Photo: Burl Community Art Gallery.
Artist Julie Peters Krohn painted the rejected Minnesota State Fair entry “The Corn King” as an homage to Ron Kelsey, former superintendent of farm crops at the state fair. It is on view for the “State Fair Rejects” exhibition at the Douglas Flanders & Associates gallery in Minneapolis.
Do you remember the Museum of Bad Art in Massachusetts? I wrote about it a few times (for example here). The art in today’s story about entries that were rejected by the Minnesota State Fair are not necessarily bad art; they just didn’t fit the taste of this year’s judges. It’s a nice challenge for the rest of us anyway. Would we reject these for an exhibition that doesn’t claim to offer high art in the first place?
A gallery in Minneapolis decided that some of these pieces really deserved to be judged by ordinary folk.
As Alex V. Cipolle reported at Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), “The Fine Arts Competition at the State Fair is one of the most competitive juried exhibitions in Minnesota. This year, artists submitted a total of 2,835 pieces; only 336 were accepted.
“Minneapolis artist Mike Welton says: Don’t take it personally. Welton submitted his painting, “QUEER,” part of a series of LGBTQ-themed signage that Welton has photographed around the country. It didn’t make the cut. In his career, Welton estimates he’s shown in about a dozen Fine Art Competitions, and been rejected from about seven or eight. …
“Welton has unique insight, too. Each year Jim Clark, the fine arts superintendent, chooses artists to curate the show. In 2017, Welton was one of those artists.
“ ‘The year I curated, I couldn’t even pick pieces I wanted to because not all of them could go in,’ Welton says.
“Welton — and many other artists — are taking their rejected entries elsewhere. “Queer” will be on view for ‘State Fair Rejects,’ an exhibition … at the Douglas Flanders & Associates gallery in Minneapolis. …
“ ‘There was a lot of professional artists complaining about being rejected all the time, and I thought, well, maybe we should do a reject show,’ Douglas Flanders says. Last year was the gallery’s first reject show with 50 artist submissions. This year, Flanders says there are almost 80 artworks, from sculpture and paintings to textiles and photography. …
“ ‘People loved coming and supporting it and having another opportunity, obviously, to show their work, too, at a gallery that maybe they would otherwise never have the chance to,’ [Gallery manager Syril McNally] says. “So this year, that’s even more popular, just [by] word of mouth.”
“Beth Stoneberg of the Burl gallery [in St. Paul] says it’s the fifth time they’ve hosted ‘Rejected!’
“ ‘It’s probably one of our most anticipated exhibits of the year. It draws a remarkable crowd. It sparks a lot of conversation,’ Stoneberg says. ‘People are really rooting for the underdog.’ …
“One of her favorite submissions this year is ‘The Corn King’ by artist Julie Peters Krohn. The painting depicts Ron Kelsey, Minnesota ‘corn historian’ and the former superintendent of farm crops at the fair’s Agriculture Horticulture building. Krohn has painted Kelsey with seed sacks (Kelsey may have the largest collection of seed sacks in the world at 1,400).
“ ‘I was inspired while attending the Minnesota State fair last year after I met Ron Kelsey and his scarecrow in the agriculture building,’ Peters Krohn said in her artist statement.
“I learned about the fair honoring him with a lifetime membership for his many years of involvement, which has included, but is not limited to, corn producer, corn judge, seed art competition creator, scarecrow competition creator and the display of his collection of vintage seed bags. I saw humor in creating a painting of a sculpture of a man so involved but so little known.’ ” More at MPR, here.
You can find a piece that actually won a 2025 State Fair prize by clicking here. It’s called “There Might Be Dragons.”
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