Anne Labovitz: "122 Conversations"

Thunder Bay Art Gallery hosts "122 Conversations: Person to Person, Art Beyond Borders" by Anne Labovitz throrugh Oct. 18. This is a traveling exhibition of artwork based on conversations between the artist and the people of each of the five sister cities of Duluth. The project was organized by the Tweed Museum of Art and presented in collaboration with Duluth Sister Cities International and the University of Minnesota Duluth Fine Arts Department. Anne was named Artist of the Year by the Duluth Depot Foundation in 2013. The exhibition launches in Thunder Bay and will then travel to the remaining sister cities for two years after which it returns to Duluth. Opening events will be held in Thunder Bay, Canada; Rania, Iraqi Kurdistan, Petrozavodsk, Russia; Ohara-Isumi City, Japan; and Vaxjo, Sweden. The exhibition tour will culminate in Duluth at the Tweed Museum in 2017. The work of the exhibition represents two years of planning and 60 Skype or in-person interviews with 10 residents of each of the five sister cities of Duluth, including the mayor from each city. The large-scale paintings created by Labovitz are inspired and directed by the spirited cross-cultural interviews. Inscribing conversations through drawing, painting or carving, the artfully documented dialogue is applied and overlapped in layers on paper. Each of the 10 pieces depict an interpretation of the conversations and include faces, words and descriptions of the experiences that relate to the individuals that were interviewed. Contact Thunder Bay Art Gallery at 807-577-6427 or visit theag.ca. Hours are Tuesday to Thursday noon to 8 p.m. and Friday to Sunday noon to 5 p.m.