As summer ends, museums across the Twin Cities are elevating individual narratives as a way to explore larger, thornier societal topics. How can drawings communicate the experience of 37 continuous years of incarceration? What can we learn about pre-Soviet farm women from their textiles, or about the modern queer identity from ceramic works? How can art help us put history — and the way it was told at the time in newspapers and magazines — in new contexts? These are some questions explored in gallery shows and exhibitions coming up this fall in St. Paul and the greater Twin Cities.
September Sept. 14, “O’ Powa O’ Meng: The Art and Legacy of Jody Folwell” — Minneapolis Institute of Art: Artist Jody Folwell “has revolutionized Pueblo pottery—and Native art more broadly—over the past five decades,” per the museum. This free exhibition, co-organized by Mia and the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, spans her career.
2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis.
Sept. 21, “Queer Alchemy: Works By Sarah Knight — Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis: The artist, a trans ceramicist, explores ideas of artifice, transformation and experimentation in their work. Free; 2424 Franklin Ave.
E., Minneapolis. Sept.
26, Bill Crane solo exhibition — Interact Gallery, St. Paul: Bill Crane, a deaf artist, has been creating ink drawings and acrylic paintings at Interact Gallery, an art space focused on folks with disabilities, since the studio opened nearly 30 years ag.