“With watercolour, you can’t cover up the marks. There’s the story of the construction of the picture, and then the picture might tell another story as well.” — David Hockney
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The more than 20-foot-high ultramarine blue Hahn/Cock (2013/2017) is one of the artist’s largest permanent artworks in a US public museum collection. The blue rooster was unveiled in the newly renovated Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in June 2017.
Walker Exclusive Notecard featuring the work Hahn/Cock (2013/2017), by Katharina Fritsch
This year the Minnesota Renaissance Festival marks our 50th Anniversary Golden Jubilee Celebration. In 1971 the Minnesota Renaissance first appeared out of the summer mists to celebrate the spirit of the Renaissance. As has been their tradition, the King and Queen have proclaimed that the Master of the Revels gather the finest crafters and artisans, a cornucopia of food, challenging and adventurous games, music both pastoral and raucous, and stages full of acts of comedy and skill. And of course the most important ingredient in our Festival celebration, you! We’ve missed you! Our villagers and royalty are eager to welcome you through the gates and have you join us in celebrating our 50th Anniversary Golden Jubilee Festival day! Huzzah and cheers for 50 years!
King Henry and his royal court invite one and all to his 16th Century European village featuring 16 stages of exciting entertainment. Over 250 artisans fill the Festival marketplace to display and sell their handcrafted wares for a truly unique shopping experience. Patrons can interact with hundreds of memorable characters roaming the village streets as well as view live armored jousting throughout the day. Come celebrate our 50th season by visiting the Festival grounds in Shakopee, MN
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Free Parking
Live Armored Combat Jousting
7 Full Themed Weekends
16 Stages of Exciting Entertainment
50 Free Family Friendly Activities
250 Artisan Booths for Endless Shopping
Food, Drinks & More!
Vogue Runway: Mainstream fashion collaborations often prize hype and headlines over content. Target’s new lineup of designer collaborations is different. Featuring the American designers Victor Glemaud, Nili Lotan, Rachel Comey, and Sandy Liang, the project emphasizes daywear and ready-to-wear over cocktail frocks and statement pieces. Shop smartly and you could revamp your closet without breaking the bank.
All four of Target’s new designers are wardrobing experts: Glemaud’s sensual knits have become pandemic staples, Sandy Liang is a go-to resource for whimsical day dresses, and no one cuts cargo pants and jeans like Nili Lotan and Rachel Comey. “When designing my collection, I wanted to give Target [customers] timeless pieces wearable for their everyday lives,” Lotan tells Vogue. “I hope everyone is able to find something they can add to their fall wardrobes that makes them feel like the best version of themselves.”
Unfussy, beautiful things that will help us reemerge in style seem to be the mission of all four designers. Preview imagery reveals a mustard trench from Lotan, a marbled jersey dress from Comey, bold striped knits from Glemaud, and a signature black tulle number by Liang—essentials, but not without personality. Liang says she hopes customers find that her pieces help them experiment with their personal style: “Fashion is meant to be fun, so I encourage them to not take themselves too seriously and wear what makes them feel confident.”
Glemaud echoes this: “I want anyone who wears my designs to not be afraid to embrace who they are. I want Target guests to wear pieces from my collection that make them feel stylish and most like themselves.”
In the lead-up to a revitalized New York Fashion Week, Target’s platform has the potential to boost each designer’s profile. Comey, a cult New York favorite, is celebrating her 20th year in business this September, but this is her first-ever collaboration with a mainstream retailer. “I really enjoyed thinking about the Target guests and what they may be missing from their wardrobe,” she says. “Especially this year, when so many women have left the workforce, we were thinking about what they may need in their wardrobe for either heading back to work or adjusting to their new lifestyles.”
The collections will arrive in stores this September, priced from $15 to $80 and in sizes from XXS to 4X. A wider size range “is something that I want to carry over to my core collection and hope to expand in the future,” says Liang. Comey, for her part, adds, “I’m inspired by their inclusivity efforts, their company organization, and all the positivity surrounding the work at Target. I do really look forward to seeing the collection out in the world.”
