Best & Worst of 2010

Zeitgeist of the Year - “Tight Pants/Body Rolls”

Local artists overflowed the spandex confinements of discipline and genre by manipulating new media. CeWEBrity diva Leslie Hall merged high and low culture while her latest video approached a million hits on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1c2KzJbcGA) and her gem sweater visions of American yearning were reified at in a Des Moines Art Center exhibition. Similarly Brent Houzenga’s painting, printing, music and film burst their levees and into flowed into a flood plain of hybrid culture.

Artist of the Year - Jeremiah Elbel

After winning a world wide competition, painter Jeremiah Elbel’s painting “Crowd Study 19“ is being displayed at the new Saatchi Gallery in London. It’s part of an annual show that drew over 400,000 visitors last year, a record for contemporary art in the UK. Chinese cultural magazine Vision did a major feature on Elbel’s work. Such successes landed Elbel representation with international dealer Quantum Fine Arts of Los Angeles. A Greek collector bought two of his paintings and Elbel signed for a September exhibition at Iowa State University. Elbel says his biggest problem now is inventory - demand exceeds his repertoire. “I absolutely have to get busy. I can’t let this moment pass.”

Gallery owner Steve Vail, who first touted Elbel in 2007, explained his style: “Jeremiah’s artistic ancestry hop scotches from Luc Tuymans to Gerhard Richter, all the while having a very distinctive voice of its own…In years to come I look forward to watching Jeremiah becoming increasingly recognized in the international art arena.”

We do too.

Person of the Year - Marlene Olson

Olson retired this year after more than 30 years running Olson-Larsen Galleries where she did as much to legitimize Iowa art as anyone. Consider her reflection on her 30th anniversary.

“When we opened, everyone wanted wildlife art. Not just Maynard Reece either, there were lots of others. No one calls about that anymore,” she said, smiling.

Exhibition of the Year (museum) - “Robyn O’Neil: Origins of the Universe” at the Des Moines Art Center

DMAC again debuted a major young talent by presenting an obsessive-compulsive recluse’s version of Armageddon, drawn over seven years with the nothing more than the smallest lead pencil and the largest commercial paper.

Exhibition of the Year (gallery) - “Fred Truck” at Steven Vail Fine Arts
Anaglyphic and stereographic photography, complete with 3-D glasses, provided gallery visitors a new way of looking at things.

Exhibition of the Year (non-traditional venue) - AVIVA corporate headquarters

This corporate collection simulates a museum of contemporary Iowa art.

Story of the Year - “Shattering Silence Project” by James Ellwanger with Beeline & Blue

Ellwanger followed up a massive undertaking (28 feet by 32 feet sculpture) at the Iowa Supreme Court) with a layered Plexiglas composition for the Iowa Historical Building.

Design of the Year - Stacey’s Prom, Bridal & Lingerie
by Invision

This stunning dress shop in an Urbandale strip mall blew away architectural critics and high school girls.

Best New Website - http://www.widiapradja.com/
Master of many disciplines, Ignatius Widiapradja designed an art site for art lovers showcasing his paintings, prints, designs, etc.

New Artist of the Year - Nick Naughton

Big themes and big canvasses characterized the work of this painter of black & white realism who debuted at Moberg Gallery.

Song of the Year - “Mortgage Day” by Darren and Molly Mathews

This folk rock duo brings a slightly sweeter, Iowa take on the same dark lands that obsess singer-songwriters like Cowboy Junkies and Townes Van Zandt. Catch them before they move to the big time.

Thanks for the Memories

Don Dunagan, East Village Arts Coalition
　
　
　
　

Art Inflation Terrorizes Recession

To whatever degree the art world parallels the real world, early signals from this year’s holiday season are wildly hopeful. Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the largest art dealers on the planet, sold half a billion dollars worth of art in this month’s auctions, setting three astonishing world records in the process as buyers consistently bid works up 30 per cent over top end estimates.

It takes awhile for such appreciation to trickle down to Main Street galleries.

