Looking for more?&nbsp;The Summer Art Fest Guide will be updated regularly throughout the summer. Check back often for new events. Also, be sure to check out the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/calendar/upcoming">upcoming exhibition calendar</a>. 
 
Get in the Guide!&nbsp;Looking to include your festival or summer event in our guide?&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mplsart.com/written/2025/02/2025-summer-festival-guide-information" target="_blank">apply here</a>.

Your guide to the best art festivals, markets, and events in the Twin Cities all summer long. Check back often for new events!

2025 Summer Art Festival Guide

Local painter and current MCAD MFA candidate, Leslie Barlow has a lot going on right now, from shows to grants to residencies and even NFL-sized commissions. &nbsp;She took time out of her busy schedule to talk with us about maintaining a successful studio practice, the secret to effective grant-writing, and how her work addresses identity and otherness. 
&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/LeslieBarlow_DSC6757.jpg" /> Leslie Photo by Rik Sferra

Russ White: You are currently in your second year as an MFA candidate at MCAD, you just had a show at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, you&rsquo;ve participated in the most recent Made Here project, you have both a group show and your Thesis Exhibition coming up at MCAD, you just won a MN State Arts Board grant, you are planning for a fall residency in Spokane, Washington, and you are currently finishing up a commission for the Minnesota Vikings. &nbsp;That is a lot of irons in the fire! &nbsp;Can you tell me a little bit about your studio practice? &nbsp;It sounds like you must basically just sleep and paint, but there has to be a lot of admin-type work as well to stay ahead of deadlines and put proposals together. &nbsp;How do you balance that work with your painting? 
&nbsp; 
Leslie Barlow: My studio practice is insane. I wouldn&rsquo;t call it a well-oiled machine, but my schedule is pretty regimented to make sure I fit everything in and still get ample studio time. &nbsp;There are some days so packed that I have to actually schedule in times to eat or else I&rsquo;ll forget! &nbsp;I&rsquo;m hoping once I finish graduate school the schedule cramming will be a bit less severe, but I know that because I like to be involved in a lot of different things, I kind of have to accept the fact that I&rsquo;m busy all the time.&nbsp; 
I wish I could just sleep and paint (that sounds like the dream), but yes you&rsquo;re right, a ton of admin work is involved to apply to shows and set up studio visits and manage a website, etc, not to mention the time it takes getting out to other art shows and talks regularly to see what your fellow people are doing and making. &nbsp;A teacher gave me some advice back in undergrad about the admin side of things- he said that you have to spend almost the same amount of time &ldquo;managing&rdquo; your art as you do actually creating the art. &nbsp;And it&rsquo;s crazy because it&rsquo;s kind of true. &nbsp;However, if you go into it knowing that the admin work is half the battle, and specifically allow time in your schedule to do it, it doesn&rsquo;t seem as so much of a burden. 
&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/lb_pic5_thoughtsinawinterkaleidoscope.jpg" />Thoughts in a Winter Kaleidoscope, 48&quot; x 60&quot;, Oil, gesso, and charcoal on panel, 2016

 
RW: What is your process like when you start a painting? &nbsp;Do you usually have a good idea of where you&rsquo;re headed when you begin? 
&nbsp; 
LB: I think the answer is yes and no. Because I am a representational painter, I always have a sense of what the painting will look like because I need a source or model to directly work from. &nbsp;So whether I&rsquo;m working from a live subject or working from a photograph I took of a subject, that informs what the pose, expression, or composition in the painting will look like. &nbsp;But many times I will deviate from the source imagery (this is especially true for the variety of colors I use in my work) or work from a few different images to compose one painting. &nbsp;Or halfway through the painting, I&rsquo;ll change the trajectory entirely. &nbsp;For me it&rsquo;s important to have a direction, but also allow space to alter that direction if the original idea isn&rsquo;t working. 
&nbsp; 
I am always researching and reading and taking in the world around me, and these things manifest themselves in my work. &nbsp;Many times it is deliberate: I want to depict a specific idea or particular event or a childhood memory. &nbsp;Other times I try to let the narrative work itself through the piece as I&rsquo;m creating it, or I want things to be a bit more ambiguous. 
&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/lb_pic4_identity_series.jpg" />Installation view of Identity Series, 20&quot; x 16&quot; each Oil on Panel, 2015

