The Gordon Parks Gallery serves a multi-faceted mission; to support the arts curriculum and cultural activities of Metropolitan State University, and to preserve the legacy of the 20th century multi-media artist Gordon Parks. As an academic venue, the Gallery is committed to providing educational opportunities for adult learners through internships, student exhibitions and related programming. As a civic venue, the Gallery is dedicated to exposing Minnesotans to the life and work of Gordon Parks through youth and community outreach programs. The Gallery is dedicated to showing the work of various subjects, media, forms and content by diverse artists, including emerging and established artists of various ethnic and cultural background.
Location
The GordonParksGallery is located in the new Library and Learning Center on the St. Paul Campus at 645 East Seventh Street.
Gallery Hours
Monday - Thursday 11 AM - 7 PM
Friday - closed during summer
Saturday 11 AM - 4 PM
Phone: 651-793-1631.
To request accommodations for a disability, call Disability Services at 651-793-1540 or 651-772-7687 (TTY)
Current Exhibit
Voyage
Reception Date: Th. Jan. 26, 5-8 pm
Show Dates: Jan. 27 – March 2, 2012
Program Date: Feb. 9, 7 -8 pm
Voyage features the mixed media sculptural work of Chilean-born artist Alonso Sierralta, Minneapolis. Regarding the exhibition, guest curator William G. Franklin, Saint Paul, has said, “Few sculptors succeed in making their craftsmanship and aesthetic philosophies effective enigmatic personal and universal narratives. Sierralta’s constructions are assembled as if organic forms serve to voice deep existential ideas about man’s physical and spiritual condition. Sierralta’s implementation of varied media and scale in his work can been seen as a poetic struggle from which three-dimensional revelations are born. He is an artist distinctly capable of converting sensations into forms, of achieving transmutation. The selected eleven pieces in this show are some of Sierralta’s finest artistic deliberations, a great opportunity for The Gordon Parks Gallery visitors to experience some of his sculptures in conversation with each other.” In addition to the exhibition, the artist will deliver a slide lecture in the Ecolab Community Room (adjacent to the gallery) on Tuesday, Feb. 9 from 7–8 p.m. In this presentation, Sierralta will discuss the conceptual underpinnings and methodology of his sculptural practice. A short film by Franklin regarding Sierralta’s work will be screened as well.
Past Exhibits
Mixed Media: The Faculty Show 
Reception: Th., Nov. 10, 2011
Show Dates: Nov. 11 – Dec. 10, 2011
This exhibition features the creative works produced by a number of Metropolitan State’s arts instructors. From paintings and drawings to photographs and paper garments, this show highlights the multi-disciplinary efforts of Resident and Community Faculty. Participants include: Joseph Flores, David Means, Amy Sands, Erica Spitzer Rasmussen, Anne Sugnet, Pamela Valfer and Petronella Ystma.
Material Memory: The Art of Recycling 
Show dates: Oct 14 – Nov. 4, 2011
Reception date: Th. Oct. 20, 5-8 p.m.
In 1992 Ian Jacknis of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, California, wrote, “Like collage in art or quotations in literature, the recycled object carries a kind of ‘memory’ of its prior existence. Recycling always implies a stance toward time – between past and present- and often a perspective on cultures – one’s own and others.” Like the adage associated with the Great Depression ‘waste not, want not’, some contemporary artists breathe new life into sculptural objects by working with the detritus of a consumer culture instead of adding to the global scrap heap. Alan Wadzinski and Jan Elftmann do just that. Perhaps these artists can inspire us to reconsider a material’s potential in our daily lives.
Relative Remains by Jody Williams
Reception: Thursday, Sept. 15, 5-8 PM
Show dates: Sept. 16 - Oct. 7, 2011.
Relative Remains features William’s diminutive and meticulously executed artist's books, boxes, and prints. Inspired by the natural world, its small inhabitants and her need to create order out of chaos, Williams has said, "A number of experiences influenced this focus, including intensive beachcombing on Nantucket, a commission to create a Cabinet of Curiosities for the Carleton College Library, a class at Hamline University in the natural history of Minnesota, and a semester of collecting specimens in County Clare, Ireland." Although not overtly didactic, the works in the show have ecological and philosophical underpinnings. Many of the featured creatures were chosen after several months of research regarding their physical form and their ability to adapt to environmental challenges. Moreover, these artworks serve to remind us of our own tenuous existence, for we as a species are young in comparison to some of these prehistoric invertebrates.
Esperanza by Carolyn Kallenborn
Reception: Thursday, March 24, 4 to 7 PM
Show dates: June 9, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Regarding the work, Kallenborn has said, "The work in this exhibition was inspired by the improvisational and interactive alters that I have senn during my time in Oaxaca, Mexico. Esperanza means hope. This exhibition is my public ofrenda, or my alter. It is a physical manifestation of my wish or desire for healing for myself and our world community. With objects and interation, I hope to create a place of reflection and memories of those things that are important in life."