This year’s holiday exhibition at Olson-Larsen Galleries featured a “Small Works Show” by eight artists, an overture to buyers whose spending is not influenced by the news from New York auctions. Richard Black, John Beckelman, Carlos Ferguson, Amy Worthen, Yuko Ishi, Peter Feldstein and Joel Elgin comprise the roster for that show, while larger works by Priscilla Steele and Wendy Rolfe simultaneously debut.

A peak into Alex Brown’s studio at the annual Art 316 Open House suggested that even big time artists are downsizing this year. Among Central Iowa painters, Brown is in a league of his own, showing at Feature, a New York gallery of cutting edge renown, and in Europe. He says he lives in Beaverdale so he can have a downtown studio twice the size of his house, trading exposure and networking opportunities of New York for Des Moines’ lack of distractions. A eye-catching stylist, Brown composes on a grid template by creating similar miniature images of an evolving larger image with geometrically precise brushstrokes. That’s not something one does while distracted.

Brown is known for big paintings. He’s composing a series of such for his upcoming exhibition in Belgium but he’s is also creating a series of “light” drawings that reveal portraits of renowned terrorists. It might be an escape for the artist but it’s certainly a more affordable option for collectors interested in owning an Alex Brown.

How about an affordable Sol Lewitt? Seriously. The godfather of conceptual art is known for huge works, like entire walls at the Des Moines Art Center and the Pappajohn Center, the latter so brilliantly lighted at night for westbound traffic. Before Lewitt, conceptual art was mostly about language and philosophy. Plato and Liebniz were its dominant figures and both were long dead. As art critic Richard Lacayo noted, Lewitt created “eye candy that starts like an algebra lesson but ends like a Renaissance fresco.”

“Cubes, Whirls & Twirls, Loops & Curves & Wavy Brushstrokes: The Prints of Sol Lewitt” opens November 18 at Steven Vail Gallery. That title riffs off “Arcs, Circles & Grids,“ Lewitt’s 1972 book that helped take the artist into mainstream culture. The show at Vail offers prints from the estate of Sofia Lewitt, for as little as $2000, up to $22,000 for a set of five works. It runs through February 28.

Art economics in Iowa received a jump start this autumn at AVIVA’s new West Des Moines headquarters. Those who have penetrated the building’s formible security system rave about the regional art, perhaps the largest such installation anywhere. Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen, primary artists in the AVIVA installations, worked 10 to 14 hours a day for 72 straight days to meet their deadline, creating 55 of the largest prints they’ve ever done.

“And then, the building just swallowed them up,” Luchsinger said with admiration.

The Madison County couple’s annual exhibition at Moberg Gallery features a series of digital meditations culled from their Big Thompson project. That small river is the midpoint of daily walks they took for a year with cameras shooting. Their work simulates Thoreau’s Walden Pond meditations.

“It allowed us to fall in love with our place in new unexpected ways,” explained Luchsinger.

This year’s Luchsinger-Strohbeen exhibition runs through January and includes botanical paintings by Laura Luchsinger.

Design Fresh, Design Local

Remember when local developers thought the only way to impress people was to beg “big name” architects from out of state to design Des Moines buildings? Maybe the disappointments such outsiders delivered with the downtown library and the Wells Fargo Arena have ended those days forever. If not, the annual Institute of Architects (AIA) Iowa convention might have.
This year, four Des Moines firms swept AIA’s top awards (Excellence in Design Awards of Merit). Invision won for Stacey’s Prom, Bridal & Lingerie in Urbandale, which jurors declared “ a model and inspiration for what can be achieved in forgotten strip mall landscape.”

Stacy's Prom photo courtesy of Invision

BNIM Architects won the same award for Retreat, on a 70 acre restored prairie in rural Iowa. Jurors lauded its “strong relationships between site and building.” HLKB Architecture took the same award for its Iowa State University (ISU) Multicultural Center, commended for its “masterful interior in spatial arrangement and detail.” Jurors added it “shows that even a modest commission can achieve spectacular results.” And Substance won for 322 Reinvented in Iowa City, which was called “a strong project which explores a new house model for the suburban house.”