 
RW: Can you tell me about your proposal for the MN State Arts Board grant? &nbsp;Will your project be all new work? 
&nbsp; 
Yes, the project will be all new work, but definitely in the same vein as the work I&rsquo;m currently creating. &nbsp;I&rsquo;m going to try not to get too long-winded here&ndash;&ndash;but I&rsquo;m very excited about my project proposal, and there are quite a bit of layers. &nbsp;My MN State Arts Board grant project will be a series of 8-10 large scale portraits (think 3 feet to 8 feet in size) featuring interracial families to highlight the 50th year anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court Case, which will be commemorated in 2017. &nbsp;I will be hosting a couple of public studio events during the months creating the series, and through the work and research, the paintings will be realized in a solo exhibition in the Twin Cities in early 2017, with a public artist talk and forum to follow.&nbsp;

Much of my current work uses the figure, narrative, and symbolism to talk about issues related to multiculturalism, &ldquo;otherness&rdquo;, and identity. &nbsp;I wanted to have a narrowed focus for this new body of work, and tie it into that historical event- Loving v. Virginia. &nbsp;Initially inspired by the controversial, racist backlash surrounding the 2013 General Mill&rsquo;s Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial family, I realized it was extremely important to visually represent interracial families and people of mixed race as they are: normal and very much present. &nbsp;The Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court Case has been a moving and important part of my understanding the culture of discrimination surrounding interracial relationships and mixed race people. &nbsp;As I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;re aware, anti-miscegenation laws were a part of America since before the U.S. was established, and remained so until ruled unconstitutional in the 1967 court case. &nbsp;The case was brought by Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Unfortunately many racial tensions that were present during the case in 1967 are still present today. In addition, with the recent Supreme Court legalization of gay marriage, the questions of who we can love, what makes a family, and how equality is defined is even more relevant.

My main goal through this project is to make a body of work that articulates these themes and incorporates and represents our evolving community. Minnesota is changing. While we are not nearly as ethnically diverse as other states, diversity is at an all time high. According to the 2010 census, about 14% of residents are people of color, and about 2.4% of Minnesota&rsquo;s population is multiracial, which is a 51% increase over the past decade. I wish to make visible a community that is the changing demographics of Minnesota, educate Minnesotans about families that are not the mainstream story, and bring attention to the important court case and civil rights moment in the racial history of the US. &nbsp;Using and working within the history of portrait painting allows me fertile ground to push the boundaries of our known visual language and inject that history with a new generation of faces and stories. 
&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/lb_pic6_dissolve.jpg" /> Dissolve, 30&quot; x 22.5&quot;, Charcoal and gesso on paper, 2015

RW: Do you have any insider tips on what you think makes for a successful grant proposal? 
&nbsp; 
LB: Clarity of direction. &nbsp;I&rsquo;ve applied for funding before and have not received it, and I think that was my biggest downfall. &nbsp;It&rsquo;s important to be clear about what your idea is, why you want to do a project (why is it important to you as well as the community/people funding it), and how you are going to achieve the goals of your project. &nbsp;No extra jargon or unnecessary details that may take away or dilute your proposal. 
&nbsp; 
RW: &nbsp;The social implications of racial and gender identity are topics of much discussion these days because of police shootings, presidential campaigns, and a much more vocal resistance to normalized privilege. &nbsp;Have these recent events and conversations affected your work? &nbsp;What do you see as the relationship between art and activism? 
&nbsp; 
LB: Of course! These things ALL affect my work greatly! I think as an artist, I cannot help but reflect the world around me in my work. &nbsp;I&rsquo;m making artwork in this time, in this place, and as a young woman of color from the Midwest. There are all of these lenses there.&nbsp;

