Douglas R. Ewart: Sound Seeker

Composer. Musician. Performer. Maker. Minneapolis-based artist Douglas R. Ewart has spent his multi-decade career breaking down the barriers between music and visual art, object and instrument, performer and audience, exploring creativity with boundless imagination. Sound Seeker captures the vibrant, communal spirit that pervades his practice through sonic sculptures, instruments, handmade clothing, paintings, and archival materials.

Much of Ewart’s work is constructed from repurposed materials, reflecting both his childhood experiences in Kingston, Jamaica, and a philosophical commitment to finding artistic possibilities outside of mass production. For Ewart, any object holds the potential of sound, beauty, and a new creative life. This is especially felt in the towering bamboo flutes and didgeridoos that he has made since the 1960s and the Bundt pan staffs produced in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

At the heart of the exhibition is the sound installation Rio Negro II (1992/2005/2015), which combines recorded and live acoustic sound and exemplifies the collectivity central to Ewart’s work as a key member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). The organization was founded in 1965 in Chicago by a group of musicians who sought to establish a creative community dedicated to experimentation and innovation in music. To engage with the importance of sound to Ewart’s vision, works in the exhibition will be activated.