Join us for a conversation with featured artist Vesna Kittelson, a vital participant in the Twin Cities arts community for decades whose series of Young Americans portraits are on view now at the Weisman. Take a virtual studio visit with the artist, along with WAM staffer Susannah Schouweiler, who was among the essay contributors for Kittelson’s newly published catalogue, Synthesis: Lost and Found in America(Afton Press, 2020). Read the essay in full on the WAM website >>
Don’t miss your chance to purchase a copy of the book, signed by the artist, at the WAM Shop!
Kittelson’s Young Americans series includes dynamic, cutout portraits of her art students, which reveal her bonds with fellow immigrant artists of a later generation. Indeed, her intensely varied and prolific artistic production always maintains autobiographical connections. Her recent installations of deconstructed books, as well as her luminous drawings of fountains, recall her childhood in Split, Croatia, where the ruins of Diocletian’s palace from the fourth century CE remain in the contemporary city center. Her early color field paintings represent people and places she remembers through color and abstractions, evincing the focus of her art studies at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s. Her war paintings portray tragedy and emotion related to the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s, as well as her own reactions to the 9/11 attack on her new country, the United States. The brilliant botanical watercolors in her artist’s books result from her research on Charles and Emma Darwin in Cambridge, England. Her large paper sculptures dramatically express personal reflections through color and three-dimensionality.
These many materials, subjects, and genres, like her self-portraits, show Kittelson’s deep engagement with a great array of everyday worlds. Her ever-evolving practice and multiple roles as artist, professor, and colleague demonstrate her strong passion for creativity, as does her astonishingly diverse, international, and rich artistic career.
This virtual event, via Zoom, is FREE but registration is required to participate in the Q&A. Register: z.umn.edu/VesnaKittelson
About the artist:Vesna Kittelson was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina (of Croatian descent) – and became a naturalized American. She has lived between Split, Croatia; Cambridge, England; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was an original member of the feminist WARM Gallery (Women Art Registry of Minnesota); she taught at MCAD for many years; and she was a founding member of the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Arts, where she holds a studio. She was a member of the co-op Gallery Form and Content Gallery in Minneapolis from 2013 – 2019.
Now On View:Young Americansis on view in the Fisch Gallery at Weisman Art Museum through January 3, 2021.
This Zoom conversation was recorded as part of a virtual event held Dec. 2, 2020 and is available as part of WAM On Demand via the Weisman’s YouTube channel. Listen in on a conversation with artist Vesna Kittelson, a vital participant in the Twin Cities arts community whose series of Young Americans portraits are currently installed at the Weisman. Take a virtual studio visit with the artist, along with WAM staffer Susannah Schouweiler, who was among the essay contributors for Kittelson’s newly published…
Upon entering Vesna Kittelson’s North Loop Minneapolis studio, you notice that her space is populated with the faces of Young Americans. The painted portraits, slightly larger than life, are unfettered by frames and hung directly on the wall, most of them at eye level or just above. You can’t help but meet their gazes; most are looking straight on. Their features and apparel reflect a wide range of backgrounds, but they are, unmistakably, individuals, not cultural proxies. They are…
This Zoom conversation was recorded as part of a virtual event held Feb. 3, 2021 and is available as part of WAM On Demand via the Weisman’s YouTube channel. Listen in on a conversation between artist PIOTR SZYHALSKI and artist, writer, and MPLSart.com editor RUSS WHITE in honor of the release of Piotr Szyhalski: We Are Working All the Time! (Weisman Art Museum, 2020), a newly published survey of the artist’s work distributed by University of Minnesota Press, edited by DIANE MULLIN, senior curator at WAM. Don’t miss your chance…