Missoula Art Museum
PATRICK ZENTZ: TRIO
October 21 – March 28, 2015 // Faith Pickton and Josephine Aresty Gallery
Artists’ Reception: December 5, 5-8 PM
Artists’ Gallery Talk: December 5, 7 PM
Artists’ Discussion: Kate Hunt and Pat Zentz, December 6, 1 PM
Trio is a sound installation artwork donated to the Missoula Art Museum in 2011 by Billings’ art collectors and connoisseurs John and Carol Green. The Greens are avid collectors of Montana art.
Concerned that too many artworks by Montana’s best and brightest artists were leaving for out-of-state museums and private collections, the Greens have made a focused effort to ensure that significant works of contemporary ceramics, painting and sculpture remain in Montana, available for the enjoyment of Montanans.
Trio consists of three individual “instruments”: a “drum” entitled Renowind; a “cello” entitled Puget Sound Table; and a “flute” entitled Horizon (Songline) Translator. The pieces interact with the outside environment by way of rooftop receptors that collect information about the velocity and direction of the wind. The information is then translated into electronic pulses and sent to each sculpture. Programmed with computer chips, the sculptures respond acoustically to the slightest variations. The genius of the sculptures is that the instruments take very precise, scientifically gathered bits of information and transform them into kinetic and acoustic dances that force those in the vicinity to notice what is going on outside the museum.
Patrick Zentz has spent his career translating environmental phenomena into extraordinarily poetic, kinetic, and informative sculptures. Raised on a cattle ranch near Laurel, MT, he initially intended to pursue a career as a doctor. While studying biology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA, Zentz realized he was not as interested in studying life forms as he was studying the interactions between life forms. To Zentz, art was the ideal way to explore this vein of thought, and he returned to Montana to study sculpture, earning an MFA from the University of Montana in 1974. Soon after, he bought the ranch next door to the one he grew up on and settled into the dual career of rancher and artist.
Zentz interprets the relationship between today’s mechanized farming operation and the land as one where “farmers act on nature with their machines.” He inverts this relationship in his art to explore the ways nature impacts machinery. In an interview with the Seattle Times he explained, “Basically, the environment has always fascinated me. I grew up in the range lands of Montana
and it’s a haunting place. So in my art, I was intrigued by the notion of translation, the idea of taking natural phenomena, putting it through a mechanism, a logical system, and then ending up
with a different apprehension of the phenomena.”
The Greens acquired Renowind directly from Zentz. The artwork had recently returned to his ranch following an exhibit in Reno, NV, and he installed it in a steel silo where the Greens had the opportunity to see the drumming in action. The look of the sculpture was of primary importance, but the drumming activity that translated the winds outside was an extra fascination to the two collectors. Renowind was next shown at Suyama Space in Seattle in 1999, along with its soon-to-be-collected siblings. The Greens believed all three kinetic sculptures should remain together as a Trio.
The Greens selected MAM as Trio’s home because the artwork filled an absence in the collection of a significant work by a significant Montana artist and a one-time student at the University of Montana. In addition, MAM had the interest and the space to give Trio the attention it deserves.
MAM is deeply grateful to the Greens for selecting our permanent collection as the home for a work as important and vital as Trio. Sponsored by a generous grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
This video has been generously sponsored by the Pleiades Foundation.
Missoula Art Museum Roger Shimomura: Minodaka on My Mind
Roger Shimomura's paintings and prints, including this series, Minidoka on My Mind, address social and political issues of Asian America, and have most often been inspired by diaries kept by his late immigrant grandmother that span the 56 years of her life. Minidoka on My Mind is the fourth major painting series generated by Shimomura based on his World War II internment experience. Shimomura states,
It is the culmination of years of my perusing images culled from books, magazines, government publications, personal recollections, and the internet. The result of this search has been a visual distillation of tar paper barracks, barbed wire, and desolate landscapes, which are inhabited by muted occupants standing in line to eat and to clean, quietly interacting, contemplating their fate...and to wait.
