Tag Archive: Esther Callahan

  1. The Periphery of Power Artist Talk

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    C4W:2023 Artists Talk Features: CL Martin, Henry Tyson, Perci Chester, Jessica Eckerstorfer


    In alignment with the concepts of The Periphery of Power, guest curator, Esther Callahan will be sparking conversation with four featured artists in a moderated panel discussion. These conversations provide the artists a platform where they have the opportunity to speak on their artistic processes and current inspirations within contemporary contexts. Accompany us in welcoming CL Martin, Henry Tyson, Jessica Eckerstorfer, and Perci Chester as they share the role they and their art play in our collective history. 

    Making their return to Gamut are CL Martin and Perci Chester. CL’s use of traditional media like charcoal, graphite, and acrylic creates mysterious characters with their own unique identity and presence. Her portrait, The Snake, is enigmatic and rebellious, but more colorful than many of the past works she has shown at Gamut Gallery over the years. Perci Chester has made her return to the gallery after 7 years with her sculpture, Tore So Glow. Her use of non-traditional materials such as an aluminum glass door, wire, steel filings, rusted nails, paper cups, a plastic torso, and metal springs create her featured sculpture. Perci’s work may be cold to the touch, but her abstract style is warm with human emotion, rooted in human and animal forms, often expressing motion, tension, and balance.

    We are delighted to welcome newcomers Henry Tyson and Jessica Eckerstorfer. Henry’s hand-built and wheel-thrown ceramic sculptures investigate the functions, associations, and assumptions of the body, pottery, and the points at which they overlap. Tyson’s sculpture, Inreflection, posits queer intimacy as a counter to normative views of sex, gender, and tenderness. While Jessica Eckerstorfer book and paper project, The Matriarch is part of a larger collection, entitled Voices in a Room. The project, which includes 12 pieces, uses short story, letterpress, handmade paper, and sculpture to bring voices to male-made, female forms in the art world. Each piece is soft in nature with her use of cotton pulp, thread, and natural foliage inserts creating this handbound book in its deconstructed form as it spills from the walls onto the gallery floor. 

    C4W:2023 The Periphery of Power ARTIST TALK
    Thursday, August 3rd // 7pm
    $5 pre-sale available
    • $10 day of the event
    • FREE for members

    Esther Callahan was inspired by the importance of creating a space that originates from a need to delve into all sorts of wide-ranging, hot-topic issues, through the works she chose in her curation of this open call for work, C4W:2023. This exhibition references The Periphery of Power through love, social mores, gender, intimacy, beauty, materiality, maternity, and more. The pieces Callahan chose convey her vision of art as a vehicle of agency and power. Join us as we learn about each artist’s processes, perspectives on their bodies of work, and the role of art in contemporary society as a whole.

    FREE GALLERY & GIFT SHOP OPEN HOURS
    Wednesday – Friday, 11am – 6pm and
    Saturday 11am – 4pm. We are available by appointment, please request an appointment 48 hours in advance.


    ABOUT THE CURATOR & MODERATOR
    Esther Callahan
    is an African American curator, arts organizer, and feminist scholar. Over the past 20+ years in the Twin Cities, she has created and co-created various platforms for cultural production rooted in interrogating the impact of racial and gender equity. She is the former Co-Director of the Emerging Curator Institute (ECI), a Minnesota based nonprofit designed to build the individual practices of emerging curators from diverse backgrounds. In addition to ECI, Callahan was a Curatorial Fellow at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), where she co-founded the Curatorial Advisory Committee as a model to help inform Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion practice in curatorial work. She is also the Co-Artistic Director for Arts & Rec US, a design and development company in Mpls.

    ABOUT THE PANELIST

    Henry Tyson’s (they, them) work consists of hand-built and wheel-thrown ceramic sculptures that investigate the functions, associations, and assumptions of the body, pottery, and the points at which they overlap. Henry posit’s queer intimacy as a counter to traditional views of sex, gender, and tenderness. Is it not a basic function of the body to hold another? To love? By blending the human form with functional pottery, they ask: “if we are indeed vessels, may we choose what we were made to carry? What does my body hold and why?”

