Des Moines lost its most celebrated artist when Alex Brown died at his home on the penultimate day of January after an aneurism at age 52. Brown attended
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