David Hamlow: Mirror Stage

Minnesota Museum of American Art (The M) kicks off the summer arts season with a thought-provoking, occasionally whimsical exhibition of work by Good Thunder, Minnesota-based artist David Hamlow.

 

Hamlow’s Mirror Stage is a massive installation that includes watercolors, drawings, found-object sculptures, and geodesic structures made of recyclable paper and plastics, some of which have been donated by residents of Lowertown St. Paul’s Pioneer Endicott building. This is an ongoing body of work, which scrutinizes our collective impact on the environment by illustrating in elegant form the vast amounts of waste we produce each day.

 

The title of the exhibition refers to what Hamlow sees as a key sticking point in dealing with the connection between consumption and climate change. His work aims to make those connections both personal and visible. Hamlow says, “We acknowledge the problem, but we have difficulty in changing it because we fail to identify ourselves within the cause.”

 

The exhibition offers a rich visitor experience with work on varying scales: two large geodesic structures, one of which is nearly seven feet tall; A Day of Water, a series of watercolor milk jugs making visible daily household water use; a massive installation of upcycled “bricks,” which will meander through the gallery space, growing along with various public art-making projects led by the artist at the museum. A wall installation, Breath of the Compassionate, will make use of both found-object sculptures and negative space to create patterning and designs informed by Islamic architecture.

 

In conjunction with the Twin Cities’ annual all-night arts festival, Northern Spark 2017 (June 10 – 11), the M will offer interactive, public art-making, led by Hamlow, around this site-specific project.

 

David Hamlow has shown his work regionally, nationally and internationally, including installations at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Hutchinson Center for Visual Art; Centennial Galleries, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Eaton-Buchan Gallery, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA; the Kala Institute in Berkeley, CA; Dodd Galleries, University of Georgia, Athens; and Ferencvarosi Pince Gallery in Budapest, Hungary. Hamlow is the Professor of Visual Culture at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He lives and maintains a studio in Good Thunder, Minnesota.