With, Through, and Beyond: Visiting Artists Celebrate 20 Years of the Women's Art Institute

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is pleased to present an invitational exhibition featuring twelve national and regional visiting artists who have worked with the Women’s Art Institute (WAI) over the past twenty years. The program invites accomplished artists of varying backgrounds and points in their careers to share their work and participate in critique sessions with WAI participants. Over two decades, this roster of artists and art historians has grown to forty-eight.

The exhibition highlights a cross-section of artistic disciplines while demonstrating the breadth of ideas and issues engaged by Women’s Art Institute participants over the years. The twelve artists include: Leslie Barlow, Lesley Dill, Elizabeth Erickson, AK Garski, Jane Hammond, Shana Kaplow, Beverly McIver, Patricia Olson, Erica Spitzer Rasmussen, Jantje Visscher, Dyani White Hawk, and Rina Yoon. Of these artists, four were featured visiting artists in the WAI Studio Program Intensive: Lesley Dill (2005), Beverly McIver (2008), Jane Hammond (2009), and Rina Yoon (2015). In addition, the exhibition spotlights the contributions of the WAI founder and MCAD professor emerita Elizabeth Erickson and current faculty Patricia Olson and AK Garski.

Concurrently, the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University is hosting a juried exhibition of past WAI participants. In What Is Forbidden? The Women’s Art Institute 20th Anniversary Exhibition, sixty artists present their visual interpretation of the question “what is forbidden?” The show reflects the approach of the course, in which each cohort develops questions about making art, being a woman artist, and navigating the art world. These questions become the curriculum of the course every year. Through a variety of media ranging from painting and ceramics to installation and performance, these artists pay homage to their past experiences at the Women’s Art Institute while considering their current perspectives as contemporary artists who identify as female or non-binary.

EVENTS:

• What is Forbidden? The Women’s Art Institute 20th Anniversary Exhibition
  September 7–October 19, 2019
  Opening Reception Celebration: Saturday, September 14, 5:00–7:00 p.m. Remarks and toast at 6:00 p.m.
  Location: The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University
  
• The Women’s Art Institute Celebrates 20 Years: What’s Your Question?
  Presented by St. Catherine University and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
  Thursday, September 26 at 7:00 p.m.
  Location: The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University
  
  WAI alumnae address audience questions about art, art-making or being an artist.
  
• CANCELLATION: The Women’s Art Institute Celebrates 20 Years: Feminist Art Historian Night
  Presented by St. Catherine University and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
  Wednesday, October 9 at 6:30 p.m.
  Location: Auditorium 150, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
  
  WAI Visiting Art Historians Patricia Briggs and Diane Mullin present women’s art and feminist theory from prehistory to today in two hours.
  
  About the Women's Art Institute
  Since 1999, the Women’s Art Institute has offered a four-week summer intensive studio course for advanced women artists of all ages and backgrounds, as well as programs featuring contemporary women’s art practice and history. This innovative and rigorous course focuses on issues and art that arise through the combination of open studio work, intense individual tutoring, inspiring conversation and critiques, and presentations from visiting artists, critics, and art historians. The Women’s Art Institute was founded in 1999 by Elizabeth Erickson at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 2012, the program was moved to the Department of Art and Art History at St. Catherine University, which is directed by Patricia Olson.