Roger ShimomuraIn Minidoka on My Mind, Shimomura challenges our notions of history and uses images rooted in popular culture to thrust us headlong into the racial conflicts of World War II, a time that witnessed the unjust imprisonment of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans. In this body of work, Shimomura presents us with richly designed and seamlessly executed paintings that convey the emotions associated with the internment experience; emotions associated with innocent imprisonment within a country unwilling to address institutional racism. What also comes through is the resilience of the human spirit and a recommitment to remember the stories of internment camps such as Minidoka so they never happen again.
Roger ShimomuraThe name Minidoka is of Dakota Sioux origin meaning a fountain or spring of water. Minidoka was first used in 1883 as a name for a Union Pacific, Oregon Short Line spur in the middle of the Snake River Plain which later became the site of a watering station. However, The Minidoka National Historic Site is in Jerome County, Idaho, northeast of Twin Falls and just north of Eden, in an area known as Hunt. Under provisions of President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, persons of Japanese ancestry were ousted from the West Coast of the United States. Minidoka housed more than 9,000 Japanese-Americans, predominantly from Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. The remote high desert site was selected for the Minidoka War Relocation Center lasting from 1942-45, and is one of ten camps at which Japanese Americans, both citizens and resident aliens, were interned during World War II. Notably, 60% of the Japanese imprisoned were American citizens. Fort Missoula, just outside the town of Missoula, MT also served as a site for a War Relocation Center under this executive provision.
Through Minidoka on My Mind, we can reach for and gain insight into our past, and by sharing and revisiting these stories, we garner a more accurate version of our history. Ominously, Shimomura writes, I offer this exhibition as a metaphor for the threat posed by current times, and as a warning and reminder that during international crises our government seems to consistently lose its memory regarding past mistakes.
Roger ShimomuraShimomura was raised in Seattle, earned his B.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his M.F.A. from Syracuse University in New York. He taught at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS and has recently retired. He has had over 125 solo exhibitions nationally.
This exhibition will be the educational foundation for the Fifth Grade Art Experience, co-sponsored with a grant from the Art Associates of Missoula. Additional funding for this exhibition is provided by the Wide World of Travel and the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. MAMbers Reception sponsored by NewWest.net.
Related Events:
MAM Members and Donors Reception with Roger Shimomura, October 1, 5 PM
Distinguished Artists Lecture: Roger Shimomura, October 1, 7 PM
Artist Reception and Gallery Talk, October 2, 5-8 PM
Artini: Minidoka on My Mind featuring pianist Lydia Brown, October 15, 5:30-9 PM
Cats of Mirikatani: Film, November 1 & 8, 1-2 PM
Missoula Art Museum // Creative Vision, Bold Future
Missoula Art Museum Jay Schmidt: Warning Shots
Jay Schmidt: Warning Shots
Jay Schmidt has been making art for thirty years in Bozeman, MT. The Missoula Art Museum is excited to work with Schmidt on mounting this comprehensive one man exhibition, his first major museum show in Montana. As visitors to the exhibit will see, Schmidt is a prolific painter and sculptor with a strong vision. A primary exhibition of his work is long overdue in our state.
Schmidt earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1974 and completed his MFA at the University of California, Davis two years later. In 2007 he retired from a twenty-four year career as a professor in the School of Art at Montana State University. Since then, Schmidt's studio practice has gained the head of steam of a freight train. Over the past five years, Schmidt has been integral in orchestrating a dozen collaborative exhibitions as well as two solo shows leading up to this MAM exhibition.
Outside Schmidt's home studio, situated on a hillside above an idyllic little Montana valley outside of Bozeman, stand outsized sculptures executed with a chainsaw. The piece titled Mascot is a menacing, two-faced anthropomorphic rat; the face on one side glares at you through one large, blood-shot eye and smokes a cigarette, the opposite side of the head is a brutish rendition of the clichéd dumb, buck-tooth rat complete with a red clown nose. There is a large bird-headed man with a totem of sorts on his back. A large skeleton stands, with jointed, dangling arms and hands held upright by marionette strings in a questioning pose, beside him an M-16 rifle painted Day-Glo stands taller than the figure.
