Herd Mentality: New Work by Ruthann Godollei

Herd Mentality combines Ruthann Godollei’s research at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin with the current election cycle being aptly compared to a 3-ring spectacle.

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The Circus World Museum is devoted to circus posters and memorabilia. As a printer Godollei has a soft spot for the sensationalistic, if not entirely accurate, semi-surreal works on paper touting death-defying feats of daring and bravura. The current election cycle has been aptly compared to a 3-ring spectacle, complete with barkers, clowns and staged melodramatics. Meanwhile the country and the world have some real issues to contend with: staggering disparity, racism, pollution, militarization, ongoing wars, lack of access to education, health care, civil liberties and employment, -a long tightrope walk with no safety net. Here's the political circus as Godollei sees it, the bunting and the snake oil side by side with real-life death-defying situations our unequal system continues to reproduce. Herd Mentality will explore this subject matter with cutting satire through various printing techniques including lithography and screenprint.

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Ruthann Godollei lives and works in Saint Paul, Minnesota and received a MFA in printmaking from the University of Minnesota. Godollei is currently the DeWitt Wallace Professor of Art and Chair of the Art & Art History Department at Macalester College. She has exhibited her work all over the world. And her work is in numerous collections including National Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia. National Museum of Art, Poznañ, Poland. Centre for Fine Print Research, University of West England, Bristol, UK. Rutgers University, Camden, NJ. Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO. Frederick R. Weisman Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium.

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