Minnesota
‘Dreaming’ big: Minnesota exhibit explores connections and rich history of Indigenous painters
Historian Brenda J. Child stares at a buttery yellow sky framed by converging treelines reflected upon a lake. The scene is a painting by Duluth-based artist Jonathan Thunder and it’s called “On the Grave of the Giant.”
Below the sky’s glow is a couple harvesting wild rice from a canoe. On the lake bottom are the skeletal remains of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.
The painting is on public view for the first time as part of the new exhibition “Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers” at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota.
Child, the Northrop Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies and former Chair of American Indian Studies, co-curated the exhibition with gallery director Howard Oransky.
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Small canvases by late Minnesota Ojibwe painter George Morrison.
Alex V. Cipolle | MPR News
It features paintings by 29 mid-century and contemporary Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Dakota and Lakota) artists from, or connected to, the region.
It is the inaugural exhibition of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts, an “interdepartmental study center to support the creation, presentation and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms.”
Child is the founder of the new center, which was sparked by the success of the 2016 Nash gallery exhibition that she curated, “Singing Our History: People and Places of the Red Lake Nation.”
Untitled 1959 artwork by George Morrison on loan from the collection of the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Courtesy of George Morrison Estate
The center is named in honor of the internationally renowned abstract expressionist, a member of the Grand Portage Ojibwe from Minnesota, who died in 2000. Morrison also taught art at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s and 1980s.
“We tend to think in Minnesota, ‘Oh, George Morrison. He’s like a local guy who’s done well in the art world,’” Child says. “But he’s a very important figure in American abstract expressionism.”
Back in the gallery, Child is focused on that yellow sky. “What I really like about this work, and I wouldn’t have known this unless Jonathan had told me,” Child begins.
She pauses and walks to the opposite gallery wall, which features a string of paintings by the famous mid-century painter Patrick DesJarlait. Like Child and Thunder, DesJarlait was from the Red Lake Nation in northern Minnesota. DesJarlait is one of their heroes, she says.
“Because I come from a family of fishermen and women -even my grandmother was a commercial fisherwoman- I’ve always loved his painting in the collection of the Minnesota Museum of Art called ‘Red Lake Fishermen,’” says curator Brenda J. Child. The 1946 watercolor painting is by Patrick DesJarlait of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe.
Courtesy of Minnesota Museum of American Art
In addition to paintings like “Red Lake Fisherman” (also on view), DesJarlait is also famous for his 1950s redesign of the Land O’Lakes maiden, adding an Ojibwe floral pattern to her attire.
“So Jonathan’s nod to Patrick is the bright butter yellow that he used in this painting,” Child says.
Over the phone from his Duluth studio, Thunder says Land O’Lakes discontinued DesJarlait’s design, and the maiden, in 2020, soon before he began working on the painting in 2021.
“With the yellow sky in that painting and the two points of land that come together, that’s obviously a nod to the Land O’Lakes butter box,” Thunder says. “From what I understand, the two points of land that come together, they can be seen in Red Lake where the upper and lower Red Lake kind of join.”
“Different Star Woman,” 2023, by Los Angeles-based Spirit Lake Dakota and Diné artist Avis Charley. Another work by Charley on view in the exhibition, the 2022 “Smile Now, Cry Later” is the first artwork by a Dakota artist purchased by the Minnesota Museum of Art.
Courtesy of Avis Charley
That year, Thunder had gone to see the Red Lake vista.
“It was like seeing a cartoon come to life or something,” Thunder says. “It’s very much a tribally significant image with or without the butter maiden.”
Thunder says the painting was also inspired by the time when he and his wife decided to learn how to harvest wild rice around Walker, Minn. In the painting, a pipeline takes the shape of a tentacle reaching into the canoe above the watery grave of Bunyan and Babe.
“At the time, the Line Three protests were happening across Minnesota and I was starting to see some of the division it was creating in the communities there,” Thunder explains. ”You see statues of Paul Bunyan kind of littered throughout the landscape, which is significant of a time when they were coming through clearing forests. Paul Bunyan was the noble face of that cause. In the wake of all that, it’s nice to see that people can still go out and rice and practice those traditional ways.”
“Ultime Grida Dalla Savana,” a 2011 painting by Ojibwe artist Andrea Carlson on loan from the collection of the Plains Art Museum.
