Arts

Remembering Modern Man

April 17th, 2025

By Raul Gomez

Modern Man was a gentle soul. If you were down or just wanted a friend, he’d be there for you.

I remember the first day I met Modern Man. It was Jeremiah Fuglseth and me. He wanted to write about this legendary artist he’d met. When I stepped into Modern’s studio, I saw a giant canvas, a 12-foot tall canvas, airbrushed in a deep, dark red. It was of Hitler and a group of men. When Modern turned off the lights, you would see this group of dead bodies crammed into the…

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Shane Balkowitsch documents living history: an ambrotype session with Leonard Peltier

April 2nd, 2025

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

Photo by Chad Nodland, "Artistic Freedom"

On January 19, 2025, the last full day of Joe Biden’s presidency, he commuted Leonard Peltier's two consecutive life sentences to home confinement at his residence in Belcourt, North Dakota. On February 18, 2025, Peltier was released after 49 years in prison.

Peltier is a Native American activist and a leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM). He was convicted of murdering two FBI agents in a shooting on…

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​Empathy through story sharing: TQH bringing queer history to Red Raven

March 15th, 2025

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

Telling Queer History is an LGBTQIA+ organization that utilizes oral storytelling and community building to educate, honor and collect oral histories. To honor its final year in operation, the organization is on a five stop Minnesota tour featuring new work and retrospective work.

We had a moment to chat with founder and Executive Director Rebecca Lawrence prior to the upcoming exhibition titled “We Live On: Stories of Radical Connection” at Red…

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A picture is worth a thousand books

February 21st, 2025

By John Showalter

john.d.showalter@gmail.com

Everyone has heard the adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” However, it is safe to say there are far more than a thousand in Mickey Smith’s photographs. When one hears about photography exhibitions, one often thinks of subject matter ranging from architecture to nature to people. In Smith’s case, she has spent years chronicling the changing landscape of libraries and their contents.

Originally from Duluth, Minnesota, Smith…

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​Jamestown Arts Center celebrates 60 years

November 23rd, 2024

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

In 1974, the Jamestown Arts Center started as a small space above a downtown drugstore. It has grown to host multiple classrooms, a gallery, performance studio, ceramic studio and outdoor art park.

“There were maybe four women who were artists, who just started to get together and paint. They wanted to have a way to display their work,” said former Executive Director Taylor Barnes. “More people joined, so they had this gallery above a drug store…

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Artist Ted Martin’s art on view at Mind Virus

November 13th, 2024

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

Ted Martin, retired educator and western North Dakota native, currently has his art on view at Mind Virus Counter-Culture Books and Media. The exhibition features Martin’s colorful ink drawings and will be on display from November 15 through December 1. The exhibit launches with a pre-show artist discussion on Friday, November 15 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

When asked if there was a common theme in his work, Martin said, “Male nudity? The male form —…

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​They’re in your neighborhood

September 19th, 2024

By HPR Contributors

submit@hpr1.com

They are the inventive, passionate, adaptable, resourceful, sometimes over-enthusiastic, wack-tacular people who create art in our community, and they’re opening their studio doors to you for the 2024 Fargo-Moorhead Visual Artists Studio Crawl party. At fmva.org, there’s a map that shows where these studios are, and you might be surprised to see they’re in your neighborhood! Who knew?

A lot of you probably do know. The Studio Crawl is now in its…

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All trash is treasure to Thomas Dambo

June 20th, 2024

New Minnesota sculptures include artist’s largest troll

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

According to Danish artist and environmental activist Thomas Dambo, “All trash is treasure.” So far, he and his team have built 138 giant recycled troll sculptures in 17 countries and 19 states in the U.S. This summer, they added Minnesota to the list with a new installation in Detroit Lakes. Now the hunt is on to find them.

“I make them in a big treasure hunt,” Dambo said. “So I hide…

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A Marvel-ous world of superheroes heads to The State Museum

May 16th, 2024

By David L. Newell

history@nd.gov

If your Spidey senses are tingling, it may be because Marvelocity: The Art of Alex Ross is coming to the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum. The traveling exhibition, developed by the Bess Bower Dunn Museum of Lake County, Illinois, will bring the gravity-defying world of Marvel Comic illustrations to Bismarck from March 16 through June 9, 2024.

The exhibition includes more than 50 original illustrations, including cover art, storyboards,…

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The Rourke interprets ‘Omnipotence of Dream’

May 16th, 2024

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum was established June 18, 1960. This year, June 18 marks the 65th annual Midwestern Art Invitational at the Rourke in Moorhead — and consequently renders the exhibition one of the longest consecutively running invitationals in the country. Since its inception, The Rourke has been a jewel in the crown of Fargo-Moorhead culture.

We had the opportunity to chat with Jonathan Rutter, Director and Curator at The Rourke Art…

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