As far as the relationship between art and activism...there&#39;s a lot of directions I could go with this question, there&#39;s a lot there, and maybe more than I&#39;d like to get into right now. &nbsp;Art and activism historically have gone hand in hand, and socially-engaged/social-practice artwork is on the rise right now. I think it&#39;s hard to not make work reflective of the times that you&#39;re making the work in, and well, the times right now are tense. &nbsp;More then ever we need work that connects people, makes people question the status-quo, and represents historically marginalized voices and stories. &nbsp;I&#39;m not sure if this really answers your question, but I think about the relationship of art and activism a lot and I just don&#39;t have a concrete answer or position... just a rambling stream of thoughts. 
&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/lb_pic2_do_not_cross.jpg" />Do Not Cross, 24.5&quot; x 20&quot; oval, Oil and photo transfer on panel, 2015

RW: As a working artist about to finish graduate school, do you see yourself making art full time in the future?&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
LB: I would love to be able to make art full time, that&rsquo;s the goal. &nbsp;But even so, I still want to have my hands in a bunch of different projects outside of my personal studio practice. &nbsp;The relationship between art and community is very important to me, and I like to work directly with people. &nbsp;I currently work at a newer gallery (we&rsquo;re going on two years!), Waiting Room in the Loring Park area downtown Minneapolis, and I love that I get to assist other artists regularly and help facilitate meaningful conversations with visitors and the community. &nbsp;I definitely want to continue working in art spaces, or arts non-profit, and I could see myself teaching in the future as well&hellip;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
RW: Overall, what do you think of the Twin Cities art scene? 
&nbsp;LB: It&rsquo;s tight-knit, supportive, and vibrant.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

<img class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/written/temp/lb_two_grandmas.jpg" /> 
Two Grandmas, 84&quot; x 48&quot;, Oil, acrylic, charcoal, and photo transfer on panel, 2015

RW: Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what did you think of Episode 7? &nbsp;(This can be off the record if you prefer, just curious from one Star Wars nerd to another.) 
&nbsp; 
LB: This better not be off the record!! Ha! This is obviously the most important part of this interview. I mean, I don&rsquo;t think I can accurately describe my excitement and feelings for where Episode 7 is leading us in the Star Wars universe, but yes I freaking loved it (even if it felt a bit too &quot;familiar&quot;, I&#39;m happy it actually felt like a Star Wars movie), and yes I&rsquo;m thinking about how to incorporate something from Episode 7 into my cosplay rotation this year. &nbsp;I don&rsquo;t want to give any other details away&hellip; just come find me at Wizard World&rsquo;s Comic Con. 
 
-&nbsp;<a href="http://russ-white.com/" target="_new">Russ White</a> 
 
See Leslie&#39;s&nbsp;latest work, among others, at the <a href="http://www.mplsart.com/events/mcad-mfa-thesis-exhibition" target="_blank">MCAD MFA Thesis Exhibition</a> opening Friday May 13th. She will also be a part of the next Made Here&nbsp;series as well as having work at All My Relations Gallery in June for the exhibition Reframe&nbsp;Minnesota: Art Beyond a Single Story. More details on these exhibitions and events soon. &nbsp;Visit&nbsp;<a href="http://www.lesliebarlowartist.com/" target="_blank">lesliebarlowartist.com</a>&nbsp;for more of Leslie&#39;s work and to learn more.

Insights from MCAD MFA candidate Leslie Barlow on her painting, her success, her activism, and her cosplay.

Interview: Leslie Barlow

The start of a new year can be a time of great clarity, if you let it. New goals, new rules, fresh perspectives on who you are and what you care about &mdash; especially after a few days spent with extended family. Maybe now, a mere two weeks into 2019, the shine has already started to dim on your new year&mdash; the promise of a fresh start perhaps betrayed by old habits, daily troubles, and fascist creep(s). But keep faith, my friends; the year is still young.

There has been a question scratching around at the back of my head for a while now. It&#39;s a very simple question (so simple it&rsquo;s almost stupid), but I thought the start of a new year would be a good time to get some other perspectives on it, to reassess why it is that we do what we do.