Invision added two Awards of Honor: for the Whiteline Lofts on SW Fifth St.; and for their own offices on Watson Powell Way. One juror called the lofts “a model project for urban redevelopment on the industrial fringe.” Another described Invision’s offices as “understated yet elegant.” OPN Architects, also won an Award of Honor for their own offices on Court Avenue, described as “a beautiful dialog between new and old.” RDG Planning & Design won two awards for sustainable designs. Their Cradle to Cradle for ISU’s Morrill Hall rehabilitation was praised for “amazing longevity” that should give another 100 years of life to a 100 year old building. They also won a sustainability award for Hope for the Future in the ISU College of Design expansion. Jurors called the stack effect on that building a “beautiful articulation of sustainable architecture.”

Local artists also continued stifling old notions that regionalism quit mattering with Grant Wood. Two Des Moines artists reveal nuances of transition, as well as familiar themes, in their current exhibitions.

Fred Truck’s anaglyphic and stereographic photography at Steven Vail Fine Arts (through Nov. 6) is providing visitors with a new way of looking at art. His anaglyphic conceptions stitch six photos together to present 360 degree panoramas of Des Moines’ Locust Tap, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s rotunda, and art collector Jim Hubbell’s home. Truck described stereographic (3D) images, which require special glasses to view, as a “very active” niche in modern photography. “There are five or ten new things every day on Flickr,” he said. That’s where Truck‘s work has been viewed by 50,000 people this year.

Frank Hansen’s “World Class Poseur” at Moberg Gallery (through Nov. 13) shows new directions, some literally. Master painted Richard Kelley complimented Hansen’s “Dubuffet qualities” particularly in “The Boxing Monacle.” Several paintings are actually painted over older Hansen paintings. In some, the artist explores meditative abstractions without his usual cast of characters from Iowa‘s wild side. For the most part though, Hansen’s signature bug eaters, Medusas, “pimpwitches,” freaks, and whores still walk the Planet Frank.

Works of two new artists will join that of Kim Hutchinson for Olson-Larsen Galleries’ Art Walk exhibition beginning Friday. Brian Roberts is a repeat “Best in Show” winner at the Iowa Sculpture Festival who usually references agricultural architecture in his work. Lee Emma Running uses simple tools (projection, tracing, stenciling and cutting) to characterize her observations of ephemeral things like animal hair, leaf veins and root clusters. Hutchison is among a growing number of former Grandview University artists making a scene. She is a painter who sews, sourcing materials from garage sales cast-offs, to explore quest themes filled with mysterious pathways and doors.

Escaping the Nazis and Hollywood too

Some are born artists, some achieve great art and others have art thrust upon them. Like a romantic character from historical fiction, Jeanne Mammen walked all types of the artistic life. In fact, her career was so tangled in the 20th century’s greatest dramas that it’s hard to believe her biography escaped Hollywood‘s clutches.

Born in Berlin in 1890, Mammen moved to Paris at age five with her wealthy family, absorbing French culture, particularly Flaubert. She studied at legendary art schools - Académie Julian in Paris, Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and Scuola Libera Academica in Rome. Toulouse Latrec and the visionary Franco-Belgian symbolists were mentors. After a promising debut exhibition in 1913, World War I devastated her family. Jeanne caught the last train out of Paris before German nationals were sent to internment camps, waiting till the last minute for a character player by Ingrid Bergman.

The Great War moved her from privilege to destitution. After swearing she would never go hungry again, Mammen eked out a living on the mean streets of Berlin, forging close ties to the streetwalkers and thieves that also fascinated Bertold Brecht. By 1919 she had saved enough money to rent a studio on the Kurfürstendamm, the Broadway of Europe in the cabaret era. She designed posters for the German film industry in its glory days and her watercolors appeared on the covers of every notable fashion and society magazine in Germany. Her more serious work was validated with a successful exhibition in 1930. Then she illustrated Pierre Louys's "Les Chansons de Bilitis," depicting variations on the theme of lesbian love. Along came Hitler.
The Nazis didn’t know what they didn’t like, but they knew they didn’t like Mammen’s art. So they branded it “Jewish.” Refusing to work for magazines or films that that been sanctioned by the Nazis, she made her living for twelve years as a street cart vendor. Mammen resourcefully kept making art, building sculptures out of wire left behind by the Soviet army and with Care package materials sent from California. Stylistically, she turned to Cubism to suggest the dislocation of the better angels of human nature. After the war, she joined the legendary existentialist cabaret, "Die Badewanne" (The Bathtub) as a designer, but painted and lived reclusively till 1976.

