FEE: Free

Color Improvisations 3

Dates: March 28 – August 23, 2026
Location: William and Anna Jane Schlossman Gallery, Plains Art Museum

Color Improvisations 3 features 42 vibrant, large-scale quilts that explore the expressive possibilities of color in contemporary textile art. Curated by acclaimed artist Nancy Crow, the exhibition includes work by 38 artists from the United States, Canada, and New Zealand.

Each piece was created specifically for this exhibition, highlighting a wide range of artistic voices united by innovation, bold composition, and masterful craftsmanship. Visitors will experience dynamic color palettes and inventive approaches that push the boundaries of quilt-making as an art form.

Following its international tour in Germany and North American debut in Nebraska, the exhibition continues its tour across the continent through 2029.

Exhibition Tour:
Thursday, April 9, 6:00–6:45 PM (Free)
Join a curatorial team-led tour exploring contemporary quilt-making and the ideas behind the exhibition.

FEE: Free

Wiwahokichiyapi: They Promised Things to Each Other

April 25, 2026 – February 7, 2027 | Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND

Treaties are living documents that continue to serve as legally binding agreements shaping the political relationship between Native Nations and the United States government. These agreements established land boundaries, resource rights, and reservations; they determine Tribal Nation citizenship and outline mutual obligations. The influence of treaties, and the policies surrounding them, has had a profound impact on traditional and contemporary Indigenous life, art, and ways of making and knowing.

By pairing treaties with historical and contemporary images and art objects, this exhibition explores how treaties continue to impact Native people and reverberate through Native creativity and expression.

Wiwahokichiyapi: They Promised Things to Each Other provides an overview of treaties in the United States, with a focus on those connected to our region. The exhibition was developed in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Plains Art Museum partnered with Lakȟóta Archeologist Tyrel Iron Eyes and the Giiwedinong Treaty Rights & Culture Museum team, including Logan Monroe, Don Wedll, and Winona LaDuke, whose research and expertise helped shape the exhibition. Students from Concordia College’s Digital Design class also contributed to the exhibition panel design.

This exhibition, and all exhibitions at Plains Art Museum, are free and open to the public.

FEE: Preview: $15 Members / $30 Non-Members | Anniversary Dinner: $50 plus tax, tip & beverages | Luncheon: $45

The 67th Midwestern: The Pursuit of Happiness

Exhibition on View: June 18–September 6, 2026 | The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, Moorhead, MN

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum presents the 67th Midwestern, The Pursuit of Happiness, one of the region's longest-running and most respected juried exhibitions of contemporary art. Featuring work by artists from across the Midwest, the exhibition explores interpretations of happiness, fulfillment, and the human experience through a wide range of artistic media and perspectives. The exhibition will remain on view through September 6, 2026.

Thursday, June 18, 2026

The 67th Midwestern Preview
The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum

• Doors Open: 5:00 PM

• Celebration in the M. Dorian Clemedtson Sculpture Court with music by The Cropdusters: 5:30–6:30 PM

• Awards Ceremony: 6:30 PM

Admission:
$15 Members | $30 Non-Members

Tickets available for pre-purchase at the museum and at the door.

The 66th Anniversary Dinner
Rustica Eatery & Tavern

• Social Hour: 7:00 PM

• Dinner Served: 7:30 PM

Limited seating. Reservations required.

Cost: $50 per person plus tax, tip, and beverages, paid at Rustica Eatery & Tavern.

Friday, June 19, 2026

The Midwestern Luncheon (at The Rourke Tavern)
The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum

• Social Hour: 11:00 AM

• Luncheon Served: 11:30 AM

Very limited seating. Reservations required.

Cost: $45 per person, prepaid through the reservation form.

For reservations and additional information, contact The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum.

FEE: Free

Threads of Offering | Thương Hoài Trần

June 27, 2026 – January 24, 2027 | The Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium & Xcel Energy Gallery at Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND

Threads of Offering presents the work of interdisciplinary Vietnamese American artist Thương Hoài Trần, whose creative practice explores identity, family history, displacement, memory, and diasporic connection through processes of weaving and unweaving.

