The Best & Worst of Frank Gaard

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• Frank Gaard
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• Robyn Robinson
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media
• Visual Arts

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Frank Gaard, one of Minneapolis's most provocative and famous artists, will be featured this month at CO Exhibitions' "The Best and Worst of Frank Gaard," a show that spans four decades of art. The founder of the underground zine ArtPolice, Gaard is best known for his progressive work and his illicit content. While Artpolice is now archived at the Smithsonian and the Museum of Modern Art, Gaard's creativity also sprawls into a number of different directions, including larger pieces, portraits, installations, and collaborative work that Gaard created with his wife, Pamela. "We were interested in showing the best and the worst of his work," CO Exhibitions curator Belk says. Certainly, Gaard has been a controversial figure over the years, even inspiring protests when his art was shown at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1986. "He was stretching the boundaries of what could be shown locally," says Belk about Gaard's early years. At the same time, Gaard has, despite the mischievous anti-establishment aesthetic of some of his work, gained notice in the institutional art world, having been shown both at the Walker and the MIA, and received numerous grants from such foundations as Bush and McKnight. Gaard himself will be on hand to talk art with Robyn Robinson at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 25.
May 7-28, 2011