Unlike her more famous male contemporaries (Max Beckmann, Otto Dix and George Grosz), Mammen viewed the social injustices of her era without dramatic malice, exaggerated satire or condescension. A new exhibition of thirteen of her watercolors focusing on independent women plays at the Des Moines Art Center through December 10. It also contributes to the museum’s growing reputation for significant twentieth century German art.

Drake’s Anderson Gallery opened its season with “A Fork in the Road: The Time and Place for Local Foods” by Hilary D. Williams. Like several previous exhibitions at Drake, the show preaches politically correctness without acknowledging opposing points of view. The message this time is that scale of America’s industrial food system begets dire consequences. Estimated statistics and slick designs remind viewers that most of them consume food that makes an obscene carbon footprint by traveling long distances to Iowa. One display even prompts visitors to change their consumption habits for the common good, providing pledge cards to be filled out in duplicate, so that those of us who aren’t yet enlightened can remember what we were prompted to pledge.

Williams talks the talk better than she walks the walk. An exhibition brochure was printed on just one side of slick, heavy (80 #) paper. It was 21 inches tall and 18 pages long. At the exhibition reception, refreshments were served in disposable, non-compostible plastic.
ArtFest West, a fall complement to ArtFest Midwest, moves to The Village of Ponderosa October 9 and10. In addition to providing a venue for 100 artists (40% from Iowa, 96% from Midwest), the show promises affordable art and free music.

Prepping for the Apocalypse

August 2010

Richard Kelley opened his biennial exhibition at Moberg Gallery (through Sept. 18) by revisiting his visionary world of deep blues and brilliant reds. He still observes an ominous world of housing developments, bumper to bumper freeways, and zoo animals on the loose often led by naked shepherdesses. This year, the Planet Kelley looks pre-Apocalyptic. Giant preying mantises and super rabbits stalk doomed cityscapes. Psychedelic sea hawks fish for eels. Insects seem to be preparing to mate with human women. Hares observe jungle cats as if their roles were reversed in the hunting cycle.

In his oil paintings, Kelley’s colors are more vivid than ever, something I didn’t think possible. He also added some affordable pastel paintings to his repertoire this year. Some lighter touches underlie the boldness. A traffic scene includes blondes in convertibles rather than the usual hectic road rage. The giant attacking insects in “Invasion of Gansevoort Street” pay homage to color schemes in early American works of Dutch painter Willem de Kooning.

The Des Moines Art Center (DMAC) celebrated the 25th anniversary of its Richard Meire wing with new installations. A new floor plan on the lowest level presents a de facto exhibition of modern German art. That floor’s masterpiece is a giant untitled piece by Anselm Kieffer.

(Des Moines artist Don Dunagan, who died last month, described that work as “German optimism - ballet slippers in a bomb site.”) It’s now surrounded by works of eight other 20th century German artists plus those of another eight English and American artists of Germanic descent. The contrast between those two groups says something about national psyches following WWII.

Among the Germans, Thomas Struth’s high definition photo of museum visitors focuses on cultural rape - an ancient temple which was plundered from Greece and reassembled in Berlin.

Thomas Demand’s camera recreates the scene of a famous terrorist bomb which failed to go off. Wolfgang Tillmans zeroes in on a man extracting splinters from his foot. Hilda and Bernd Becher focus on ominous blast furnaces with horrible historical suggestiveness. Andreas Gursky observes a crowded beach scene at Rimini where bathers appear to metastasize. For levity, Gerhard Richter presents an “abstract landscape” that evokes the great German Romantics. One of Joseph Beuys’ famous blackboards and a piece by Martin Kippenberger also make statements without ominous undertones. Works by artists of Germanic descent are much mellower. Jeff Koons, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Diebenkorn, George Segal and Alex Katz are at their whimsical best here. Even Julian Schnabel and Britain’s Lucien Freud seem light hearted in the company of the German Germans.