The Walker Art Center announces the newest addition to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Twin Cities-based artist Angela Two Stars’ sculpture Okciyapi (Help Each Other), which will be unveiled on Saturday, October 9, 2021. In January 2019, the Walker announced the selection of Two Stars as the finalist for the Indigenous Public Art Commission, a special project inviting an artist to create a piece of public art for the Walker’s collection to be sited in the Garden. This is the first work by Two Stars to enter the Walker’s world-renowned collection of contemporary art. The proposal by Two Stars (Dakota, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, b. 1982) was selected by an Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee and Walker Art Center curatorial staff from a pool of more than 50 national and international submissions.
Okciyapi (Help Each Other) is simultaneously a sculptural form, a gathering space, and a participatory work that provides a site for visitors to engage with Dakota language. The sculpture’s ringed configuration of seating elements made from custom-cast concrete makes reference to a rippling drop of water. Inspired by the legacy of her grandfather, Orsen Bernard, and all those working in Dakota language revitalization, the ripple effect represents Dakota language knowledge spreading across generations of speakers. The water vessel in the center serves as a reminder that the name Minnesota is derived from the Dakota phrase; Mni Sota Makoce, the land where the water reflects the clouds. The work incorporates audio, text, and medicinal plants native to the state, which represent a healing reconnection with Dakota language and culture. Navigation of the space represents the artist’s language journey and offers an invitation for the audience to join. Two Stars has conceived of the work in seven sections, representing the Oceti Sakowin, meaning People of Seven Council Fires, known also as the Great Sioux Nation. This group, which includes speakers of the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota dialects, is made up of the Wahpekute, Wahpetunwan, Sisistunwan, Bdwakantunwan, Ihanktunwan, Ihanktunwanna, and Titunwan. Members of the Oceti Sakowin nations live primarily in areas now known as Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, as well as in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada.
In her new work for the Sculpture Garden, Two Stars integrates Dakota words and phrases, which appear on the exterior and interior sides of the sculpture’s concentric seating areas. As they experience the piece, visitors can also listen to audio stories told by fluent Dakota speakers by accessing recordings via their handheld devices. Over the past two years, Two Stars developed the work’s language components in close collaboration with Dakota language speakers and teachers, well as other community consultants. As she has remarked, “Language revitalization is a healing medicine for Dakota people. Our identity is grounded in our language. Our ceremonies, songs, and stories are rooted in language. Without our language, we would lose an integral part of who we are as Dakota people.”
Okciyapi (Help Each Other) will be situated in the northwest area of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Two Stars further remarked, “I specifically chose this site with the awareness that there was a need for healing, for both the community and the land itself. As part of the installation process, my family led a ground cleansing ceremony at the site, to help all of us to move forward in positivity and celebration.”
Walker executive director Mary Ceruti, who worked closely with the Walker curatorial team and Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee in the selection of Two Stars’ proposal, notes: “Okciyapi (Help Each Other) makes poetic connections between land, water, and language and creates a welcoming site of reflection. We are excited to bring this beautiful new work to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and are grateful for the way that Angela has embraced the process and community in developing her installation. The work adds an important Indigenous voice to the diverse group of artists from around the globe whose work is presented there. It is a place Twin Cities residents have come to find inspiration, contemplation and connection and will continue to visit for years to come.”
Angela Two Stars (Dakota, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, b. 1982) Okciyapi (Help Each Other), 2021, pre-cast engraved concrete, enameled metal panels, script and audio Dakota language, medicinal plants native to Minnesota, water vessel. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, with funds from the T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, the Friends of the Falls, and Russell Cowles, 2021. Image courtesy Urban Ecosystems.
