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DPA JANUARY FEATURED CLASSROOM: ICEBOX QUALITY FRAMING & GALLERY |
Among them is Icebox Quality Framing & Gallery – this area's venue for the Panasonic Digital Photo Academy, and one of the many contributors to two of the Twin Cities' biggest annual art shows, springtime's Art-A-Whirl and autumn's Art Attack. Howard M. Christopherson, the owner of Icebox and himself an art photographer, personally helped to develop Art-A-Whirl in the early 1990s, and was a pioneer in what became the city's designated fine-arts district, Northeast Minneapolis. "It's the oldest part of Minneapolis," Christopherson says. "It's really close to the river" – that'd be the mighty Mississippi, of course – "where General Mills and Pillsbury and all those grain companies started. St. Anthony's Falls, the only waterfalls on the Mississippi – that's where they set up their mills. The very first bridge over the Mississippi is still here; it's been replaced three times in the same location, but that's where they first bridged the river." The blue-collar district of mill-workers became home to Russians, Poles and Eastern Europeans, giving it a ethnic diversity that, though the faces and nationalities may have changed, remains to this day.  "Northeast wasn't an arts place in the late '80s when I first got here," Christopherson remembers, "but it's grown to be, really, the art epicenter of the Twin Cities metro area. Art-A-Whirl has become this huge event attracting thousands of people to the area in May. Then in November there's Art Attack, which is exclusively a Northrup King Building event."
Icebox didn't start out in this "seedy" place. Christopherson and fellow artist Dan Havel founded what was then Icebox Studio in another historic edifice, the Century Camera Building, in downtown Minneapolis circa 1986. When that structure was eventually torn down – sadly to make way for a parking lot of the newly constructed Target Center – the two collaborators relocated to "a dusty basement space on Central Avenue in an area of Minneapolis we knew little about."  Some cleanup and a little sheet rock later, that's where they held Icebox's first art exhibition: "Crystallized Phantoms, a show that explored a variety of spiritual inspirations in various media created by all 11 participating artists," Christopherson says. The show's centerpiece, a chessboard for which each artist contributed a trio of pieces each depicting some personal phantom, went on to win first place at the Minnesota State Fair as a group collaboration in sculpture.
Havel eventually moved on, and in July 2003, Christopherson moved Icebox to the Northrup King Building, at 15th and Jackson Streets NE. There, amid the history and exposed brick, the 1,700-square-foot space took shape as both a gallery and a retail framing business. Classes are held in what the venue dubs The Box Gallery, and the whole complex beckons as a photographic field trip. "Winter comes, you can stay inside and wander with your camera around a big industrial building that has all kinds of backdrops," Christopherson says. "I was just doing that myself. There are lots of different kinds of walls, lots of textures, angles just made for shooting. And if you go outside, you'll see the old tracks that border us, and fire escapes, and plants coming up through cracks..." He grows wistful as his voice trails off. He's someone who loves it here. "Through my window, right now, on the fourth floor," Christopherson, after a few moments, begins to describe, "I'm looking out over treetops and church steeples and the sunset. Trains go by real fast – mostly freight ... canisters and coal. And," he adds playfully, "I got a neat shot recently of a tree full of crows!"  Christopherson describes the Northrup King Building as "the Mall of America for artists. There are over 130 studios here. There are people who make pottery and guitars and kinetic sculpture. A weaver with great big, 10- or 12-feet-wide looms. Lots of painters.