“Kill Them Before They Multiply” (through Sept. 26) continues DMAC Print Gallery’s string of intriguing, themed shows. This historical review of artistic anxieties plays in visions of multiplication and subdivision - a theme that allows artists to unleash their imaginations. Media range from prints, photos, drawings and watercolor paintings to conventional sculptures and hair sprayed rubber bands. Subjects range from Biblical (Jehan Duvet’s “The Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns”) to the historical (Dennis Kardon” “Death of Marat” and Pablo Picasso’s “The Lie of Franco”) to modern things like suburban sprawl (Ross Racine’s “Subdivision: Heavenly Heights”) and cell phone obsessions (Iowan Timothy Wehrle’s “Inner Kingdom, Thieving Speedway’). Everything in the exhibition seems to make a common, modern observation - be it a dictator’s polyps or a land developer’s business plan, growth is cancerous. Curator Amy Worthen tried to sum up the exhibition’s theme in its catalogue.

“ Although individuals and societies are supposed to benefit from material and technological advances, we ultimately experience overload. The world reaps the consequences of immoderation, over extension, greed, disparity and injustice.”

Tout

“Crockett” and

“Tubb’s,” TJ Moberg’s latest mixed media paintings at Moberg Gallery, celebrate 1980’s American style.

Des Moines Metamorphoses

I bellied up to the bar of local hotel restaurant. This guy sitting next to me sized me up and said, “You look too old for the music thing. So, you here for the bike show or the car show?” I explained that I was simply a local guy having dinner. My inquisitor looked disbelieving but quickly bonded with a band of biker brothers who had descended on Des Moines over Fourth of July weekend, pretty much selling out every hotel room in town and packing bars and restaurants. This is not your parents’ Des Moines. It isn’t even your teenaged brother’s Des Moines.

“I remember, because it wasn’t very long ago at all, when everyone left Des Moines on the Fourth of July. When there wasn’t much of anything to do here,” recalled architect Kirk Blunck.

Blunck takes pride in the changes. His renovations of historic East Village buildings have done more than anything else to attract visitors to formerly repulsive parts of downtown. Watching people file into Lucca, Kitchen Collage, Miyabi 9 and a dozen other bustling businesses in his buildings, Blunck declared a milestone.

“Having Steve Vail here is just a huge thing. It’s a major, major deal to have an international gallery,” he explained.

Steven Vail Fine Arts (SVFA) opened in February on the second floor of the Teachout Building. An exhibition of Jan Frank paintings followed by a show of prints by the artists in the Pappajohn Sculpture Garden placed SVFA many levels above other downtown exhibit spaces, at least by measurements such as the insurance value of inventories and artists’ renown with Google.

Vail’s next exhibit is by Not Vital (a real name), who is as avant garde as an artist can be. The 62 year old Swiss aristocrat lives much of each year in a mud and barbed wire hut in Niger next to a pile of waste from local butchers. There he cultivates his sense of smell, works with silversmiths on sculptures that sometimes look like instruments of torture, and casts cow dung. Vail has actually sold some of the latter for him. For his show at opening July 29 in Des Moines, Vital will exhibit more conventional art - a portfolio of lithographs.

Originally representing only Iowa artists, Moberg Gallery has readjusted its scope. It’s currently hosting an impressive exhibit of 16 “Visiting Artists.” Missourian Nick Naughton’s large wood cut prints document the toil of migrant workers in dramatic fine detail. Colorado painter John Hull peaks into the world of carnies and trailer park police calls. Sculptor Thomas Stancliffe’s freaky environmental reflections presage the Gulf oil disaster.

Things are also changing on a personal level for local artists. Many received big career breaks this summer. The National Academy Museum selected Phillip Chen's print "Lucky 8" for its Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art. Painters Ignatius Widiapradja and Larassa Kabel were both signed by 101 Exhibit, an esteemed contemporary gallery in Miami, Florida. Their works are part of a show which runs through midsummer there. Kabel’s works also will travel to a 101 Exhibit in East Hampton, New York in August.