ABOUT THE ARTIST Angela Two Stars, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, is a visual artist, arts administrator, educator, and curator. She received her BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, MI, in 2017. Her work has been exhibited at the Sioux Art Museum in Rapid City, SD; the Watermark Art Center in Bemidji; and All My Relations Arts in Minneapolis, among other gallery and nonprofit spaces. Most recently, her work in the public realm has been visible in the region along the shores of Bde Maka Ska, part of Minneapolis’ Chain of Lakes, with a piece on which she collaborated with artists Sandy Spieler and Mona Smith, dedicated in June 2019.
ABOUT THE SELECTION PROCESS The Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee is a group of seven Native artists, curators, writers, and knowledge keepers based in Minnesota, South Dakota, and New Mexico. The Committee worked between 2018-2019 with Walker curatorial staff to shape a process, generate the Call to Artists, review proposals for a new work of art, and select the final work. The Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee is composed of Kate Beane, PhD (Flandreau Santee Sioux), director of Native American Initiatives, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul; Lann Briel (Ojibwe, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), program officer, Jerome Foundation, Minneapolis; Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), author and founder, Birchbark Books, Minneapolis; Candice Hopkins (Tlingit), independent curator, Albuquerque, NM; Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota), president, First Peoples Fund, Rapid City, SD; Iyekiyapiwiƞ Darlene St. Clair (Dakota, Citizen of Lower Sioux), associate professor of American Indian Studies and director of the Multicultural Resource Center, St. Cloud State University; and Rory Wakemup (Ojibwe, Bois Forte Band of Chippewa), artist and former director, All My Relations Arts, Native American Community Development Institute, Minneapolis. Prior to the selection process, important early collaboration in shaping the Call to Artists was provided by Gwen Westerman (Dakota, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), author, artist, and professor of English and director of the Humanities Program at Minnesota State University, Mankato; and Glenn M. Wasicuna (Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, Manitoba), adjunct faculty, department of World Language and Cultures, Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Originally scheduled for an October 2020 unveiling, but postponed due to Covid-19, Two Stars’ project will now be completed in October 2021, after which the commission will enter the Walker’s permanent collection. Her project will join other works by Indigenous artists in the Walker’s collection, including pieces by Frank Big Bear, Julie Buffalohead, Andrea Carlson, Jim Denomie, Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, George Morrison, the collective Postcommodity, Dyani White Hawk, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and others.
Angela Two Stars (Dakota, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, b. 1982) Okciyapi (Help Each Other), 2021, pre-cast engraved concrete, enameled metal panels, script and audio Dakota language, medicinal plants native to Minnesota, water vessel. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, with funds from the T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, the Friends of the Falls, and Russell Cowles, 2021. Image courtesy Urban Ecosystems.
Native Mn Facts: Dr. Anton Treuer (@treuera) is a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University (@BemidjiState) and the author of 19 books – including “Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask” and “The Assassination of Hole in the Day.”
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In the new young readers’ edition of Everything You Wanted To Know About Indians but Were Afraid To Ask (Levine Querido), Anton Treuer tackles the questions that pop up like perennials wherever Indians are involved. Living and working in Bemidji, Minnesota, as a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, Treuer is no stranger to such queries. With subjects ranging from history and tribal sovereignty to casinos, cuisine, and everything in between, this accessible volume does a lot of work in bridging the gap between Native cultures and the rest of the world. It’s work that the author shouldered with a smile as he spoke with Kirkus over Zoom; the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Have you seen young people—both Native and non-Native—engaging with the ideas in this book?
You know, a lot of our kids, they’re hungry. They want to know their history, they want to know their culture, and they want to marry that with their own lived experience as Indigenous people. They don’t want to be blamed or shamed for something that they didn’t get to learn through no fault of their own. I really believe that this work provides accessible information for Indigenous people who want to learn about themselves and explore their own identity and the deeper meaning of what it means to be Indigenous. I think we do a little bit of a disservice to our youth if we tell them to be proud to be Native [and] don’t also tell them what it means to be Native. I know I had a lot of misunderstandings and erroneous assumptions about what that meant, like if I didn’t struggle enough in poverty, does that mean I’m less authentic? I think having a good toolbox for them is healthy and helpful.