    CL Martin (she, they) is a queer figurative artist who uses traditional media like charcoal, graphite and acrylic to experiment with enigmatic characters and their own unique identity and presence. She has studied art all her life and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is continually inspired by history, graphic & digital design and the performing arts. In 2007, she received an Artist Initiative Grant from the MN State Arts Board and the National Endowment for The Arts. She has exhibited internationally from London to Italy and her work resides in private collections in London, Italy, Paris, Ukraine, Berlin, Los Angeles and New York.

    Perci Chester (she, her) is an American visual artist working across disciplines including sculpture, painting, photography, and printmaking. Her work is abstract in style but rooted in human and animal forms, often expressing motion, tension, and balance in vivid color through imaginative invention. Created variously from metal, glass, wood, found objects, and industrial artifacts, Perci Chester’s work ranges in scale from intimate pedestal pieces to large public art installations, reflecting her sense of humor with the depth and complexities of memory and the human experience. She is best known for large-scale anthropomorphic installations that appear to defy gravity in suspended equilibrium and elicit an emotional connection as dialogue between spirit and matter.

    Perci Chester’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and is represented in private and public collections internationally. With an extensive background in art education, she has taught in Boston, New York, San Francisco and the Twin Cities and, for many years, served on the advisory board for College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. She holds an MFA as well as a Master of Arts in Teaching from Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. Perci lives and practices in Minneapolis.

    Jessica Eckerstorfer (she, her) is a 2nd generation, Filipina-American who grew up all over the Midwest, but settled in Minneapolis in 2012. She is a strong feminist, who believes in the intersectionality of social justice and the necessity of empathetic creativity. In addition, she is the Co-Founder and Artistic Community Director of Paranoid Tree Press. Her background is solidly based in arts nonprofit programming. She has dual Bachelor’s degrees in English and philosophy with a focus of civic life and engagement from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Fiction from Columbia College Chicago. She is a two time recipient of the Albert P. Weisman Award, and her work can be found in The Ivory Tower, Pilcrow & Dagger, and Paper Darts Lit + Art Magazine.Her day is split between co-directing The Southeast Asian Diaspora Project (SEAD) and art directing Paranoid Tree Press.

  2. C4W:2023 The Periphery of Power

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    “Radical self-love demands that we see ourselves and others in the fullness of our complexities and intersections and that we work to create space for those intersections”. – Sonya Renee Taylor

    C4W:2023 Features: Andy Jacobs, Becky Roberts, Ben DiNino, Brian Britigan, Briana Auel, Brooke Bartholomew, Caitlin Rose, Christopher Jones, CL Martin, Daniel Allyn Lee, Desirée Forgét, Devin Newby, Dustin Steuck, Erin McKillip, Henry Tyson, Jennifer Chilstrom, Jess Eckerstorfer, Karen Caldwell, Kathryn Blommel, Kelly Helsinger, Kevin Bergkvist, Kristi Abbott, Lindsay Alsaker, Lorelei Beckstrom, Lucy Comer, Nick Kim, Nikolina Lazetic, Perci Chester, Peter Giebink, Renée Boynton, Samantha Rickner, Sarah Sosa, Sarah Swan-Kloos, Sarah Vanasse Miles, Sean Ferris, Sepia Edwards, Shalom Ukwesa, Shanna Allyn, Shea Maze, Steve King, Travis J Collins, Von Dickens Ulsa, Wil Natzel, Yvette Griffea-Gray


    Our annual Call-4-Work exhibition is not a show that influences what art should be. Instead, the chosen guest curator brings their unique perspective and interpretation of the submitted works ranging the full “Gamut” of visual media. When Esther Callahan accepted the invite to curate this year’s C4W:2023, she went in as a blank canvas and let the artwork choose her, empowering the 254 artists to lead the way through all 1,076 submissions. Through our guest curator’s lens and perspective, this body of work presented the theme, The Periphery of Power.