Painter Jeremiah Elbel won the second round of the Saatchi Showdown. His paintings are now displayed with those of 11 other showdown winners at the new Saatchi Gallery in London. Last year, over 400,000 visitors saw the Showdown finalists’ works, a record for a contemporary art exhibition in England.

Painter Alex Brown signed for a one person January show at Twig Gallery in Brussels, Belgium and also for a Frances Young Tang Museum show this September in Saratoga Springs, NY. Brown’s legendary New York City gallery Feature Inc also rebounded after a chaotic year of untimely expansion and retraction.

Sculptor Mitchell Squire won a residency at Maine’s Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, perhaps the most notable program of its kind. Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, William King and Janet Fish are among its alumni. Squire is one of 65 participants selected this year from 2045 nominees worldwide. He also won a residency at Ox-Bow in Michigan. Joan Mitchell, Keith Achepohl, Claes Oldenburg, Ed Paschke and Miyoko Ito are Ox Bow alums.
　

Fall Arts Guide

Karen Strohbeen's "Doll Heads & Lace"

Dire Fetes: Fall Exhibitions Play Grave Tunes

For Des Moines‘ art scene, fall is the sobering, back-to-work season that follows carefree summers packed with big festivals and light entertainments. This year‘s autumnal calendar reinforces such sobriety with a barrage of deadly serious exhibitions.

Currently playing at Moberg Gallery, master painter Richard Kelley presents a pre-Apocalyptic vision of housing developments, traffic nightmares, mesmerizing women, and escaped zoo animals.

The Des Moines Art Center (DMAC) has a current show, “Kill Them Before They Multiply,” that is themed around visions of grave anxieties bonded by the common observation that growth, be it suburban sprawl or cell phone proliferation, is cancerous. Steven Vail Fine Arts’ continues its exhibition of deconstructed Scandinavian symphonies by Not Vital, a Swiss artist who cultivates his worldview in a mud hut in Niger.

More gravity is on the way too. DMAC’s next major exhibition brings Jeanne Mammen’s street smart visions of pre World War II nightclubs and prostitutes to Greenwood Park. By Halloween, her work will be joined there by an anthology show, “Bad Dreams,” that promises to be seriously disturbing. In late September, Olson-Larsen Galleries will premiere Sharon Booma‘s highly emotional paintings that attempt “to control the chaotic forces that control our lives.” The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art will feature “Goya’s Disasters of War,” with all the horror of war and none of its heroics nor romance.

As fall winds its way toward winter, lighter spirits begin to influence the muse of curators. Wendy Rolfe and Priscilla Steele will bring their earth goddess visions to Olson-Larsen. Frank Hansen’s latest pictorials on human frailty will follow Kelley at Moberg. Quilt Walk will keep Valley Junction in stitches and various artists’ studio spaces will host open houses during the holidays. Bill Luchsinger & Karen Strohbeen shall deck the holiday season with their latest meditations on beauty and prairie life. But Chuck Close has the last word and that's as stark as winter.

Calendar
(*APT* indicates a special Art Pimp tout)

Recurring Events and Family Attractions

Thursday Night Art Walks in downtown Newton
First Friday Art Walks, Fairfield Town Square

Special Events

Festivals

September 24-25
Art Stop - ( www.myspace.com/artstop, http://www.artstopinfo.com/ )
A two day visual and performing arts event, with shuttle busses to Valley Junction, East Village, Ingersoll, Gateway West and Roosevelt, but not Drake.

October 1-3
Northeast Iowa Artists Studio Tour (Winneshiek County Convention and Visitors Bureau, 800-463-4692, http://www.iowaarttour.com/ ) APT
Iowa’s original art studio tour takes places around Decorah‘s autumn majesty.

October 6-9
“Quilt Walk”
Nine Historic Valley Junction merchants feature quilt-related exhibitions and demonstrations, and hosting opening receptions with artists.

Galleries

Ongoing

Art Dive (1417 Walnut St., http://www.artdive.com/ )
Des Moines’ original alternative gallery plans alternative exhibitions. Be surprised.

2AU (200 Fifth, West Des Moines)
Pearls reign this fall in Au‘s effort to provide Art Deco comforts in a troubled year.