Student Salon 2011
Reception: Thursday, March 24, 4 to 7 PM
Show dates: March 25 - April 15
Student Salon 2011 features multi-media works produced by Metropolitan State students, enrolled in both undergraduate and graduate programs. From sculptural objects made of paper to photographic abstractions, this exhibit surveys the diverse form and content explored in class and beyond.
In the Spirit by Ta-coumba Aiken
Reception: Thursday, February 3, 2011, 4 - 7 PM
Show dates: January 28 - February 25, 2011
In the Spirit is a solo exhibition by St. Paul painter Ta-coumba Aiken. Through mixed media paintings on canvas and blown glass, Aiken executes figurative imagery that morphs into abstraction. Although the Civil Rights, the Black Arts and the hippie movements have influenced Aiken’s work, the artist suggests that this latest body of work was inspired by his ancestors’ voices. Regarding his paintings, Aiken has said, "I create my art to heal the hearts and souls of people and their communities by evoking a positive spirit."
Hopes and Dreams: the 2009 MOSAIC Commission
by Sean Smuda
Reception: Thursday, November 11, 4-7 PM
Show dates: November 12 - December 10, 2010
Hopes and Dreams: the 2009 MOSAIC Commission is a series of multicultural portraits by photographer Sean Smuda. Every year the commission is awarded to an artist in a different medium to celebrate the cultural diversity of Minneapolis. Regarding the collection, Smuda has said, "The 20 portraits I’ve created for the MOSAIC Commission were done in and around the Midtown Exchange in south Minneapolis. In their microcosm of diversity they show, in part, the diversity of the city as a whole. Given a set of questions entitled ‘Hopes and Dreams,’ participants were asked to write and draw their own dreams while thinking of the changes from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama. Layered with the writings and drawings of participants, and other sourced material, the portraits are a personal, geo-political meditation on individuality, diversity and the forces which travel between us."
Smuda will present a lunch-time slide presentation about the commission and the portraits. The talk is Thursday, November 18, from noon-1 p.m. in a room adjacent to the gallery. Attendees are welcome to bring their lunches. Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.
Ten Years of Hispanic Posters by Luis Fitch of Uno Branding
Curated by Douglas Padilla
Reception: Thursday, October 14, 4-7 PM
Showdates: October 15 - November 5, 2010
Luis Fitch’s posters speak to both Latinos and Anglos, to young and old, to hip and square, to rural and urban. His work references and modernizes Mexican cultural history even as it communicates contemporary Minnesotan Latino community life. His art bridges the distance between the overtly commercial and the quietly nostalgic. And when Fitch strikes out in a political direction, he creates work that is both ironic and refreshingly humorous.
Weighing the Air: the Art of Collaboration
Reception: Thursday, September 16, 4 - 7 PM
Show dates: September 17 - October 8, 2010
Weighing the Air: the Art of Collaboration features artists' books by Julie Baugnet with multi-lingual poetry by Felip Costaglioli. This exhibition evolved when Baugnet (a professor of graphic design at St. Cloud StateUniversity) and Costaglioli (a professor of film studies, also at St. Cloud State) discovered their affinity for keeping journals over a cup of coffee. Baugnet was exploring book forms and studying French. Costaglioli was recording his thoughts in English, Catalan languages and French. The result is a rich inter-disciplinary exhibit of painted poems, some stretching as far as seven feet in length.
Gordon Parks: Crossroads
Showdates: May 22 - July 29, 2010
The Gordon Parks Gallery is proud to present Gordon Parks: Crossroads , the inaugural photographic retrospective celebrating the life work of one of America 's most accomplished 20th century artists. Photographer, poet, novelist, composer, musician and filmmaker, Gordon Parks (1912-2006) spent a lifetime shattering barriers in his pursuit of truth, beauty, social justice and artistic expression.
Student Salon 2010
Reception: Thursday, March 25, 4 to 7 PM
Show dates: March 26 - April 23, 2010
This exhibit features multi-media works produced by Metropolitan State students, enrolled in both undergraduate and graduate programs. From chalk pastels to felted abstractions, this exhibit surveys the diverse form and content explored in class and beyond. New to the exhibit this year is a collaborative writing project between the studio arts program and Haute Dish, the university’s on-line journal of arts and literature. A poetry competition was held that challenges Metropolitan’s student writers to respond to selected visual works in the exhibition. The three winning entries are exhibited alongside the artwork.
We Sing Our Songs
Reception: Thursday, January 28, 4 to 7 PM
Show dates: January 29 - February 26, 2010
We Sing Our Songs is a photographic exhibit that provides opportunities for young Native American women to express their artistic skills, voices and leadership capabilities to the public. This exhibit has created new and effective channels of communication for the young artists represented in this show. The show was organized by the non-profit In Progress, which assists young people in developing their skills as storytellers, artists and leaders through the use of digital media.