The question is:&nbsp;What is the purpose of an art exhibition?&nbsp;

Another way to ask might be: what can an art exhibition do?&nbsp;

I reached out to several artists and curators and put it to them this way: I&rsquo;m thinking here about art&#39;s position within the marketplace, the cultural canon, existing power and class structures, and &mdash; as an artist &mdash; the bald audacity of showing work no one asked you to make in the first place. I&rsquo;ve been thinking about the monthly art exhibition&rsquo;s origins as a way to sell art, and whether that is still (or ever was) the primary function of all these shows. Might it be time to rethink the structure of art exhibitions in general?

No surprise, everyone&rsquo;s answer was different, each bringing their own perspective to the conversation. There was also a follow-up question just for fun: what&rsquo;s the best art exhibition you&rsquo;ve ever seen?&nbsp;

&bull;&bull;&bull;&bull;

<h2>Preston Drum,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.prestondrumstudios.com" target="_blank">Artist</a></h2>

What is the purpose of an art exhibition?

&quot;This is an excellent question and one I have been asking for over 15 years. I started doing my postcard paintings back in 2005 because I was frustrated with art exhibitions. I felt this was a strange dynamic, to make something and leave it there. Like carving your name in a tree. If the point is to connect with others, why not make that connection literal? The way I found was to sell them the art and give them something small they could hold or hang in their house and have repeat interactions with. This of course has evolved over the years and mutated into the interactive work I do today.

&quot;When I trace it back, I remember the basement shows I saw and participated in as a teen. Sharing sweat, screams, and energy with those around me. Instead of watching a performance we all (audience and artist) become the event together. This would quantify as good art to me.

&quot;The question of capitalism is intrinsic to art. Art can live without money, but money needs art to make it legitimate and art needs money to make it grow beyond human scale. We are after our gods or seeking to create them in their absence.&quot;

What&rsquo;s the best art exhibition you&rsquo;ve ever seen?&nbsp;

&quot;My most memorable moments with art have been hand-to-hand combat. Those had in critiques, at punk shows with 5 other people there, reading books in the park, watching movies in my high school film class, seeing the sun set over the Mississippi River.

&quot;But if I have to&nbsp;focus on an institutional exhibition, I&rsquo;d have to say seeing an Anselm Kiefer for the first time at the NC Museum of Art in Raleigh. Or I remember as a young child seeing this exhibit about slavery where they made a replica of a slave ship hull and had us squeeze into it so we could know what it felt like. I think that was at The Discovery Place in Charlotte. Both experiences were center of the earth kinds of things for me.&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fNDAwMTAwMDE/full.jpg" />Anselm Kiefer, Untitled, mixed media on three panels, each 130&nbsp;x 73&quot;, 1980-86

&nbsp;

<h2>Tricia Heuring, Co-Director and Curator at Public Functionary</h2>

What is the purpose of an art exhibition?

&quot;As a curator who works primarily on solo exhibitions with emerging artists, I see the purpose of the exhibition as a pivotal moment, an opportunity for an artist to understand the progression of their practice, to connect with community. It allows for public critique, celebration, and connection. I think artists often push towards that solo exhibition moment, knowing the moment it marks throughout their careers, and that push is necessary. But from my perspective, the work that follows their solo exhibition is often more interesting. It is after this release, presentation, and movement from studio practice into public space in a high stakes context that artists are able to grow.&nbsp;

&quot;I do still think the exhibition opportunity is important. But I would advocate for less of a focus on exhibitions as a culmination or an indicator of purpose. Individual funding for artists and BFA/MFA programs prioritize exhibitions as outcomes;&nbsp;I believe more time and funding spent with works in progress or deeper engagement with process would better serve artists in developing their context, perspective, and craft.&nbsp;

&quot;While many in the art world might be over the &#39;solo exhibition&#39;&nbsp;for various reasons, I think it is important, especially locally, to recognize how many indigenous artists, queer artists, and artists of color have not had a solo exhibition opportunity. For all the ways in which solo exhibitions affirm and validate, I feel the solo exhibition model is worth maintaining as a milestone, but evolving it to better serve underrepresented artists.&quot;

What&rsquo;s the best art exhibition you&rsquo;ve ever seen?

