Local Art Seen: Sculpture Show @ the Tweed. Museum Director Ken Bloom Retires.

"Pair, Pear" by Isidro Blasco (detail)

The food was good. The music was good. The speakers were good. The afterparty was good. And the setting was great.

After 15 years, that fellow from Brooklyn, the one who some thought would never stay, seemed like he'd never leave. And actually, the big surprise might be that he isn't really leaving. That is, he's not leaving Duluth, he's only stepping down from his position as museum director.

For Ken Bloom it will be a new chapter, not the end of the story.

He's not the first East Coast or West Coast artist to have move here and fallen in love with the region. Bloom's passion is photography, and his aim will be to stay, with wife Danielle, and have Duluth his continued "base of operations."

When it comes to the economics of retirement, you can own 40 acres here or 40 square feet in Manhattan, so why go back? (For my fact checkers, this is hyperbole, but not by much.)

UMD catered the food, Blackwoods the bar, with short farewell remarks by Jim Klueg (an art prof at UMD's School of Fine Arts), Rick Smith (director of the American Indian Learning Resource Center), Annie Dugan, and Ken himself, the highlight being Ken's screeching mike. (Just kidding, again.) These were followed by musical performances by Soprano Alice Pierce and pianist Jacqueline Foley.

The talks began with Jim Klueg welcoming us, then introducing Rick Smith, who thanked Ken for being respectful of the sacred items in the collection including repatriated spirit bags and birchbark scrolls.

"Time Bomb" by Karess Pastore

Klueg then introduced Annie Dugan, former director of the Duluth Art Institute, among other roles here in the region. Annie was in school when he first learned of Ken Bloom's selection to be Tweed Director. The person who informed her said, "He's not going to last long at all. He's from Brooklyn and doesn't even try to hide it."

Dugan said that while she was at the DAI "Ken came to openings, but also came back to look at the work." This is what impressed her. He cared about the art and took time to engage it. She spoke briefly about the importance museums like the Tweed offer "in service to the art, the cultural context, people and the stories."

"Cubic Herd" by Leslie Bohnenkamp

Always eloquent, she spoke about the challenges art museums face today, citing a New York Times article "Can Museums Find A Way Forward?"

Ken Bloom was then introduced and he began by indicating that all he did was "under the watchful eye of George and Alice Tweed." He talked about the mission of the Tweed, that it was an elevating opportunity for the whole community. The Tweeds gave their collection the the University so that it would be shared.

Ken Bloom awaiting introduction. 

"This museum is unique," Bloom said. "It is about us, our collective history. All exhibition s and acquisitions are paid for by you, the community. UMD pays for overhead and staff, but this is your museum."

Though he's lived in New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Japan and elsewhere, he is retiring here "because the lake got me. And my wife Danielle got me,..."

He noted that this was his first real opportunity to craft a collection. And at this moment the current show of art by Minnesota's Native Americans provided a visual endorsement of his description of our region as "the Ojibwa Riviera."

He closed with this takeaway: "Art is our way of expressing our community and our time here on earth."

EdNote: Except for the photo of Ken above, all photos here are from the sculpture exhibit upstairs featuring works currently in the Tweed collection.

"Untitled" by Isidro Blasco

"Figure Fragment #AV" by Orazio Fumagalli

Related Links
Powerful Images & Native Stories Fill Main Hall at the Tweed
Museums Confront Their Crowded Basements

Meantime, art goes on al around you. Get into it.