America, I Sing You Back: Bill Jeter ’97, MFA | Minneapolis College of Art and Design

America, I Sing You Back: Bill Jeter ’97, MFA

February 07, 2021
Image of a 20 dollar bill with George Floyd's portrait, lithograph print ; Bill Jeter
Bill Jeter

Meet the artists featured in the exhibition America, I Sing You Back.

COUNTERFEIT JUSTICE: The Case of George Floyd

The saga of George Floyd and the $20 U.S. note is a cosmic intersection, a “Heidegger-bridge,” where the “structure-of-events” define place and time. The intersection of East 38th Street & Chicago Avenue South, in Minneapolis, MN, U.S.—is now a world-crossroad. It is a bridge to both the events and the implications that occurred there on May 25, 2020. Somewhere buried in the Minneapolis Police Department evidence repository there is a collection of paper allegedly attributed to George Floyd, guarded much like U.S. currency in any bank to establish and substantiate the facts of the matter.

About Bill Jeter

I was born legally blind in one eye in the middle of the last century. I have spent forty-five years developing my visual and intellectual acuity through a life in art and arts education. I have both undergraduate and graduate degrees in visual art. I have a BA in Art from Bates College in Maine and an MFA from MCAD. I have exhibited, been collected, lectured, and traveled nationally and internationally through my work. As a manufacturer of meaning I dissect languages using histories, symbols, and cultural references. I am interested in art and language as tools to pose questions about human experience. I create images, objects, and documents that are stories about culture and experience. I extend materials and concepts into forms. I have been based at Homewood Studios in North Minneapolis for the past sixteen years where I have strived to aesthetically create work as well as develop a socially conscious art practice. I taught at the Perpich Center for Arts Education for twenty-three years as a principal studio art instructor, mentoring hundreds of amazing student artists. Some are now world-renowned in many fields including the visual arts.