    This year’s group exhibit will feature 45 artworks from 44 artists, 33 of which have never been exhibited at Gamut Gallery. The pieces Callahan chose convey her vision of art as a vehicle of agency and power.

    Art invites us to experience both the relatable and the unrelatable. It offers us a space to break down the confinements of expectation and it lives alongside, and informs, the intersections of daily life. Art opens the world of exploration – of the self, of our shared spaces, of our shared futures – and is a consistent truth-telling experience.

    “Collectively the works are joyous and fierce, honest and intimate, encouraging a crowd-shared consciousness to sew together multiple narratives and channel a bit of revelry and reflection. Inspired by the importance of creating a space that originates from a need to delve into all sorts of wide-ranging, hot-topic issues, this exhibition references The Periphery of Power through love, social mores, gender, intimacy, beauty, materiality, maternity, and more.”

    “This exhibition covers a range of artistic mediums, from highly detailed paintings rendered in acrylic on panels – paintings that complicate the relationship between artist and subject; beautifully emotional digital photography that denote resilience and resistance; to high fire stoneware ceramics whose visceral context embraces transformation in both the material and the conceptual.”

    “Each selected piece is part of the fearlessly celebratory nature of the exploration of beauty, autonomy, representation, and desire, and serves as an homage to all the fragmented pieces of human beings and the central note that art has played within our collective history.” – Esther Callahan 

    OPENING NIGHT:
    Saturday, July 15th // 6-9pm
    • $10 pre-sale, $15 door
    Pre-sales available and recommended
    • FREE for Gamut Members
    Featuring 44 local and national artists, Icy Icy Baby Shaved Ice Truck & DJ Ramses

    • Entry will be available at the door
    Returning this year, there will be two “Best in Show ” awards. One will be selected by the guest curator and the other by opening night attendees. Both winners will be awarded $100 cash and Platinum Memberships to Gamut Gallery ($400 value). You will not want to miss the opportunity to help one of these artists take the “Best in Show”!

    The Periphery of Power ARTIST TALK
    Thursday, August 3rd // 7pm
    • $5 pre-sales, $10 door
    • FREE for members
    Pre-sales coming soon!
    • Entry will be available at the door

    C4W guest curator, Esther Callahan, moderates a conversation with CL Martin, Henry Tyson, Perci Chester, and Jessica Eckerstorfer; four artists featured in this year’s C4W:2023 exhibition, The Periphery of Power. Join us to learn about their processes, ideations, and perspectives on their bodies of work, and art as a whole.

    Summer Markers Market
    Saturday, July 29th // 1-4pm • FREE
    Celebrate a summer day in our courtyard with amazing Twin Cities makers Alicia Speich, Jake Speich, Rock Johnsen, SNEW Ceramics, Third Daughter Restless Daughter, VCKSZ and more! From functional glass art and cross-stitches, to ceramics and home goods, we guarantee you will not leave empty-handed.


    Esther Callahan is an independent curator, arts organizer, and feminist scholar with roots in Minnesota. Over the past 20+ years in the Twin Cities, she has created and co-created various platforms for cultural production rooted in interrogating the impact of racial and gender equity. She is the former Co-Director of the Emerging Curator Institute (ECI), a Minnesota-based nonprofit designed to build the individual practices of emerging curators from diverse backgrounds. In addition to ECI, Callahan was a Curatorial Fellow at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), where she co-founded the Curatorial Advisory Committee that embraces all departments in Mia, from facilities, security, accounting, visitor services, and curatorial, as a model to help inform Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion practice in curatorial work.

