Main Gallery : Judy Chicago: An Intimate Look Into The Artist's Life

Annex Gallery : Frank Gaard: Superbright

Flanders Contemporary Art is pleased to announce our 2 new exhibits opening with a reception on Friday, October 26 from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibit will run through December1, 2001.

A significant Exhibition of hundreds of works on paper and sculptural objects created over three decades now available to collectors. The show features Autobiography of a Year ­ 140 works on paper revealing one year of the artist's daily trials and tribulations.

As her name implies, Judy Chicago hails originally from The City of Broad Shoulders, a stronghold of labor unions and neighborhood political power. Judy moved on to become a pioneer of Feminist art and art education first at Fresno State University, then with artist Miriam Shapiro at Cal Institute of the Arts where they established the historically important Feminist Art Program. A large collaborative 1972 installation titled Womanhouse was a first, demonstrating an "openly female point of view in art."

She went on to create other brilliantly orchestrated installations utilizing the talents of skilled craftspeople and volunteers from around the country. This form language and method of production dates far back into the history of women's culture. The world famous The Dinner Party, 1974-79, used that Guild approach to create a room-sized triangular dining table in tribute to the contributions of women in Western Civilization. Each woman named had her own uniquely designed and sexually charged dinner plate. Each guest is provided with her own personalized needleworked placemat runner. A triangular floor of triangular ceramic tiles decorated and glazed with the names of many other historic contributors supports the entire installation. The Dinner Party has toured internationally.

Other projects to follow: the Birth Project, 1980-85, representing the beauty and power of creation and birth images through the needlework of skilled women stitchers nationally. Chicago's Holocaust Project: From Darkness Into Light which premiered in 1993 took a more didactic, narrative turn. After much travel and study with her collaborator and husband, photographer Donald Woodman, they merged their skills as painter and photographer to create a powerful, walkthrough exhibit, complete with storyboards, videos and audio tape not only describing their personal interpretations of the infamous attempt to destroy Jewish culture but the concept in its fullest, whether it be Gay and Lesbian people, Vietnamese, American and other Black peoples, etc. The exhibition also includes tapestries and stained glass works designed by Chicago and accomplished with the help of skilled craftspeople. Her most recent collaborative project Resolutions: A Stitch In Time began in 1994 with an eye on the future. Playful interpretations of traditional adages and proverbs have been accomplished with her paintings and the skills of needleworkers. This exhibition opened in June 2000 at the American Crafts Museum in New York and is currently touring around the United States.

Chicago has also included in her show at Flanders Contemporary Art other works from individual studio work, among them Caterotica, Thinking About Trees, and Voices from the Song of Songs. A major retrospective of Judy Chicago1s work is scheduled to open at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC on June 5, 2002 and will run through that Fall.

Wielding bright fluorescent colors across his canvases in blinding excess, Frank Gaard describes in cartoon style many of our fascinations with our pop culture, celebrity and individual personality. His work maintains as its highest priority a primal need to feel alive. Therefore, lust, desire and other forms of adult play frequently surface in a truly male celebration. Gaard1s work sometimes indeed is not easy to look at because it can challenge our sensitivities and biases. He travels in both the land of the Id and the Intellect. Sometimes picture planes are almost spilling over with imagery. At other times he focuses on individual personalities through colorful portraiture that captures each sitter1s individual spirit.

Frank Gaard has shown his work internationally to include Paris, Frankfurt and Vienna. His early involvement as a core force which formed a tongue-in-cheek movement called Artpolice helped to publish more than 70 issues of Artpolice Magazine which have found homes in the libraries of The Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Smithsonian, Washington, DC, The Walker Art Center, Mpls, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and The Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Flanders Contemporary Art is located at 400 North First Avenue, first floor in the Wyman Building. Gallery hours are 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday, and by appointment.

To request further information or visuals, please contact Tasha Kubesh, Nicholas Reti, or Doug Flanders at 612-344-1700. or via e-mail at <art@flanders-art.com>.