&quot;I don&#39;t know if I can say ever, but one of the most powerful exhibitions I have seen in the past few years was Kerry James Marshall&#39;s Mastry at the MCA. It took my&nbsp;breath away. I&nbsp;went back twice while in Chicago over a weekend. His work is exquisite, and an artist&#39;s lifelong career story told through a major museum retrospective is always one of my favorite types of exhibition. I think the space held by a major Kerry James Marshall exhibition in the context of 2016 in America made this show particularly impactful.&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMTc3NjAwMDE/full.jpg" />Kerry James Marshall,&nbsp;Portrait of a Curator (In Memory of Beryl Wright), acrylic on PVC panel, 31 x 25&quot;,&nbsp;2009

<h2>&nbsp;</h2>

<h2>Rory Wakemup, Artist at Wakemup Productions &amp; Gallery Director of <a href="http://www.prestondrumstudios.com" target="_blank">All My Relations Arts</a></h2>

&quot;All My Relations Arts Gallery has a very unique and specific mission statement that I really like. It was developed before I got there, but it comes from a popular sentiment at the Institute of American Indian Arts. We don&rsquo;t focus on sales or marketing as much, but we do focus on empowering our own narrative.&nbsp;My favorite part of the mission statement is that we empower Native artists to create art that fits their personality and their message, what they want to say, without the restrictions of the museum effect or the European gaze.&nbsp;

&quot;AMRA also allows that intergenerational transfer of knowledge, intentionally mixing emerging artists with established artists &mdash; it helps the elder artists stay informed on the contemporary issues and helps the younger artists understand what it takes to become an accomplished artist.&nbsp;

&quot;My evolutionary step as director is to use that message for social justice and environmental justice. I encourage artists to step out of their normal mediums, adding performative elements to art &mdash; anything that helps humanize&nbsp;us. My capstone project at the gallery (I&rsquo;m phasing out as director in February) is the 2019 Women&rsquo;s March with artists and community arts workshops. This year it has expanded into schools with&nbsp;Indian Ed. Last year we doubled the size of the march from 500 to 1000, and this year we may double it again. Those kind of numbers can be the difference in an election. Showing up with a succinct message empowers our leaders; it gives them the clout to push policies.

&quot;So it&rsquo;s turned into community empowerment. The exhibition has become kind of its own thing: creative placemaking meets social and environmental justice. There&rsquo;s these evolutionary steps in working with community, training our youth on how these changes are made so they can be informed activists. I don&rsquo;t really want to be a politician, I like being an artist. But if anyone in our community wants to be politicians, I want to have the art and community there to support them.&quot;

What&rsquo;s the best art exhibition you&rsquo;ve ever seen?

&quot;Meow Wolf in Santa Fe&nbsp;&mdash;that&rsquo;s a cool exhibit. It&rsquo;s more like an interactive space you walk through, this big house where you go through all these rooms with a whole narrative that follows. You can go through the fireplace and it opens up to a labyrinth where there&rsquo;s all this neon and a performance stage. There&rsquo;s a treehouse that fills the whole room. It&rsquo;s pretty dope.

&quot;That and the classic installations in Marfa, Texas, by Dan Flavin, Robert Irwin, and Donald Judd. The concept of installation is nested in itself there, and they just bought a town in Texas to do it.&nbsp;

&quot;It&rsquo;s that experience that you get [with installation]. My thing is incorporating that experience but then turning our streets into that. I collaborate with other artists like paintbrushes; we work with our community like a color palette; and together we paint the world and paint the streets. The gallery serves as an anchor in the community and&nbsp;kind of wakes people up from one thing to the next.&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMzYxOTAwMDI/full.jpg" />Art collective Meow Wolf&#39;s The House of Eternal Return installation in Santa Fe, NM.

