Hasta La Ideas

A Minneapolis production company by day and art gallery by night

Runner Runner Gallery, a new art space within a production studio, will open its second show, featuring the recent work of Minneapolis-based artists Brian Lesteberg and James Holmberg. In the heart of the warehouse district, the interdisciplinary venue is a welcomed gesture in the Minneapolis art scene. Next Thursday’s opening for the show, inviting likeminded students and professionals from the film, advertising, and music industries to come together, embodies the ethos of the project. “It’s sort of a party for art,” describes jMatt Keil, Runner Runner’s vice president of business development. “We’re really excited to show our support and to put on a night of great entertainment.”

The show itself positions Holmberg’s large-scale dreamy photographs against selections from Lesteberg’s most recent project, Raised To Hunt, a document of the journey of hunters through northern Minnesota. Many of the photographs show vast expanses of frozen landscape but after a closer look, an impression of either the killer or the killed— whether drops of blood or a silhouetted parka—emerges. Jarring, intentional violence brings with it a deep sense of natural validation for Lesteberg’s hunters. The extreme photographic detail brings to life even the most banal parts of the killing process, a startling honesty that has something in common with fellow Minnesotan Alec Soth’s 8 x 10 field format.

Like Lesterberg’s photographs, Holmberg’s massive canvases take up the entire field of vision, but that’s where the similarity ends. Holmberg’s paintings confront the viewer with a vast wash of minimal color textured with abstract blobs of pigment. Immediately recalling the softly-focus drive-by shots of “Taxi Driver,” Holmberg’s cinematic style makes the production company/gallery venue all the more appropriate. Runner Runner Gallery’s high ceilings and cement floors, don’t hurt either artists’ works either.

Runner Runner shares the space with affiliate companies Fischer Edit/FX and Modern Music. All three post-production companies thrive together within this collaborative workspace. “In some ways,” explains curator Luke Erickson, “Runner Runner seems like a healthier gallery space, not to mention a model for the business of exhibition, than many I’ve visited.”

“It’s not surprising that it would start here,” says Ian Bearce, executive producer at Runner Runner. “When we’re not in the office, we’re deejaying, playing in touring bands, painting, making films. We’re thrilled to find another way to participate in the local scene.”

The show opens this Thursday, November 18 from 6-9pm and runs through the next few months.