Museum opens new exhibit, Artists and War II The North Dakota Museum of Art announces its upcoming exhibition titled "Artists and War II." The exhibition opens Sunday, Feb. 15, at 1 p.m., immediately following the Museum's Bluegrass Brunch. The exhibit features work from artists in Colombia, Peru and the United States. Artists will be present to speak about the work. The exhibition is on display until April 11. In February 2008 the Museum opened the first installment of its three-part exhibition series in which artists respond to the subject of war. "Artists and War I," was a multi-media group exhibition of six artists from around the world creating art about war or conflict. Artists included Daniel Heyman, David Opdyke, Adrienne Noelle Werge, Siah Armajani, Hanna Hannah, and Miguel Angel Rojas. "Artists and War II" consists of work from Juan Manuel Echavarrîa of Bogotá, Colombia. Echavarrîa’s work was first introduced in North Dakota during the opening of "The Disappeared" exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 2005, then again in his solo exhibition Bocas de Ceniza/Mouths of Ash in 2006. Johanna Calle is another Colombian artist in this exhibition. Calle will arrive in Grand Forks to install a body of work titled "Black Opus" (Obra Negra). This work sprang from numerous visits through the slums of Bogotá. As Calle made her way through these marginalized neighborhoods, it became apparent the role young girls played in these environments as a consequence of violence and societal breakdown. Obra Negra melds fragments of images of young girls and the homes they inhabit as a way of demonstrating the responsibility placed on them. The make-shift homes are often constructed of cardboard, scrap wood and corrugated metal. Often times the construction of these homes spans two to three generations. In the process, it is the young girls who bear the burdens of raising and maintaining families as a result of violence and societal neglect. In addition, the Museum is bringing back "Snow Country Prison: Interned in North Dakota." In 1941 the U. S. Justice Department converted Fort Lincoln from a surplus military post into an internment camp to detain people arrested in the United States as enemy aliens. Over its five-year operation as a camp, the Bismarck facility housed about 1,500 men of German nationality, and over 1,800 of Japanese ancestry. The first group of Japanese and German men were arrested by the FBI in the days immediately after Pearl Harbor. The arrests were done under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act, and these so-called "enemy aliens" were removed from their homes, primarily on the West Coast and East Coast, and sent to camps in isolated parts of the country. In 2010, the Museum will organize "Artists and War III," which will culminate in an exhibition catalog and national tour consisting of a selection of work from this three-part series. -- Brian Lofthus, Assistant to the Director, North Dakota Museum of Art, blofthus@ndmoa.com, 701-777-4195