&nbsp;

<h2>Boris Oicherman, <a href="https://wam.umn.edu/education/target-studio-for-creative-collaboration/" target="_blank">Cindy and Jay Ihlenfeld Curator for Creative Collaboration</a> at the Weisman Art Museum</h2>

What is the purpose of an exhibition?

&quot;Funny you should ask this question to&nbsp;a curator who doesn&rsquo;t do exhibitions:) But I would like to question the question.

&quot;I like what you write: &#39;the bald audacity of showing work no one asked you to make.&#39;&nbsp;But: &#39;showing&#39;&nbsp;implies an underlying assumption, a predetermined artistic act: of making work for a show.&nbsp;

&quot;Exhibition is only one tool in the artists&rsquo; toolbox, only one format which artists&rsquo; work can take. It is by far the most pervasive one, but not because it is the most important or effective, but because it is the easiest to support &mdash; for precisely the reasons you describe: it suits perfectly the convenient position of the arts within the marketplace and power structures. Other, non-exhibition practices are acknowledged and supported to some degree &mdash; but they always hover on the margins, those &#39;untraditional,&#39;&nbsp;&#39;multidisciplinary,&#39;&nbsp;&#39;experimental&#39;&nbsp;things that exist and develop for decades but are still a nonsense for so many, as opposed to the &#39;real thing&#39;&nbsp;&mdash; the exhibition.

&quot;How about &#39;the bald audacity of&nbsp;doing&nbsp;work no one asked you to&nbsp;do&#39;? Then suddenly we&rsquo;re out in the open, because the question becomes not &#39;what can an exhibition do&#39;&nbsp;but &#39;what can art do,&#39;&nbsp;or even, in fact &#39;what can artists do?&#39;&nbsp;One thing artists can do is to challenge those power structures by directly working with them. The power structure I am interested in is academic knowledge, and the action I am interested in is diversification of knowledge, breaking down of its hierarchies. This is a slow and emergent process of artists figuring out their ways within a system that is not used to having artists around. One thing exhibitions really suck in is supporting emergent processes (as opposed to showing products), therefore I have little professional interest in an exhibition as such.&quot;

What&rsquo;s the best art exhibition you&rsquo;ve ever seen?

&quot;I don&rsquo;t know how to rate the best, but the most important ever to my career was&nbsp;Olafur Eliasson&#39;s&nbsp;The Weather Project at Tate Modern in&nbsp;2003.&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjAyODAwMDE/full.jpg" /> 
Olafur Eliasson;&nbsp;The Weather Project; monofrequency lights, projection foil, haze machines, mirror foil, aluminium, and scaffolding; 
26.7 m x 22.3 m x 155.4 m; 2003.

&nbsp;

<h2>Douglas Flanders, Owner of <a href="http://www.flandersart.com" target="_blank">Douglas Flanders &amp; Associates Fine Art Gallery</a></h2>

&quot;We set the dates for most of our exhibitions a year ahead, sometimes more. &nbsp;It gives an artist incentive to produce a new body of work and the collectors to view it and hopefully purchase. Sometimes the shows are making a political statement, sometimes a stance on an important issue. Often it&rsquo;s giving a voice to those who are under-appreciated, like Women, African Americans, or Native Americans. Always it&rsquo;s about viewing great art. We have produced as many as 45 exhibitions in a single year.

&quot;I have been fortunate to see many incredible exhibitions around the world. &nbsp;A Velasquez show and a Goya show at the Prado in Madrid, a Matisse exhibit at the Hermitage, a JMW Turner show at the Tate in London, Renoir and Van Gogh exhibits, numerous Picasso exhibits. My favorite would have to be an Hieronymus Bosch exhibit at the Prado in Madrid.&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMTQ5MjAwMDE/full.jpg" />

Hieronymus Bosch,&nbsp;The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), oil on oak panels, 87&nbsp;&times;&nbsp;153&quot;, c. 1490-1510

&nbsp;

<h2>Jehra Patrick, Director and Curator of <a href="https://www.macalester.edu/gallery/" target="_blank">Law Warschaw Gallery</a> &amp; <a href="https://www.waitingroomart.org" target="_blank">Waiting Room</a></h2>

What is the purpose of an art exhibition?

