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November 2019 - Camargo Foundation Residency

11/25/2019

Beaming at you from the southern shores of France in the small ville of Cassis. The sea is captivating. Look! See more about my residency here > Camargo Foundation <

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September 2019 - Anderson Center Residency

9/18/2019

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Beaming at you from the future to a point in the past to talk about my September 2019 artist residency at the Anderson Center in Red Wing, MN.

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Last Chances to See the Art @ 801!

4/22/2018

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Radioactive // Fallout Shelter 2018 12’ 9” x 5’ Charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, and ink on paper

In case you missed it, I've got big, big drawings up at 801 N Washington Ave. in Minneapolis. I'm really proud of these giant drawings, and I really want you to get to see them in their giant glory! They're all part of my larger project, Last Vacation Before the End of the World, which is a multimedia exploration into life in the nuclear age.

801 Gallery doesn't have open hours, so if you want to come see my work (and the other 3 artists: Jaffa Aharonov, Josie Winship, and Marc Lamm), here are your options:

Sun, Apr 29th - 12:30-2:30pm - brunch for Science Museum friends and family, but feel free to join the science nerds and me if that time works for ya!
Sat, May 5th - 4-7pm - stop by and wish me a happy birthday (it's the next day!) and hear about how my recent #atomictourism research trip went!
Artist Talk: Sunday, May 20, 1pm
Make arrangements with me to meet you there - anytime now through end of May! (I'll make the arrangements to make sure it's open, etc.)
Make an appointment with the gallery directly by calling Jeremy 612.636.7187.

So bring your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, comrades, and conspirators and spread the word!

P.S. All work in the show is for sale!

photo by Jaffa Aharonov

Fat Man / Little Boy 2017 5’ x 7’ Charcoal and ink on paper

photo by Jaffa Aharonov

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This Saturday!! Opening @ 801 Gallery, Mpls

2/22/2018

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At least It's Not a Nuclear Winter...

Come out, come out, this Saturday to see my new drawings! (SCROLL FOR DETAILS)

Find out why I'm erasing so much!

See why I've been buying all the yellows Wet Paint has to offer!

801 Gallery
801 Washington Ave N.
MPLS
Opening: Saturday, February 24 6-9pm

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More big drawing update!

12/18/2017

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Still drawing biiiig drawings. This one is 12 feet across, 5 feet tall. I'm not sure where it's going, I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing or why I'm making charcoal drawings, buuuut that's what I'm doing. Come see them Feb- April at Gallery 801 in Minneapolis! More details forthcoming...

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Big drawings!

10/13/2017

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I have a show coming up in February @ 801 Gallery in Minneapolis, and because the walls are so huge, I've been experimenting with big, big, big drawings. I have that old drawing I made during The World is Falling Apart and So Are We..., and so I'm making more drawings, not quite that large, but similar subject (aka based off of the film I just made, of course!) as companions for it for this show. It's fun, a little intimidating, and very messy making these huge charcoal drawings. I'm also playing with this cool stuff that Janet Groenert gave me many years ago, a water-soluble black graphite. It's fun! Check it out below.

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Last Vacation Before the End of the World, Part 1, RECAP!

7/4/2017

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Check out the new video below for excerpts from my June performance. I'm looking to tour it, so if you're interested in bringing it your way - hit me up! email: kelley@kelleymeister.com

(special thanks for Cully Gallagher for filming and to Katie Burgess for doing 2nd camera)

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Remembering my trip to a Nuclear Missile Silo - Nov 2012

5/19/2017

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New York Mills – November 28, 2012

Yesterday, I took a road trip into North Dakota to see the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Historic Site aka Oscar – Zero. I am still marveling at what a surreal place it was to be: surreal that it existed and surreal that I was standing in the spot where they could have launched 10 of the 150 nuclear missiles in this wing alone into the Soviet Union (there were 6 wings total, with nearly 1000 missiles, through the end of the Cold War – more about this at the end).

Because it wasn’t the regular tourist season, they only gave tours by appointment. Needless to say, I was the only one on my tour with my tour guide, Nathaniel, an early 20-something white guy with shaggy hair in his eyes, a blue hoodie with the historic site’s logo on it, jeans, and loosely laced skater sneakers.

He showed me around, and I badgered him with questions. Now the first thing I noticed (see the 2nd-to-top photo and the 2nd-to-last photo) is that there are no silos in sight. I guess I’d always assumed the missiles were disguised in those silos like farmers have. But no, the silos are under ground. Hm. But once you know what these sites look like, they’re easy to spot. Just look for lots of barbed wire fences around nothing special in the middle of the corn field. On my way back home, I noticed one of the other Launch Command Centers (that’s the top photo and where most of my photos and the tour took place) in a cornfield to the east of me. All the ones in this area of North Dakota (see map below) were deactivated after the START signing by George H W Bush and Mikail Gorbachev in 1991, though they didn’t officially close until 1997. Which makes it all the more strange: to visit an historic site that has only been closed for 15 years, though it had been in operation since 1966.