For the rest of the world, the first line of the book—“Indians are so often imagined, but so infrequently well understood”—you know, there is a real danger to the imaginings that people have. Like we’re all rich from casinos or we’re all living in squalor on reservations. How can both be everything you need to know? And the truth is, it’s complex. I think the rest of the world is hungry to know more, too. America is on the verge of another attempted racial reckoning, and those attempts often fall short of our loftiest expectations and goals, but things do change. Some people are paying attention, and they’re leaning in, and that gives me hope.
So much has happened since you published the first iteration of this book in 2012; it feels very timely and necessary right now.
“Indians. We are so often imagined and so infrequently well understood.” —Anton Treuer
Native Americans are thousands of years of documented human history still in the making. Even in the past 10 years, we’ve been making a lot of history—the Dakota Access pipeline protest, the confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial, so many things have been happening. I think the social activism universe has really shifted and changed. Back in the civil rights era, you had strong, highly visible individual leaders like King and Malcolm X, and their assassinations did tremendous damage to broad movements.
When you think of who led the Dakota Access pipeline protest, it’s not one person who comes to mind, although I can think of many brave leaders there, and I would say the same thing about Black Lives Matter and many other social activist movements. In addition to that, I think we’re realizing that competing victimization in the oppression olympics keeps everybody oppressed, and so there’s been a lot of bridge-building between different disenfranchised groups. Social justice movements are becoming more effective, and there are a lot more White people who are trying to figure out how to lean in.
Of course, there’s pushback and resistance. We’ve got 253 voter suppression initiatives proposed in 43 different states right now, some of those very focused on Indigenous communities—requiring a physical address, not a P.O. Box when almost all of the Natives in North Dakota have P.O. Boxes—things like that. But at the same time that there is this pushback and resistance, there is bridge-building and momentum. I believe we’re on the verge of a new progressive era in America, in part in response to the regressive stuff we’ve been seeing the past several years.
You talk about being an ambassador in the borderlands—it’s like there’s an expectation that Native people are walking Indigenous encyclopedias. Why do you think that is?
First of all, it is not fair that anybody should have to speak for everybody. Of course, within Indigenous communities, we have a diversity of opinions—and emotionally charged opinions—on a whole range of topics, and we don’t all think the same way, act the same way, vote the same way. We’re diverse, too, so nobody can really speak for everybody. But we do get put on the spot and asked to do that. Unfair though it is, it’s important that we try to find ways to provide meaningful answers and shape the narrative rather than chase everybody away from some erroneous misunderstanding, from even getting an answer to their question. As a result, we have developed a certain musculature. We’ve gone to that uncomfortable space enough [that] it’s like going to the gym, where we get stronger and we’ve got some musculature for dealing with things. That means when it’s time to be on the spot as an ambassador, we’ve got an experience that most people don’t.
It sounds like you wear many hats. Is that what it’s going to take to improve our communities, both Native and non-Native?
For me, it’s not disjointed or strange that I do wear so many hats. I speak Ojibwe, I live in my Native community, I officiate traditional funerals and life ceremonies, and I’m at the service of my people. At the same time, I’m a university professor. I’ve got one foot in a wigwam and one in the ivory tower. I’m somebody who’s working on multiple levels to revitalize our language. They all fit together and they all make perfect sense to me, how those are different dimensions of the same kind of work. So if we want to decenter oppression, you know, and begin indigenizing, learning our language, learning our culture, it’s a really powerful set of tools for recentering ourselves in a healthy code of being, in ways of belonging. As Indigenous people, we have more than vestigial remnants of some different ways of looking at the world and some different ways of solving problems. We should indeed be pollinating the garden that everyone’s trying to harvest from. I mean we have a right to this stuff on our own and for our own well-being. But we do have something to teach and show the rest of the world, too. It’s an essential piece of how we move forward.
Blue Tarpalechee is a writer and enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
