In 2023 the Arts District (AD) will start its third decade – 20 years old as of the city’s enabling act Dec. 13, 2002. A lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same in those years. The world was different. Cell phones were just starting to be used for business. There was no social media, the Internet was a bit player. People were unsure if Northeast Minneapolis was safe and if they should move or visit. There was no such thing as even a $100,000 house. Few developers were interested in Northeast.
Artists were very interested in Northeast. Artists were excited — and Art A Whirl, it was everything. We all talked about it. Everyone had opinions on how it should be run and how it could be better. We were collaborating and sharing information, arguing every way we knew how to improve the art scene. That has not changed. It is just done differently now.
2022 was a breakthrough year for so many artists in the Arts District. For example, we wrote about three artists — Dyani Whitehawk, Piotr Szyhalski, and Leslie Barlow who were featured in the Whitney Biennial, Mia and the Weisman art museums this past year. Barlow and Szyhalski were featured in two of those at the same time. It will be a year that we hope will be the start of many more AD artists’ work being chosen for this type of honor — and letting us know about it.
You download the PDF here.
As we look forward to 2023, topics dealing with the environment and climate change have been growing stronger. We see many artists creating work on aspects of this most important movement.
We are working on discovering how many artists have moved from other states into the AD – if you know of a good story, please let us know. In general, there are a lot of amazing artists working on and experimenting with interesting ideas. We look forward to writing and sharing those stories with everyone to help everyone feel connected to the AD zeitgeist.
Article by Josh Blanc