"Artists understand artists," he notes. "If you approached a clay worker, for instance, you could say, 'How about if I take some pictures of you, and maybe give them to you for your website?'" A place of blue-collar beauty, where men of a bygone era worked hard and honestly, doing their part to bring food to America's tables, the Northrup King Building changed as America did, and so became living history and not a museum. The legacy of one kind of worker today imbues another kind, one whose work feeds not the stomach but the soul. As a place to hone one's photography, it's hard to imagine better grist for the mill. ICEBOX QUALITY FRAMING & GALLERY
1500 Jackson Street NE #442 & #443 Minneapolis, MN 55413 612-788-1790 Email: icebox@bitstream.net www.iceboxminnesota.com __________________________________________________________________
ICEBOX is hosting two special exhibitions this season: 20-20 Vision, Featuring New Artwork by Twenty Artists that have previously exhibited at Icebox Gallery Dan Havel “Open 24 Hours” Openings 8 PM to Midnight on January 19th, 2008. Shows continue through Saturday March 6th, 2008. Both exhibits can be viewed at the Icebox & website beginning on January 19th. Icebox is the oldest fine art gallery in N.E. Minneapolis, the area now known as The Arts District of Minneapolis. Iceboxminnesota.com is the website that chronicles the gallery exhibits in detail and is viewed globally on a daily basis. Upcoming shows in January are listed below:  The Exhibit: 20-20 Vision: Features New Artwork by Twenty Artists that have previously exhibited at Icebox Gallery. Over the past 20 years Icebox Gallery has brought public exposure to hundreds of visual artists. This group exhibition commemorates Icebox Gallery’s twenty years of fine art exhibitions with a display of new work from the artistic community that has been directly involved. The Juror & Icebox Owner: Howard M. Christopherson is the founder of Icebox Quality Framing and Gallery. Icebox is an artist-owned framing and gallery space located in Minneapolis, Minnesota but it is known all over the world. Established in 1988, Icebox Gallery has a “20 year“ reputation for exciting thought-provoking exhibits and for spotting and exhibiting emerging talent. Over the years Icebox has exhibited quality work by local artists and others from many parts of the world. Artists showcased in 20-20 include: Will Agar, John Ault, Doug Beasley, Eduardo Blidner, Terry Donovan, David Eisenlord, Flo Fox, Stephen Haynes, Frank Hoffman, Sid Kaplan, Michael Kennedy, Tom Quinn Kumpf, Maurizio Marcato, Aaron McLeod, Alan Montgomery, Linda Rother, Laurie Schnieder, Gigi Stoll, Jill Waterhouse, Ken Weisblum “Icebox has remained an independent sole proprietorship fine art gallery through many good and difficult periods since it began in 1988. It has existed this long because of the loyalty, quality and energy of artists, family, employees, art patrons and framing customers. Without the ongoing support of this special community Icebox could never have existed or lasted this many years. Thank you for your continued interest and contributions. I hope you enjoy the show.” - Howard M. Christopherson
The Show & Dates: Icebox Opening Saturday, January 19, 2008. Closing date is March 6, 2008 Opening 8 PM to Midnight on January 19th, 2008. Both exhibits can be viewed at the Icebox & website beginning on January 19th. ____________________________________________________________________
 Icebox Gallery presents: Dan Havel “Open 24 Hours” Dan Havel, is a Minnesota native who now lives in Houston, TX. He is best known for site-specific installations that explore the visual and conceptual opportunities in manmade and natural transformations of the world around us.
In 1993, Dan Havel was invited to create a site-specific installation in an abandoned X - rated movie theater in downtown Houston. While excavating the space, Havel found dozens of rusting film reels behind the screen. The roof had long collapsed, and rainwater had damaged the film emulsion. The reels of film were gathered and used as sculptural elements in the lobby for the piece. Once disassembled, the reels went back to Havel’s studio for 14 years. During the past year, Havel has revisited these images and produced a series of digital prints taken from scanning portions of the surviving reels of film. Beginning with water damaged 16mm vintage 1970’s pornography film, Havel selectively cut, scanned and collected stills to create expressive works of art. Havel has created striking digital prints that introduce the viewer to a fluid landscape of images altered by the entropic effects of water and time on the film emulsion. The colorful surfaces are cracked and scratched, with fractals of pooled emulsion intertwining and framing the various figures, stories, and locations in the films. The work mixes the naughty and kitschy images of x-rated film plots with the abstract expressionist exuberance of decay. “Open 24 Hrs.” is a homecoming of sorts for Dan Havel. Along with Icebox founder Howard Christopherson, Havel was part of a group of artists who frontiered warehouse space in downtown Mpls. in the early eighties. Havel and Christopherson shared studio spaces in the Century Camera Building, now demolished. This led them to North East Minneapolis in the mid 80’s. Havel exhibited his work at the infamous Riflesport Gallery at both locations before its demise. In 1997, he created “Rendering”, an installation in the old rendering room at the Soap Factory. Havel moved to Houston, Texas in 1991 and currently lives there with his family. |
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