Finder's Creepers (515 18th St. http://www.finderscreepers.com/)
Alternative to alternative.

Kavanaugh Gallery (131 5th Street West Des Moines, 279-8682, http://www.kavanaughgallery.com/)
Specializing in purchased estate collections, there’s no telling what you might find here.

Octagon Center for the Arts (427 Douglas Avenue, Ames http://www.octagonarts.org/)
Usually a fabulous fiber art show each fall.

Susan Noland Studio Gallery (902 42nd St.)
The psychological properties of gems are front and center in this master goldsmith‘s repertoire.

Special Exhibitions

Olson-Larsen Galleries (203 Fifth, West Des Moines, http://www.olsonlarsen.com/ )

Through September 4
“Yuko Ishi, Ken Smith and Mary Merkel Hess”
Ishi’s multimedia studies of birds are a bird watchers’ dream.

September 24 - November 27
“New Works by Sharon Booma” ATP
A rare one person exhibit for Olson-Larsen.

October 22 - November 27
“Kim Hutchison, Brian Roberts, Lee Emma Running”

December 3 - January 15, 2011
“Wendy Rolfe, Priscilla Steele”
“Small Works Show”
Includes pieces by Carlos Ferguson, John Beckelman, Richard Black, Pat Edwards, Yuko Ishi, Amy Worthen
APT

Moberg Art Gallery (2921 Ingersoll Ave., http://www.moberggallery.com/ )

Through September 18
“Richard Kelley” APT
Des Moines‘ master painter creates his own magical world.

October 1 - November 13

“Frank Hansen” APT
Hansen’s exhibition are Des Moines most raucously attended as a range of folks respond to the artist’s blue collar wit. Last year’s exhibit featured over 60 new works and a movie premier.

November 19 - January 2011
“New Works by Bill Luchsinger & Karen Strohbeen” APT
Creating their first prints in 1970, Karen and Bill were among the nation’s digital print making pioneers, even before David Hockney made it cool. The exhibit will showcase new work on paper, canvas, and ceramic tile.

Heritage Art Gallery (111 Court Ave., http://www.heritagegallery.org/)

Through September 10
“Charitable Print Trust”
Robert Schulte leads a group of artists who create prints to sell and also to donate to non profits and charities to use in their fundraising auctions. James Conn, Matt Welbourn and Jim Engler are also included.

September 13 - October 21
“Contemporary Fibers”

October 25 - December 2.
“Works by Mary Muller, Leslie Leavenworth, and Joyce Lee.”

December 6 - January 2011
“Greater Des Moines Exhibited 17”

Instinct Gallery at Des Moines Social Club (1408 Locust St., http://www.instinctgallery.com/)

September
“Juried Photography Show”

October
“Creepy Crawlies”
DMSC’s second annual Halloween themed show.

November
“Hybrid: Holly Jensen and Michelle Holley Installation”
Steven Vail Fine Arts (Teachout Building, East Village, 309-2763, http://www.stevenvailfinearts.com/

Through October
“Not Vital - Dirigerer” APT
Swiss artist paints impressions of great musical compositions by Sibelius, Grieg and Nielsen.

September
“Fred Truck“
Anaglyph and 3D photographs

November

“Sol Lewitt”
Selected Prints from the Estate of Sol LeWitt

January - March
“Chuck Close – Works in Edition”
Museums
Des Moines Art Center (4700 Grand Ave., http://www.desmoinesartcenter.org/ )

Through August 29
“The Bike Riders - Danny Lyon”
American photographer documents his years with the Chicago Outlaws biker club.

Through September 26
“Kill Them Before They Multiply” APT
Fifteen artists’ visions of viral growth, obsessive repetition, and overcrowding - from the colorful, beehive world of fast food courts, through traffic jams, people on cell phones and suburbia gone amok.

Through September 19
“Iowa Artists Exhibited”
Fifteen artists ranging from performance diva Leslie Hall to realist oil painter Larassa Kabel. Des Moines’ Dan Weiss, Nate Morton and Benjamin Gardner represent the metro.