Entering Schmidt's studio, the viewer is immediately engulfed by the impact of his paintings. His large scale, multiple panel canvases are at once a visual orgy of challenging imagery and beautifully constructed compositions of color and form. Schmidt works on a single picture plane -- there is no fore, middle and background -- carefully filling the canvas from edge to edge and corner to corner in the manner of a good formalist painter. But in these paintings the elements of composition are symbols laden with contemporary imagery, nothing is sacred in Schmidt's paintings. To be clear, while some of the works may be disturbing, it is only because the words, images, Pop culture symbols, and faces used carry so much weight in our current culture. This work addresses our contemporary global culture in a frontal assault. While the work's subject matter is aggressive and confrontational, it is remarkable in that there is no message of self-righteousness or moralistic lecture. In this feat, Schmidt's experience and maturity shines through.
Warning Shots is the perfect play between the 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work. Whereas the sculpture is brutish and tends to emphasize an anti-craft aesthetic, Schmidt's painting style is refined, mature, and bold. The works in the exhibition play off each other as a fully resolved whole. Schmidt's Warning Shots is powerful and thought-provoking, yet beautiful to gaze upon its colorful, advanced compositions. This body of work spurs a sincere visceral reaction, something not uncommon in the presence of powerful art, but also too rare to some artists as Jay Schmidt believes. He trying to change that.
Missoula Art Museum ~ Gary Horinek: The Gathering
MAM is no stranger to installations, and neither is Gary Horinek. The Gathering, created by Hingham, MT artist Gary Horinek, is the most recent in a long line of installations created by this regionally important artist. Horinek is a farmer most of the year that has created a bridge between the agricultural world and the art world by setting his sights on creating installations. It is important to note that farming, and a deep seated appreciation of the land and sustenance that the land provides us, is at the core of his creative expressions.
Horinek states of the new site specific work, In this piece I have a deck that represents mother nature, whose minerals are the building blocks of human existence. These basic building blocks are moved by water into organic containers such as wooden timbers which we use to store human experiences. In time that information grows, matures, decays, and dies and transfers back to nature.
An art form popularized in the 1970's, MAM has hosted many installations over the years. In fact, MAM hosted an installation by Horinek entitled The Journey in 1994. The Gathering's audience will immerse themselves in an environment loaded with symbols. Horinek uses native plants such as sage brush, yucca and a variety of native grasses, mixtures of sand, cement colored natural dyes, wheat and pottery chards. Experiencing this environment feels much more like an archeological dig site than a museum. Horinek deploys the materials to highlight the contrast between the impact that humans have on the land and the resilience of Mother Earth.
Several years in the planning, Horinek designed The Gathering specifically for the Carnegie Galleries at the MAM. His discipline is remarkable and it is one of the characteristics which make him a significant presence in the art scene in Montana. Among a handful of artists who also work the land, the state is fortunate to have such a disciplined and committed visionary. Horinek's commitment to the arts is evident in his selection of an art form that is both logistically difficult to execute and not easily collectible by the general public. However, installation art is a powerful and immersive form of communication, as a viewing of The Gathering will make quite clear.
Horinek was available for interaction with the public during his final week of installation in February. The residency and installation were supported through the generosity of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
Contact: For more information, please contact the Missoula Art Museum at 406.728.0447, visit the MAM website at missoulaartmuseum.org or contact Stephen Glueckert, Exhibitions Curator, stevegl@missoulaartmuseum.org, 406.728.0447 x226.