Bringing together two major bodies of work — Ông Bà and Made in Vietnam — the exhibition examines the emotional and cultural complexities of immigration, generational disconnect, and labor. In Ông Bà, Vietnamese for “grandparents,” Hoài Trần creates monumental woven portraits honoring their family members. Each strand of yarn is hand dyed before being woven into large-scale portraits and partially unraveled, symbolizing fragmented memories, unspoken histories, and complicated familial relationships. Standing between seven and eight feet tall, the works evoke the presence of ancestors towering over viewers in the Ruth and Seymour Landfield Atrium.

Displayed in the Xcel Energy Gallery, Made in Vietnam features garments labeled “Made in Vietnam” that the artist collected, altered, and investigated through various material interventions. One featured work documents Hoài Trần painstakingly disassembling garments thread by thread over more than 24 hours, condensed into a one-minute video critiquing the hidden labor and exploitation embedded within fast fashion production. The work also functions as a self-portrait reflecting on diasporic identity and cultural inheritance.

Born in Tây Ninh, Vietnam and raised in Emporia, Kansas, Thương Hoài Trần holds degrees from Emporia State University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Their work has been exhibited nationally at institutions including the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Center for Craft, and the Studios at MASS MoCA.

Gallery admission is free every day of the week.

Generous support is provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program; the North Dakota Council on the Arts; the Arts Partnership; the McKnight Foundation; The FUNd at Plains Art Museum; Giving Hearts Day donors; Spring Gala sponsors; and Plains Art Museum members.

FEE: Museum Admission

Americana: Objects that Reflect Us

July 4, 2026–January 3, 2027

Explore 250 years of American history through the stories told by everyday objects in Americana: Objects that Reflect Us. This exhibition examines how Americans have understood their nation, communities, and identities through themes of democracy, conflict, opportunity, belonging, and culture.

Featuring artifacts that reflect the evolving American experience, the exhibition invites visitors to consider how ordinary people have helped shape the nation's history and culture over the past two and a half centuries.

This exhibition was made possible through a donation from Stenerson Lumber of Moorhead and the generous support of museum members.

Location:
Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County
Hjemkomst Center
202 1st Avenue North
Moorhead, MN 56560

FEE: Free to Apply

Call for Public Art – Interactive Movable Sculpture

Proposal Deadline: Friday, September 4, 2026 | 10:00 AM

The City of Moorhead is seeking proposals from artists to create an inspirational, movable public art installation that can be displayed at various locations throughout the city. Artists are encouraged to incorporate interactive elements that invite community participation and create engaging public experiences.

The City is looking for proposals that:

• Encourage public interaction through creative or kinetic elements

• Promote creativity and youth engagement

• Are safe and accessible for all ages

• Are durable enough for outdoor display in Minnesota's changing weather

• Inspire people to gather and connect

Examples of interactive elements may include kinetic sculptures, tactile components, or digital features that encourage exploration and play.

Proposals will be reviewed by the City's Artist Review Team (A.R.T.), with recommendations advancing to the Art and Culture Commission and ultimately the Moorhead City Council for final approval.

Application Deadline:
Friday, September 4, 2026
10:00 AM

FEE: See Program Fees page here

Shrek the Musical Kids! Youth Theatre Program

Shine Onstage in the
Trollwood Children’s Theatre Production of
Shrek the Musical Kids!

Trollwood Children’s Theatre offers 5th and 6th grade students a summer opportunity to be onstage performers, experience theatre, and gain confidence. This four-week, theatre program involves students in the creation and public presentation of a full-fledged children’s musical where students are the cast and crew.  This year’s selection is the family favorite Shrek the Musical Kids!  Theatre and elementary education professionals guide the students through this exciting creative process.

Grades:  5th & 6th (all grades refer to 2025-2026 school year)

Dates: July 20 – August 11, Monday – Friday

Time: 8:00am – 12:00pm

Location:  Discovery Middle School, 1717 40th Ave S, Fargo

Auditions:  Auditions will be held the first day of class for role assignment only.