September 10 - December 12
“Jeanne Mammen” APT
Working as a magazine illustrator in the years just before World War II, Mammen captured a world of nightclubs, street singers, fashionable cafes, and prostitutes in her stylized and often critical images.

October 1 – January 23, 2011
“Another Dimension: Sculpture Park Artists’ Prints, Drawings, and Objects”
Works on paper by artists represented in the John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

October 8 – January 9, 2011
“Bad Dreams” APT
Drawn primarily from the Art Center’s permanent collections, Bad Dreams presents the imagery of nightmares, from literal depictions of our worst fears to surrealistic visions that inexplicably conjure up anxiety and unease.

Ankeny Art Center (1520 SW Ordnance Rd., http://www.ankenyartcenter.com/ )

Through September
“Robert Mullinex”
Teeple Hansen Gallery (108 W. Broadway, Suite 206. Fairfield)

August 6 - September 18
“Four Dimensions”
Fairfield artists Judy Bales, Manuel Coradin and Shannon Kennedy and Deborah Vanko of Des Moines show multi media works.

Brunnier Museum of Art (University Museums, 290 Scheman Bldg., Ames, 515.294.3342, http://www.museums.isu.edu/ )

Through August 2010
“Exquisite Balance: Sculptures by Bill Barrett”
Sculptures recall fluid effortlessness of calligraphy and betray a positivism to which many viewers feel drawn.

August 24 - December 17
“Relationships: Drawn, Analog to Digital”
“The Observant Eye: Beth Van Hoesen”
“Mark Adams: Translation of Light”
“N.C. Wyeth’s America in the Making”

The Vesterheim (523 W. Water St., Decorah, http://www.vesterheim.org/)

Through March 2011
“Pieces of Self: Identity and Norwegian-American Quilts”Expressions of family, religious, and ethnic identity in quilts from Vesterheim’s collection.

“2010: The International Year of the Nurse”Featuring WWII, Red Cross, and deaconess nurses.

Faulconer Gallery (Grinnell College, www.grinnell.edu/faulconergallery)

Through September 5
“Harry Shearer: the Silent Echo Chamber”
A who's who of American politics and punditry in the moments before they go "live" on television.

Through September 5
“Michael Van den Besselaar: Unconscious Optics”
Paintings, resembling old Zenith and RCA televisions, freeze fleeting images once beamed into collective consciousness.

September 17 - December 12
“Culturing Community: Projects about Place”
Projects will include an examination of attitudes towards work and a look at current and pending environmental issues facing the Grinnell community.

Through December 12
“Young Pioneers: Lithographs from the Johnson-Horrigan Collection ”
Examines the role of children in works produced by the Soviet Artists Union in the early and mid 1970s.

Cedar Rapids Museum of Art (410 Third Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids), http://www.crma.org/

September 4 - December 12
“Goya‘s Disasters of War”
All the gruesome horror of war without heroics or romance.

October 9 - December 31
“China: Insights. New Documentary Photography from the People's Republic”
Emerging and vanishing China, through the eyes of seven mainland photographers.

November 27 - October 9, 2011“Earth Transformed: Ceramics from the Collection”Celebrates the growing section of decorative arts in the CRMA's collection.

January 22 - May 1, 2011
“Wizards of Pop!”More than 60 images from 13 picture and pop-up books reveal a variety of media and techniques in batik, marbleized paper mosaic, and delicate cut-paper, and pop-up books rendered in pencil, marker, watercolor, acrylic, and linoleum block print

University Museum (3219 Hudson Road, Cedar Falls, www.uni.edu/museum)

September 13 – December 23
“Object as Subject”
It does itself, plus other tricks of self absorption.

January 2011
“Our World in Focus”Clearing things up.
Blanden Art Museum ( 920 Third Avenue SouthFort Dodge, 515-573-2316, http://www.blanden.org/ )

Through Sept. 22
“Iowa in Pastel - Mary Muller”
MacNider Art Museum (303 2nd Street Southeast, Mason City,641- 421-3666, http://www.macniderart.org/

October 29 – January 8, 2011 “Marc Sijan: Being Alive”
Hyper-realistic sculptures of Wisconsin artist.