Top 15. Best Tourist Attractions in Missoula, Montana
Top 15. Best Tourist Attractions & Things to Do in Missoula, Montana: A Carousel for Missoula, Garnet Ghost Town, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Fort Missoula Museum, Missoula Art Museum, Aerial Fire Depot and Smokejumper Center, Rattlesnake National Recreation Area, Caras Park, Missoula Farmer's Market, Montana Snowbowl
Missoula Art Museum: John Buck
John Buck: Free For All
September 25, 2015 - March 12, 2016
John Buck is a dynamic artist widely known for his carved wood and bronze sculptures and large woodblock prints that incorporate a variety of diverse imagery. Recently, the artist has been creating largescale mechanical kinetic sculptures. On the event of MAM’s 40th anniversary, the museum will realize its longstanding desire to host a solo exhibition of Buck’s work. The scale of his sculptural work requires an installation in two of MAM’s larger spaces, the Carnegie and the Aresty galleries. The exhibition includes a mix of sculptures and prints on loan from the artist, paired with select works borrowed from the collections of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. The exhibition will premier Buck’s most recently completed kinetic sculpture State of the Union.
State of the Union includes a host of signs and signifiers that convey a dense narrative typical of Buck’s signature approach. Motors engage leather belts and carved gears. Cogs spin. Wheels turn. Heads rotate and rock. Figures move in elaborate gestures. Objects come closer then move away. Motion, however, is only the most immediate sensory experience. His sculptures, comprising a vast array of objects and symbols, offer profound and layered messages often with a pointed social or political undertone.
Art historians and critics often attempt to include artists in particular art historical movements, but the challenge of how to frame Buck’s significant production is self-evident. MAM curator emeritus Stephen Glueckert states, “using monikers such as ‘modernist’ or ‘post-modernist’ can seem really silly when thinking about Buck’s work…I would most humbly assert that he is an artist who tries to be realistic in telling a more accurate story… that the artist’s shapes, forms, and motion can tell a more engaged and encompassing story than words in history books. Artist’s stories are sometimes laced with irony. This is especially true in the language he uses…I think of him as ‘a realist’.”
Buck’s love of materials, attention to composition, and sensitivity to surface and color are all the characteristics that reflect his obsessive thinking process. The artist states, “The nature of my sculptures is that they are compositions that balance the weight of form and imagery. I think of my carvings as being somewhat matter-of-fact. If there is any appeal to this, it is due to the nature of the wood. The unfinished wood has a warm glow resembling flesh.”
Greg Kucera, whose gallery represents the artist in Seattle, states, “Buck uses jelutong wood as his primary material. It is a soft, white wood culled from Malaysian farming operations. Too soft to have any value as a building material, it is perfectly suited to the furniture maker and wood sculptor. The process of its own making becomes very apparent in the finished piece. Each hack mark and chisel cut remains visible.”
Buck’s artwork, however, is not constructed for the sake of formality. Even though it is obvious that he enjoys the materials and creative process, his sculptures and prints address very real concerns. His work has a profound directness that targets casual inhumanity, outright stupidity, or gross negligence. While these kinetic works feel playful, Buck elucidates his observations of the fragility of the human condition and his feeling of helplessness about the impending consequences of human action.
Buck has created acting and moving instruments with a potent message. Like many storytellers and balladeers, the artist has a soft side and a dark side. That contrast of light and dark is something that seems completely consistent and natural in Buck’s work. From Daumier and Goya to Picasso, artists have wrestled with depicting current social and political affairs, seeking to offer commentary and resolution through their artwork. In our time, Buck takes on this important role. But for artists like Buck, this is not a choice; it is an imperative.
Buck was born in Ames, Iowa, and received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. He went on to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and received his MFA from the University of California, Davis. He has lived much of his life between two homes, one in Bozeman and the other on the Big Island of Hawaii. Montana is fortunate to have Buck as a supportive and inspirational presence in the state. Buck and his wife, sculptor Deborah Butterfield, were awarded the Governor’s Arts Award in 2010.
Buck’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and is included in numerous private and public collections, including Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Art Institute of Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum, Contemporary Arts Center in Honolulu, Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Seattle Art Museum, and the Missoula Art Museum.