Courtesy of Andrea Carlson
Thunder says he’s excited to be placed in the gallery next to DesJarlait, an artist “I’ve seen my whole life.” He adds that, when he was growing up in the Twin Cities, he used to play basketball at the Minneapolis American Indian Center. It was there he discovered the 94-foot-long wood mural “Turning the Feather Around” that Morrison created in 1974 (and which was recently restored and reinstalled).
“That’s a huge development for the campus,” Thunder says of the new center.
“Dreaming Our Futures” is a web of these overt and covert dialogues and relationships between artworks, artists and generations. Oscar Howe “is a mid century artist, and he was kind of awesome in that he was moving in his own direction,” says curator Brenda J. Child. Pictured here is Howe’s 1975 painting “Creation of Weotanica” on loan from the collection of the University of South Dakota.
Courtesy of Oscar Howe Family
On view, of course, are the abstracted rainbow-colored canvases of Morrison himself, as well as the paintings of other blue chip artists such as Dyani White Hawk, Frank Big Bear, Jim Denomie, Oscar Howe and Andrea Carlson.
“I felt very privileged to be considered part of something like ‘Dreaming Our Futures,’ that big and centered around our artists and our worldview,” says Bismarck-based artist Holly Young.
Courtesy photo
“This exhibit shows the history of American Indian art, fine art, in the United States and where it’s been in the last half-century, especially with Howe, Morrison and DesJarlait,” Child explains.
“Dreaming Our Futures” acts as an important marker in time, too: Fifty years ago, Morrison, DesJarlait and Howe participated in an exhibition of contemporary Indian painting in Washington, D.C. Child says that “Dreaming Our Futures” also shows how contemporary artists “have been very influenced by those foundational figures.”
A watercolor painting on view by ledger artist Holly Young.
Courtesy photo
These include artists like Thunder and Dakota artist Holly Young, of Bismarck, N.D. Young uses the mediums of beadwork, quillwork, and ledger art, an art form that originated in cave and hide painting that has evolved to also use parchment and actual historical “ledger” documents as a canvas.
Young also created the illustration for the cover of “The Seed Keeper,” the 2021 novel by Minnesota Native writer Diane Wilson, the wife of Denomie. Denomie died in 2022. Wilson wrote an essay, “Jim Denomie at Home,” for the exhibition catalog.
Four of Young’s ledger-style watercolor paintings are on view, featuring Native women dressed in a combination of historical regalia and contemporary attire. “A lot of what I draw is kind of based off of real life,” Young says. “I enjoy the look of the old things, but I’m also living in today’s world as a contemporary artist.”
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Minnesota began its Acrisure Invitational journey with some great energy against Stanford, but an injury to starting point guard Chansey Willis Jr. was too much to overcome in a hard-fought 72-68 loss. Here’s what we learned.
Minnesota has been without North Dakota transfer BJ Omot and Maryland transfer Chance Stephens in every regular-season game, while starting big man Robert Vaihola missed his second straight game on Thursday with a knee injury. Things got even more scarce after two early fouls sent Willis to the bench, and he came out of the locker room with a boot on his right ankle.
The Gophers were already not a very deep team, so taking away four rotational players is a massive issue for Niko Medved and a rebuilding program.
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With Vaihola out for the second straight game due to a knee injury, Minnesota slid Grove into the starting lineup for the first time in his college career. Nehemiah Turner did not see the floor after starting last week’s loss to San Francisco, and it was an eight-man rotation.
The Gophers coughed up 14 turnovers on Thursday night, compared to only eight for Stanford. The biggest difference was that Minnesota’s turnovers resulted in 27 Cardinal points. It’s hard to point to any other stat as the largest factor in Thursday’s result.
Reynolds was the first player off the bench for Minnesota, and he provided some serious energy to begin Thursday night’s game. He had a career-high 16 points in last week’s loss to San Francisco, and it looked like he would remain at that level against Stanford, but he struggled in the second half with six points, six rebounds, four assists and six turnovers on the night.
Asuma generated all the headlines when he opted to stay with the Gophers through the coaching change, but Grove also returned after redshirting last season. The 6-foot-9 big man from Alexandria, Minnesota, got the biggest opportunity of his college career against Stanford. He finished with five points and one rebound in 19 minutes. Medved opted to roll with Durkin in the closing lineup.
The Gophers will face Santa Clara on Friday night in the consolation game of the Acrisure Invitational.
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