&quot;Short answer: to make artists&rsquo; ideas public.

&quot;Long answer: The purpose of an art exhibition is ultimately unique to each exhibition, driven by artists&rsquo; ideas, the context of the space, and the organizer/curator. Ideally, each show should have a purpose. Together exhibitions offer a spectrum of purposes &ndash; motives big and small &ndash; that don&rsquo;t have to agree on collective justification. &quot;

What can an art exhibition do?

&quot;This is a fun one:

&quot;An art exhibition can connect forms visually, showing contrast, difference, indifference, agreement between objects.&nbsp;

An exhibition can gather ideas together, and point to them, within and beyond the gallery.

An exhibition can be be a form of knowledge production.&nbsp;

An exhibition can be visualized research.&nbsp;

An exhibition can impart information or be tight-lipped.&nbsp;

An exhibition publicizes an artist.&nbsp;

An exhibition formalizes studio practices.&nbsp;

An exhibition organizes a chain of ideas and forms.&nbsp;

An exhibition is a medium itself.&nbsp;

An exhibition is classroom.

An exhibition is a public gathering space.

An exhibition is lab.

An exhibition can be a retail store.

An exhibition can be a night club.

An exhibition can be a funeral.

An exhibition can help artists meet other artists.

An exhibition can lead to another exhibition.

An exhibition can lead to another career opportunity.

An exhibition can be the end of an idea.

An exhibition can be the beginning of an idea.

An exhibition can draw a public.

An exhibition can come and go and never be see.

An exhibition can be a resume&nbsp;line.

An exhibition can be living research.&nbsp;

An exhibition can be a studio.

An exhibition can be a political act.

An exhibition can be a private experience.

An exhibition can be a mediative space.

An exhibition can be a destination.

An exhibition can be a fair. (A fair can be an exhibition of exhibitions.)

An exhibition can be shut down.

An exhibition can kind of be anything.&nbsp;

An exhibition can do what you intend and also things you never intended.

&quot;I would hesitate to ever say that the primary function of an exhibition is sales. The structure, or format, of an exhibition as we know it (things organized in a white room) predates the commercial gallery and its goals. Likewise, exhibition structures and formats have long departed from the white-cube since the &lsquo;60s (some never adhered to it; even that idea is a really Western thing). I think the &#39;primary function,&#39;&nbsp;as you put it, really varies by gallery and artist. For some, sales is a driver, for others it&#39;s more about making work and connecting art and ideas to publics&hellip; or something else, maybe on the list above, maybe not.&quot;

What&rsquo;s the best art exhibition you&rsquo;ve ever seen?&nbsp;

&quot;My favorite art exhibition is impossible to answer, but some of the most impactful ones for me include: Let&rsquo;s Entertain, 2000&nbsp;(Walker Art Center); Younger than Jesus, 2009 (New Museum); Nice. Luc Tuymans, 2013 (The Menil); Nuit Blanche Paris, 2010 (City of Paris); Passing through the Opposite of What it Approaches, 2013 (The Renaissance Society); Miguel Calder&oacute;n &ndash; Color Bleed, 2012 (Rochester Art Center); Documenta 14, 2017&nbsp;(City of Kassel); kNOw Spaces,&nbsp;Jordan Weber, 2018 (Law Warschaw Gallery); and so many more.

&quot;I think I learn something from every show I see, as a viewer, artist, and exhibition maker. Sure, some fall out of memory and others glow brighter, but if you&rsquo;re not looking for something, you&rsquo;re not going to find it.&quot;

<img alt="" class="img-responsive" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.mplsart.com/file_container/RmlsZUNvbnRhaW5lch4fMjAyNzAwMDE/full.jpg" />Jordan Weber,&nbsp;kNOw&nbsp;Spaces, Law Warschaw Gallery, 2018

Six local artists and curators go deep on a seemingly simple question.

The best local art.

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