Performances: August 11th at 2:00pm and 7:00pm, Discovery Middle School

Fee: See Program Fees page here

FEE: Free

Clear as Mud | Annie Lee-Zimerle and Brian Zimerle

August 1 – November 29, 2026 | Starion Bank Gallery at Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND

Clear as Mud brings together the work of Annie Lee-Zimerle and Brian Zimerle, two artists whose practices explore memory, materiality, and the quiet complexities of everyday life while reconsidering the promises and contradictions of the American Dream.

Drawing from backgrounds in printmaking, book arts, painting, drawing, and ceramics, the artists create works that reflect on domesticity, cultural mundanity, memory, and transformation. Annie Lee-Zimerle’s narrative-driven pieces examine her experiences growing up between South Korea and the American Midwest, while Brian Zimerle’s sculptural ceramics investigate the fragility of meaning through replicated objects shaped by history and material change. Together, their work invites viewers to consider what is preserved, altered, or lost over time, offering a layered meditation on belonging, cultural inheritance, and collective identity.

Annie Lee-Zimerle received her BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections. Brian Zimerle holds an MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art and has exhibited nationally while collaborating with archaeologists and institutions on historically informed ceramic recreations.

Gallery admission is free every day of the week.

Generous support is provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program; the North Dakota Council on the Arts; the Arts Partnership; the McKnight Foundation; The FUNd at Plains Art Museum; Giving Hearts Day donors; Spring Gala sponsors; and Plains Art Museum members.

FEE: No submission fee

Call for Artists: Art Ghoullery IX – Nine Lives to Live

Submission Deadline: Friday, September 11, 2026

The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum invites artists to submit work for Art Ghoullery IX: Nine Lives to Live, the ninth edition of its annual exhibition celebrating frightening, fantastical, and whimsical art for the Halloween season.

This year's exhibition explores themes of recursion, reanimation, rebirth, and reincarnation. Artists are encouraged to consider repetition, cycles, second chances, returning from the unknown, and other real or imagined interpretations of the theme. Work may be creepy, kooky, mysterious, or spooky, but should remain approximately PG-13 or under and retain a sense of whimsy and connection to the theme.

Artists may submit up to three works in any medium for consideration. This is a juried exhibition, and selected artists will be notified by Monday, September 14. Accepted artwork must arrive at The Rourke by Saturday, September 26.

All exhibited artwork will be available for sale, with a 40% gallery commission. Works should preferably not exceed 36 inches in any dimension and must arrive ready for installation.

Important Dates:
Submission Deadline: September 11, 2026
Acceptance Notification: September 14, 2026
Accepted Artwork Due: September 26, 2026
Exhibition: October 2–November 1, 2026
Masquerade Reception & Awards: Saturday, October 31, 2026

Location:
The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum
521 Main Avenue
Moorhead, MN 56560

FEE: $50 Booth Fee + 15% Commission on Sales | Application Required

Call for Artists & Vendors – Hidden Gallery Art Show

Application Deadline: Tuesday, September 1, 2026

The Hidden Gallery is seeking artists and vendors ages 21+ to participate in the upcoming Hidden Gallery Art Show, a community event designed to showcase and celebrate local creative talent.

Participating artists will have the opportunity to display and sell their work, meet visitors and potential customers, connect with fellow artists, and take part in a welcoming day centered around creativity and community.

Organizers will thoughtfully arrange the exhibition to give each participating artist an opportunity to showcase their work. Complimentary snacks and beverages will be available for participating artists throughout the event, along with a dedicated Artist Lounge for taking breaks, recharging, and connecting with other artists.

An outdoor canopy area will also be available for artists and guests to relax and socialize. Artists are encouraged to engage with visitors throughout the day, sharing their creative process and the stories behind their work.

Booth Fee: $50 + 15% commission on sales
Eligibility: Artists and attendees must be 21+
Application Deadline: September 1, 2026

Event Date: Saturday, September 26, 2026
Time: 12:00–7:00 PM
Location: The Hidden Gallery, 2520 20th Ave S, Suite A, Moorhead, MN
Questions: 218-329-5928

The event is sponsored by Unwind Dispensary.