OPENING THIS WEEKEND
Spearwave
Hours: Sat., Feb. 17 from 6-10:30 p.m.; and Sun., Feb 18 from 12-3 p.m.
Where: 2528 E 22nd St., Mpls
This Saturday from 6-10:30 p.m., Yeah Maybe hosts a monthly exhibition and community gathering space called Spearwave. For this month's installation, a collaboration with Soomaal House of Art, artists Aduunya, Khadija Charif, Khadija Muse, Osob Mohamed, Mohamud Mumin and Hamza Noor will present their work.
CLOSING SOON-ISH
Where: Weinstein-Hammons Gallery (908 W. 46th St., Mpls.) Free. 612-822-1722 or weinsteinhammons.com
Hours: Noon-5 p.m. Tue.-Sat.American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe may be best remembered for his starkly lit and often erotic photographs of men. Lesser known are his early 1970s Polaroids and photos of plants, and interior spaces. These works, hand-selected from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in New York by Leslie Hammons, line the walls of the newly renamed Weinstein Hammons Gallery. Look closely at the Polaroids and you'll see that even though the subject matter is different, the angles are similar. A telephone pole (pictured) and a nude male sculpture are both viewed from below, making the subjects appear more important. Exhibition ends March 3.
CLOSING SOON-ISH
"For the Gods" by Priscilla Briggs & "Remnants" by Betsy Ruth Byers
Where: Rosalux Gallery (1400 Van Buren St NE, #195, Mpls)
Hours: Sat. & Sun. 12-4 p.m.
Artist Priscilla Briggs' new photography series from a trip to India highlights contradictory themes about the technically now-illegal caste system, which is still very much a part of India's social structure and religion. In the other room, Betsy Ruth Byers' paintings explore climate change, through both observations from Glacier National Park and historical images she located from the USGS Repeat Photography Project Archive. Exhibition ends February 25.
ONGOING
Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Thu.-Fri.; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
Where: Soo Visual Arts Center, 2909 Bryant Av. S., Mpls. soovac.org
Following his dazzling exhibition "The Flowers," which debuted last summer at the Minneapolis Institute of Art's Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program and explored unpacking shame around queer male sexuality, Joe Sinness returns with portraits of ... wait for it ... softball players. Delicately drawn with colored pencils, these works depict the players of the Twin Cities Goodtime Softball League, a gay league founded in 1979 after a group of queers challenged the Minneapolis police to a softball game and totally kicked their butts. By capturing these LGBTQAI folks in their element, perhaps with a baseball field or a chain-link fence or just something nature-y in the background, Sinness depicts another aspect of queer life, and points to the ways that team sports can help people feel a part of a non-biological version of family. Case in point: One of the teams is Unicorns. LOL.Exhibition ends Feb. 27.
ONGOING
Judy Chicago's Birth Project: Born Again
Where: Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, Visual Arts Building (2400 Randolph Ave., Mail F-12, St. Paul)
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sat, Sun 12 p.m. noon – 6 p.m.
"Judy Chicago's Birth Project: Born Again" is not a retrospective, but a curious look back at one of the foremost feminist artists in American art history. In her 1984 needlework "Creation of the World," a homely sort of rainbow rectangle frames a swirly, '60s psychedelic feeling world of a woman's limbs and genitalia, a literal depiction of how life actually begins. Radical and powerful, these are the images that suggest that yes, the future is female. Exhibition ends March 16.
