North Loop Gallery Asks: What’s on Your Mind?
Every other year, North Loop’s Form+Content Gallery asks Minnesota artists one question: “So, what’s on your mind?”
Artists being artists, Minnesotans being Minnesotans, these times being these times, their answer is always “A lot. Well, everything.”
This year, about 160 works were submitted, and 32 were selected—just one per artist—for hanging on F+C’s compact walls as the Open Loop 2026 Biennial.
Of course—artists being artists—their “answers” to what’s on their minds are expressed visually not verbally, using everything from paper, cardboard, clay, metal, stone, plastic, and lint—go with me here!—to embroidery floss. (Say what? It’s A Thing. Really). With watercolor, pastels, pen-&-ink, inkjet, acrylic, intaglio, mordancage, and photography. By drawing, casting, carving, collaging, assembling, painting, gilding, suspending, bending, lino-cutting, weaving, cut-out-ing, and stapling.
By The Window by Dan Petrov
Selecting “the 32” is how the show’s juror, Minneapolis’ own fearless-&-full-of-joy cultural historian Kylie Linh Hoang could form her own answer to that same question: “What’s on your mind?”
Juror Kylie Linh Hoang selected the 32 art pieces out of about 160 submissions.
Reveling in the bounty of submissions, she identified works that seemed to her the best able to strike up “conversations” among each other while also inspiring her choice of the show theme, “Among and Between.”
Respect My Jeans by Aruna Rangarajan
Says Kylie, “All the selected works in this show are asking and responding to big questions on environment, mythology, identity, and memory. To be among something suggests congruity and alikeness, but to be between suggests an understanding of contrast. The artworks embrace the complexity and nuance of existing as both a part of something together and as wholly unique objects individually.”
Kyle continued, “Open Loop 2026 emphasizes themes which emerged from the submissions that evolved around memory, identity, and migration. The exhibition will examine current events, personal histories, and our collective investment in fighting for the future we want to see.”
Kylie’s singular perspective as a cultural historian not, as would be the norm, an art historian, gives her the broader vantage to explore art in its widest contexts, whether social or political, adventuresome or demure, revolutionary or retrograde, ironic or heart-on-sleeve, hard-edged or easy listening. Dive into her Juror’s Essay for the “full immersion” frisson of her agile and even bracing takes on the show she’s assembled.
The Kindest Eyes by Kaitlin Wilfing
Form+Content Gallery opened in North Loop in 2007, and is owned and operated by its 12 member-artists. “Form+Content has seen the North Loop blossom into the creative, entrepreneurial, and entertainment hub of Minneapolis,” said Member-Artist Moira Bateman. “It’s a continuing honor to be a part of this singular neighborhood. All creative acts are expressions of hope for the future, and in these unsettled times, we need all the hope we can get.”
“As well as members’ personal exhibitions, we also curate two community exhibitions per year,” Bateman explained. “The biennial Open Loop show is the gallery’s opportunity to welcome artists across Minnesota to submit works that are then selected for exhibition by a guest juror.”
With so much deep, colorful, caring-about-all-of-us-in-these-wild-times thinking zinging about, you’ll likely find some of what’s been on your mind right there on the gallery walls. And a whole lot of other cool thoughts, too.
“Among and Between” opening reception: Saturday, April 4, 4-7 PM. Juror’s Talk & closing reception, Saturday, May 9, 4-6pm. Form+Content is open Thursdays through Saturdays 12-6 PM.
— By Louis Raymond, NLNA Board Member making his debut as North Loop’s Culture Correspondent! Send your arts+culture story ideas to louisraymond@northloop.org.