Montana Travel - Missoula and Butte - YouTube
Day one of our USA travel took us from British Columbia to Washington, Idaho and into Montana, some 900 km.
music by Artist: Tryad
Title: Waltz Into the Moonlight
Title: Struttin'
Title: Alone
Missoula Art Museum: A Night Out with M. Scott Miller
A Night Out with M. Scott Miller
September 7 - December 23, 2012
A Night Out with M. Scott Miller is a selection of recently completed works from Missoula artist M. Scott Miller. There are two evident concepts reflected in Miller's new works. First, is the artist's consistent selection of cityscapes and night scenes familiar to most Missoulians. Like the Impressionists, it is critical for the artist to capture a particular time and light.
To this end, Miller is consistent in this effort, as one magical moment after another grabs our attention helping us to look upon Missoula anew. What is so fresh in these works is that Miller has painted Missoula in a way that it has not been painted before.
Second, is the expertise with which he handles the medium. The airbrush technique was popularized in the 1970's but is not a technique that is often seen anymore. Miller is an expert at not only limiting the palette to convey a particular evening moment, but also consistently applying the paint for the right effect.
Miller states Light and color are the two reasons for my love of painting. They make me feel a certain way. I grew up in Missoula. I'm a child of the seventies and a graduate of Sentinel High. Missoula was a wonderful and sometimes magical place to grow up in, but New York was calling and along with its promises was the school at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Illustrating and other odd jobs for nearly two decades in New York City was an amazing experience. One for the young ... From the moment I moved back to Missoula I was amazed again at the color and light and how beautiful my home town really is, especially at night.
Diversity Day 2019
The 10th Annual Diversity Day was held at the Missoula Art Museum on Saturday, April 13th from 5:30-7:30pm. Local youth from Empower Montana’s middle school after school programs, EPIC (Empowering People Inspiring Change), Youth Forward, Be You Crew, CS Porter GSA, and Big Sky High School GSA (Empower Montana’s LGBTQ+ youth groups), as well as Big Sky High School’s student action committee will be presenting a community art project themed “Let Me Be”. Parents and oftentimes society discourage young people from being who or what they want to be. This project allows the students to dismantle the stigma and shame surrounding some of the identities that they hold and reclaim their autonomy. In addition to the “Let Me Be” projects, EmpowerMT will be presenting the first ever “Youth Lead Now Awards.” EmpowerMT has identified young people around the state of Montana who are using their leadership to inspire change in their communities. These youth will be presented the award and offered the opportunity to speak about the change they are creating in their communities.
Missoula Live 01-14-2019
Joel Baird and Kim Anderson hosts local Missoula area Non-profits and civic groups. On todays show guests from the Missoula Art Museum on the 48th Annual Benefit Auction. The Flagship Program gears up for their Winter and Spring After School Sessions. Tavelers' Rest State Park is in the house talking about weekly Winter Stories all winter long and beyond. EMpower Montana talks about MLK Jr day events.
United States of Arts: Montana
In collaboration with the Montana Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts looks at the arts and culture of Montana.
Developed as part of the National Endowment for the Arts 50th Anniversary United States of Arts: Tell Us Your Art Story series.
For more on the National Endowment for the Arts 50th anniversary, go to
Backroads of Montana: Episode 29 - Rockets, Peaks & Poets (2008)
Episode #29 of Backroads of Montana hosted by Montana TV & Radio personality, William Marcus.
We will visit the Big Sky Rocketry Association and watch their launch event near Twin Bridges and then explore a geologic curiosity near Sunburst called Jerusalem Peaks. We will also profile Dixon poet Victor Charlo. William Marcus hosts the program from the Range Rider's Museum in Miles City.
This episode lifts off at the spring launch event of the Big Sky Rocketry Association. Backroads follows one of the group’s youngest members, Keenan Cox from Helena, as he tests model rockets he built himself – or in teamwork with his father Allan.