Most of these photos are from the underground capsule where they monitor and launch the missiles. We were ~60 feet underground that yellow building, inside a welded steel and concrete encapsulated space with a door like a safe only even thicker (see below and more info here). It was a pretty intense place to be because not only is this where they could have launched the missiles, but this space was also designed to save them from nuclear counter-attack. There was even an escape hatch. Two military people would be down in here at all times, two because that’s better than 1 in case something goes wrong–same reason there are 2 pilots on a plane. They had 24-hour shifts. Upstairs, their support staff of 8 came in 3-day shifts. There was even a rec room, straight out of the 80s with a pool table, a ping pong table, and a foos ball table. But the 2 people down here in the capsule were all business. Except as the Cold War dragged on and nothing was happening, they did eventually give them a tv to watch. And behind the tv is a giant mural-size poster of the Virgin Islands. (See above.) A stark contrast to the snowy fields of North Dakota that were actually surrounding them.

This, in case it isn’t obvious, is the key to launching the missiles. There is a multi-step process to get to this point where the key goes in and turns to launch: an order from the President, encrypted codes coming in via phone and a typewriter and something like “email” and who knows what else, then a red box with 2 padlocks on it. Each person in the capsule has their own padlock with their secret code, and so both commanders have to be alive/awake/whatever in order to get into that red box to get to the decoding book. I think there’s even a few more steps in there before the key can go into the key hole and turned to launch.

These last two photos of mine are from the nearby missile silo November-33. As you can see, there’s not much silo-like about it. The tall white thing that looks like a miniature missile is a motion detector. And the big concrete patch that is surrounded by the black outline is the lid to where the ~60 ft tall missile was stored. That’s pretty much it.

The above map is of all the Minuteman Missile sites in the U.S. Three are still active, including the one around Minot, ND. I think the other 2 active ones are in Wyoming and Montana. That’s 450 missile for anyone who is counting, still probably enough to take out most if not all of the people on the planet. Each missile has about 300 kilotons of TNT. Which is a whole fucking lot, just to be clear.

Posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2012, at 5:44 pm.

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Upcoming screenings, performances, installations, and more!

4/30/2017

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My Minnesota State Arts Board supported animation, "Now I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds," will be premiered on Wednesday, June 14, 2017, at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, MN, in companion with Last Vacation Before the End of the World (Part 1), a multimedia participatory experience (see below). I have been working on this animation with the support of the grant since early 2016, but you may recognize some of the images from as far back as 2011 when I created the participatory performance Dearest. This dream-like, hand-drawn animation explores the historical context and lived realities of the current nuclear age. The animation also features original sound by Duluth-based composer Kathy McTavish.

Kelley A Meister is a fiscal year 2016 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Last Vacation Before the End of the World (Part 1)

Wednesday, June 14, 2017
doors 7pm, show 8pm
Bryant-Lake Bowl
800 W Lake St, Mpls
sliding scale tickets: $8-15
www.bryantlakebowl.com
OR (Fee Free): 612-825-8949

I want you to think about the end of the world.* Where will you go when the bombs fall? What songs will you serenade it with? What will you bring? As a companion to the premiere of “Now I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds,” I would like to invite you to accompany me on our Last Vacation Before the End of the World (Part 1), June 14, 2017.

*world as we know it, an anthro-centric view, shall we say

Future: Made Here

On view May 4-Aug 30, 2017
6th & Hennepin, Mpls

Launch Party:
Thursday, May 4, 2017
5-8pm
AC Hotel by Marriott
401 Hennepin Ave, Mpls
Showcase Tours at 6 & 7PM

On view May 4, 2017-August 30, 2017: Where Do We Go From Here?, a three-channel video collage installation that explores the possibilities of what Minnesota and the Upper Mississippi River Valley will look like 150 years from now. More info here.

Feminist Video Quarterly

Thursday, June 8, 2017
7:30pm
location tbd
for more info, click here

See Crush Project (2007) at Feminist Video Quarterly, #6. What does it mean to be crushing? And why are they so crushing? This project explores the development of a crush, sharing intimately with the audience my crushes, objects I've given and received from crushes, and other tidbits as an homage to Sadie Benning, my ultimate artist-crush.

Jerome Travel/Study 2017 Recipient - Stay Tuned!

In Spring 2018, I will be traveling throughout the southwest US to research nuclear testing sites, thanks to the Jerome Travel/Study fund.
I am so excited and mildly terrified to see these places in person. This research will inform a longer version of “Now I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds” , Part 2 of Last Vacation Before the End of the World, and much more work in the future.

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