River levels are dropping as the drought worsens throughout the state. It feels like there's no better time to pray for rain, because who wouldn't rather be singing in the rain — and purple rain at that.
"Many Waters: A Minnesota Biennial" peeks into more than 50 artists' responses to the topic of water. A multivenue exhibit on display in the exterior, windows and skyway of the Minnesota Museum of American Art and at NewStudio Gallery in St. Paul, it also seeps into "Overflow," an artist-organized show at the Q.arma Building in northeast Minneapolis.
"It feels pertinent, as we are experiencing record drought," curator Laura Joseph said while walking outside the M, which has been closed since the pandemic started. "There's not really a linear way to experience it, but you can't help think of how close we are to the river and all we can hear is the traffic and development."
In a window on Robert Street, Mona Smith's circular-shaped video "Cloudy Waters: Dakota Reflections on the River" plays on a loop, a watery reflection on the spiritual importance of water, and the trauma experienced by the Dakota people through Minnesota's history of genocide and forced assimilation.
Sandra Spieler's "Shared Table," courtesy of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre, is a collection of life-size puppets, including a noble buffalo, a tall-eared rabbit, skunk, blue wolf, bear, even a human, gathered around a table to share a sip of water. The work references Da Vinci's "The Last Supper," and this council seeks to be asking: What if this, too, disappears? The artist also recently participated in Water Walk, in prayer the stop the construction of Line 3.
Ruthann Godollei's "Go Ask Alice (Flint Water)" is a single etched apothecary jar with a tag "Drink Me" on it. Godollei uses the classic "Alice in Wonderland" reference to discuss the Flint, Mich., water crisis, which exposed people to high levels of lead in drinking water.
In the building's vestibule, Isabelle Carbonell's "The River in 24/7," a 24-hour recording along a stretch of the Mississippi River in Louisiana known as "the Chemical Corridor," reflects on how the region's mostly Black population has been affected. The piece is impossible to listen to all the way through, which lends a certain existentialist aspect.
An aspirational biennial
To see the rest of "Many Waters," visitors must take a 20-minute drive to NewStudio Gallery, where 37 works by 28 artists take over a basement space at the architecture firm of the same name.
