In September 2013, Rochester Art Center presented the first-ever survey exhibition of Minneapolis-based artist David Rathman. Including works produced from 1991-2013, Stand By Your Accidents provided a comprehensive overview of the artists’ output spanning a twenty-two year period.

Known for her cutting-edge ceramic work, Swedish artist Henny Linn Kjellberg has created an original, site-specific installation titled Critical Mass that considers dual interpretations of this frequently used term. As described by Kjellberg: “Critical mass is most often used within nuclear science to describe the smallest amount of fissile material for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. It is also used as a socio-dynamic term to describe the existence of sufficient momentum in a social system, such that the momentum becomes self-sustaining and creates further growth. Critical Mass will reflect on the idea of the growth of human knowledge and the force of the group dynamic such as political movements and uprisings, and how actions and events sometimes can grow fast, or out of control, with either positive or negative outcomes.”

Katie Hargrave utilizes community-oriented research to investigate the creation of mythologies, the historical record, and the landscape. For several years, her research has focused on the intentional development of city, state, and national identity through symbols of state and national pride. Principally, these include images appearing on maps, lines that demarcate and assign borders, our shared histories via the lens of museums, and most specifically, the elements and imagery of state flags. By design, flags can allow for a codified, simple method to demonstrate our identity to those around us. They are potent and efficient symbols, and when well designed and oft used, are able to carry the weight of our history within their designs.

Tim Eitel has gained a reputation as one of the best young painters working today. Recognized as a leading representative of the “New Leipzig School” of painting—a moniker imparted on a small group of artists who together attended the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts—Eitel has risen to international prominence for his distinctive approach and contributions to the field of contemporary painting. Many of Eitel’s enigmatic works contain representational subjects inhabiting reductivist environments. From slate grey clouds in an ominous sky to a small fire burning in outward isolation, Eitel employs a palette of minimal, muted color to arresting effect. For his exhibition at Rochester Art Center—his first large-scale survey exhibition in the United States—32 works completed between 2002 -2012 provide a broad insight into the artist’s practice over the last decade.

The work of making oneself is on-going and part of a tradition of “women’s work” that is integral to a feminine identity. We are the mender of clothes. We are the fixer of holes. We are the makers of the family. We nurture ourselves, our spouses, and our children through craft and cooking. We make and tend with sewing needles, seam rippers, and scissors. These instruments are some of our tools, but so are our bodies. Our bodies are a site of comfort and discomfort, desire and disgust that we share with our partners and children. This act of becoming a mother and making a family was an experience of profound undoing and transformation of my body. These sewing tools and our bodies are, for me, deeply intertwined, and the dolls reference that relationship. In the making of these bodies, I hope to come closer to understanding the relationship I have with my own body.

The final 3rd Floor Emerging Artist Series exhibition of the year, features a unique project by St. Paul-based artist Aki Shibata. Originally trained in photographic processes, Shibata has transitioned her practice into one that explores the behavior of human interaction and notions of performance. Many of her recent projects involve dancing in public spaces for a specified duration of time on a repeated schedule. Consequently, her audience can be wholly random, or in some cases, repeat viewers. In either situation, the act of looking and it’s relationship to personal and public space is confronted and analyzed. In other projects, the artist facilitates interaction with others following a more systematic approach.

In her exhibition Frozen Music, Anna Boyer examines the junction of organic and structural form through a series of new works that use performed music as their point of departure. In doing so, she considers and presents to the viewer a unique project where, as the artist states, the “formulaic meets the idiosyncratic.”