The Backroads crew, always on the lookout for interesting geologic formations, stops at a spot only locals know about between Sweetgrass and Sunburst near the Canadian border. They call the sandstone & limestone outcroppings, shaped by centuries of Montana weather and wind, “Little Jerusalem.”
One of the more strenuous, skilled jobs of the Montana lifestyle is featured during a visit with Glen Johnshoy, a farrier from Missoula.
The program comes to a poetic end in Dixon with the story of Victor and April Charlo, a father and daughter who were brought closer together by two languages – English and Salish. William Marcus hosts the program on-location at the Range Riders Museum in Miles City.
Program Update
Bob Barthelmess, curator of the Range Rider Museum in Miles City died June 21, 2011. He and his wife retired as curators of the Range Riders Museum in April, 2011 and his daughter, Bunny Miller, took over.
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Econo Lodge Missoula - Missoula (Montana), USA - Video Review
Econo Lodge Missoula - Book it now! -
Econo Lodge Missoula sells fast on our site. The Econo Lodge hotel provides easy access to Interstate 90 and U.S. Highways 93 and 12. This Missoula, MT hotel is just minutes from downtown Missoula, the University of Montana and Silvertip Casino, and is convenient to the Missoula International Airport. Be sure to tour the interesting local museums, including the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula and the Missoula Art Museum.
Every well-appointed guest room features a 26-inch flat-screen television, coffee maker, work desk, hair dryer, iron, ironing board and cable television with free movies. In addition to standard amenities, some rooms have microwaves, refrigerators and sofa sleepers.
Rise and shine in the morning to an enjoyable free continental breakfast and free coffee. Guests are also welcome to relax in the on-site hot tub. Business travelers will appreciate that this Missoula, MT hotel provides free wireless high-speed Internet access and copy and fax services.
Pet-friendly rooms are available to accommodate four-legged traveling companions. Guest laundry facilities are located on the property for convenience.
Visitors will enjoy an abundance of outdoor recreational activities in the area, such as biking, fishing, golfing, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, skiing and tennis. Several restaurants and various traveler's amenities are walking distance away. Nearby shopping and businesses make our hotel ideal for both leisure and business guests alike.
Wake Up Missoula 3-14-2014
Missoula's Hyper Local Morning Show.
On this episode we show and tell the Missoula Art Museum, the updated date to the Creative Cat Film Contest, the events of the weekend and the city council opening the new bond for the police and fire department.
Montana's US 93 into Missoula: MT 200 Southbound, I-90 Dashcam
Luv 2 Drivelapse? - Like for updates & great travel ideas
This drive finishes what was started in another video: it begins along US 93 near the junction with MT 200, and heads south, connecting with Interstate 90, into Missoula. It includes a drive around downtown Missoula, Montana.
Music Info:
Artist: Chris Zabriskie
Titles May Include:
Oxygen Garden
I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor
Out of the Skies, Under the Earth
The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch
I Am Running Down the Long Hallway of Viewmont Elementary
I Am Running with Temporary Success from a Monstrous Vacuum In Pursuit
Divider
Wonder Cycle
Candlepower
Air Hockey Saloon
Mario Bava Sleeps In a Little Later Than He Expected To.
You'll find the track title(s) at the end of the video.
Check out Chris's music:
Yes, I do have written permission from Chris to use his music.
Montana Museum of Art and Culture
Montana Museum of Art & Culture is home to one of the oldest and most prominent fine art collections in the Rocky Mountain Northwest. Located on the University of Montana campus, MMAC has an international reputation and its staff maintains more than 11,000 objects, including significant historic and contemporary artworks.
The MMAC is planning for a new home, one that will be big enough to store and display many more of its incredible pieces of art. To support this project, visit
Montana Indian Museum 2016
Ggyit
Missoula City Club, October 2012
Montana Museum of Art and Culture: Hidden Treasures in the Hidden Treasure State, with Barbara Koostra, Dir., MMAC