'It's Been Awhile' An Explanation and Information on upcoming FUTURE PRESENCE GALLERY events

Hello all.  If you have stopped by The Future Presence Gallery's blogspot here you will have noticed that has not been updated since the day before our exhibition of IMPERMANENT PUBLIC, which was all the way back in July.  Here's why:

- IMPERMANENT PUBLIC - The New & Evolving Street Art exceeded ALL of our expectations. More than 500 people came to our one-night only event, crowding and warming the gallery on one of the warmest of Minneapolis summer nights. The response was incredibly positive, and all the artist's work collected looked amazing. Writers, graf artists, friends, entire families, neighbors, old couples, dogs, cats, press and it seemed like everyone who know everyone stopped in and showed their appreciation for this new form of public expression. As a curator, I was entirely blown away and incredibly moved by the interest, ideas exchanged and the number of people who notice and care about the amazing art happening in this city.

The show was so well attended and drew such a great response that there was an unexpected result: we actually got several warnings from other gallery owners, art organizers and in the know people that we were officially on police radar and needed to keep a lower profile lest we be subject to fire code violations, not having proper crowd permits or liquor busts. To avoid this unwanted attention, our next exhibit, our namesake group  show, FUTURE PRESENCE 3, was a rather quiet affair. The exhibition featured a mix of a dozen Minneapolis-based established and relatively emerging artists, and was a beautiful showing of contemporary work from a rising group of artists.  The fourth installment of the series, FUTURE PRESENCE 4, will reunite the almost 40 artists who have participated in all of the group shows together, making special room for collaborations and installations from artists who met and started working with each other after exhibiting together at Future Presence shows.

- Before that, gallery co-founder Bryant Locher will gather a prodigious and varied body of work for a solo exhibition, PHARMACOPEIA.  Since moving to Minneapolis several years ago, Locher has creates colorful geometric abstract paintings in addition to lightshows and productions for local luminaries ranging from Gayngs, Solid Gold, Lookbook and the Pines. PHARMACOPEIA opens September 30th at 6PM.

Toronto's Sean Martindale in IMPERMANENT PUBLIC

I am not quite sure how to describe how exciting it is to have Sean Martindale involved in IMPERMANENT PUBLIC. A few months ago, when this show was still hatching in my brainpan, I emailed him to express my appreciation for a project he had worked on where he organized a group of artists to creatively fix dilapidated city planters in Toronto. After a brief exchange we decided that his work seemed necessary in the show, as did a collaborative piece designed by Martindale and built by The Future Presence Gallery for Minneapolis. This is almost the art equivalent of Michael Jordan agreeing to be on your pickup basketball team.

For those of you who are not familiar with his work, he has been featured on just about every art/culture/fashion/trend blog ever for his inspired, unique public interventions which often combat advertising and urban grime with greenery. His work blankets not only the internet but also appears on city streets through collaborations with artists worldwide.

Pictured above is one of his more fascinating projects, an example of the Poster Pocket Plants, a collaboration with Eric Cheung . Using wheatpasted and illegal ad posters as material, they cut or extend a rip in the poster, staple it to the side and fill this created pocket with gravel, soil and everything a growing plant needs. It seems so, pardon the expression, natural, to take decomposing matter and make something bloom from it. Practical, beautifying and creative, Sean Martindale is most certainly a key figure in a new international direction for street and public art. 

Nathaniel


IMPERMANENT PUBLIC is Friday, July 29th from 5-11 at the Future Presence Gallery, 1126 2nd St NE, MPLS MN, 55413