    Some notable exhibitions include co-curating the exhibition Mapping Black Identities at Mia, an exhibition championing the diverse experiences of artists from America, Africa, and the diaspora; Stand Up Prints at Highpoint Center for Printmaking showcasing contemporary printmakers working to amplify the messages of people and communities who demand racial and social justice in America, and These Things are Connected, a part of the FotoFocus Biennial in Ohio, where the theme of connection for artists and opportunities was represented. Besides curating for commercial spaces she is sought after as a speaker, moderator and panelist at various universities, galleries, and museums, among others.

  3. Collector Panel Talk

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    Thursday, March 9th 2023 // Join the discussion to learn collector tips and gain insight into the local art market in the Twin Cities. Featuring curators Genie Castro, Erinn Farrell, Esther Callahan and Cass Garner.


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    When you collect artwork, physical aspects of a piece, like dimensions and colors, might be the qualities that push us over the edge into “gotta have it” territory, but generally, the buying experience is much more personal, intuitive, and rooted in a story. Artwork is more than what you see on the wall, it’s a narrative, a story shared by artists, collectors, and viewers. 

    Set amidst Gamut’s exhibition “Astroturf,” we invite you to join us for a panel discussion about collecting original artwork. The panel will feature four local curators, gallerists, and space-makers Genie Castro, Erinn Farrell, Esther Callahan and Cass Garner, who will each draw on their varied expertise in art consultancy, marketing, and managing collections. Together, these four women represent four corners of the Twin Cities art world, who share similar values and vision around the power of supporting local artists. 

    Are you ready to start collecting? These tastemakers will share tips and strategies for emerging collectors, like, how to learn about the artist and understand the materials and process used to create the work, and will dive into the intrinsic impulses that lead us to collect original artwork and build meaningful collections over time. buying within your budget, and commissioning artwork. The panelist will discuss how to go about collecting, how to support local artists, why it’s important to collect local art rather than outsourcing to other markets, and what characteristics make the Twin Cities unique.

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    Collectors Panel Talk
    Thursday, March 9th // 6-8pm
    This event is FREE, RSVP Required
    Limited Seating Capacity, 35

    What does it mean to be an “emerging art collector” in the Twin Cities? How do we support local artists, and why is it so important? Featuring curators Esther Callahan, Erinn Farrell, and Genie Castro and is moderated by Cass Garner

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    ABOUT THE PANELISTS

    Esther Callahan is an independent curator and co-artistic director at Arts + Rec Uptown. Callahan has been organizing exhibitions since the early 2000’s with a particular focus on artists from the region with a priority in diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in her curatorial practice. Callahan has curated and organized numerous exhibitions and installations including a recent exhibition for the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial in Ohio.  

    Erinn Farrell is a Co-Founder and Partner at The Coven and the principal of Erinn Farrell Design. A lover of people, process, and design, she specializes in encouraging empathetic and high-performing spaces by focusing on empowerment and placemaking; her efforts help colleagues and partners unlock their talents and create a joyful ruckus. A global leader in inclusive design, Erinn is a sought-after speaker and Interior Designer in building & curating spaces that acknowledge, honor, and care for their inhabitants.  She believes our success lies in showing up unapologetically curious, honest, and optimistic. 

    Genie Castro is a community leader in the arts. She creates unity with projects she is involved in by connecting with people. She encourages students and clients to get into the creative process and learn through that exploration. Castro is the director and owner of a printmaking studio in the Casket Arts Building in Northeast Minneapolis called SuperCharged Printmakers. It is there she and other printmakers create an inviting space for artists to create freely in the medium of printmaking and have showing opportunities. Her artworks hung alongside artists Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Frank Stella, Robert Longo, and Donald Sultan. Castro’s art is featured in the homes of many private collectors and in public and corporate collections.

    Cass Garner is Co-Owner and Director of Gamut Gallery, as well as a Graphic Designer, Collector, and Curator focused on curating local artists into Haus Salon locations throughout the Twin Cities. At Gamut Gallery, she brings local, national, and international established and emerging artists into the gallery, driving the mission that “art is for everyone.”