{"id":18642,"date":"2022-06-30T16:28:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T16:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=18642"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:45:17","slug":"art-professor-receives-2022-mcknight-visual-artist-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/art-professor-receives-2022-mcknight-visual-artist-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"Art professor receives 2022 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wallace Professor of Art Ruthann Godollei is one of six Minnesota artists to receive a 2022 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship. Since 1982, McKnight Fellowships have rewarded mid-career artists whose work is of \u201cexceptional artistic merit.\u201d Each recipient receives $25,000, chances to connect with national and international critics, and other professional development opportunities from one of the oldest and largest arts programs of its kind in the country.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c<\/b>I’ve been doing social and political commentary in my artwork for a long time, and it’s not always well received,\u201d said Professor Godollei. \u201cThat doesn’t deter me from continuing to make it, but I think we’re in a moment when people see the value in this kind of work, and so this award is a kind of affirmation for the work I do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Godollei\u2019s artwork is mostly text-based, sometimes on paper and often in sculptural installations. A recent example is an installation called \u201cThe Wish Machine\u201d that she produced during the height of the pandemic. Professor Godollei solicited one-word wishes from as diverse an array of community members as possible. Then she printed two copies on letterpress \u2013 one free<\/span> for the submitter and the other for the installation, the first of which was set up in the street-level windows of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd it grew and grew and grew,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the response was so robust that she created a different version of \u201cThe Wish Machine\u201d in Edmonton, Alberta, where she had previously lived while on a Fulbright. At both sites, Professor Godollei said many of the wishes were for kindness, justice, and an end to hate, violence and police brutality.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo me, this was a way to have a more equitable exchange with the  community and amplify<\/span> its voices, as well as to reach out so that different people who might not always be heard could see themselves reflected in this project,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The McKnight Fellowship\u2019s funds are unrestricted, freeing Professor Godollei to put them to use to create even more ambitious projects that will almost certainly challenge viewers and spark reactions.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always joke that when the wars end and the social policies support the people who need it most, I can turn to making flowers and birdies and all that,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at the moment, it\u2019s still the desire to see social changes that motivates me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Professor Godollei, visiting professor Amanda Lovelee, and Pao Houa Her, a former visiting professor, were among this year\u2019s cohort of McKnight Visual Artist Fellows. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the McKnight Foundation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is a Minnesota-based family foundation that is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts in Minnesota, neuroscience, and international crop research. <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wallace Professor of Art Ruthann Godollei is one of six Minnesota artists to receive a 2022 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":18643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":[{"ID":18644,"id":18644,"title":"Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April Dean","filename":"Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-scaled.jpg","filesize":438937,"url":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-scaled.jpg","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2022\/06\/art-professor-receives-2022-mcknight-visual-artist-fellowship\/ruthann_godollei_wish_machine_snap_gallery_photo_by_april-dean-2\/","alt":"","author":"1077","description":"","caption":"","name":"ruthann_godollei_wish_machine_snap_gallery_photo_by_april-dean-2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":18642,"date":"2022-06-30 16:29:38","modified":"2022-06-30 16:30:23","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2560,"height":1203,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-300x141.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":141,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-768x361.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":361,"large":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-1024x481.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":481,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-1536x722.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":722,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/06\/Ruthann_Godollei_Wish_Machine_SNAP_Gallery_photo_by_April-Dean-1-2048x963.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":963}}],"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30827,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18642\/revisions\/30827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}