On view in the Katherine Kilbourne Burgum and Gustavian Galleries from 26 August - 2 October 2022

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The Rourke Art Gallery + Museum is pleased to present Love is Love, which features figurative vinyl artwork by Dave Thune​.
   • An exclusive Member Preview will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday 26 August 2022.
   • A Public Opening reception will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday 28 August 2022 with a 2 p.m. gallery talk.

Dave Thune began work at the Rourke Gallery in 1967 as a high schooler gallery assistant. He grew up in a home surrounded by appreciation of art in a family of photographers and artists and was introduced to Jim O’Rourke and the Rourke Gallery at its opening by his mother Fran when he was 10 years old. He continued his art apprenticeship there through his graduation from Architecture school at NDSU where he also gained a love for architectural preservation and became the Gallery’s Assistant Director.

He married his Moorhead High School sweetheart Sue Knudson, and the two moved to Saint Paul where Dave became the Exhibits Coordinator at the Minnesota Historical Society.  Ultimately his liberal political values drew him to elected office where he served on the Saint Paul City Council as Council Member, Council President and Housing and Redevelopment Chair for twenty years. Upon his retirement, the Minneapolis Tribune and Saint Paul Pioneer Press described his career as that of a “political maverick” and “the most colorful politician in recent memory”. He championed gay rights as the author of St. Paul’s Human Rights Ordinance, shepherded historic preservation redevelopments, authored the State’s first no-smoking ordinance, and still found time to make art, play in rock and roll bands, and open the Saint Paul Gallery of Art. (He still plays rock and roll, and owns the gallery to this day).

This exhibition marks Dave’s return to Moorhead-Fargo. His first solo exhibition was at Jim O’Rourke’s Fargo Gallery in 1972 where he showed anti-war eagle paintings and etchings.

Once again in a display of his social consciousness Thune offers his most recent works, often gender-bending, and largely in his newly favorite media of figurative vinyl on glass. He acknowledges mentors Jim O’Rourke, Jack Youngquist and Robert A. Nelson as well as his love of 1960’s era Pop Art with its flat surfaces, manipulation and adaptation of well-known images, and themes presented in new, contemporary ways. 

Dave and Sue, his married partner of 51 years (and possibly some of his three beloved children) will be in attendance at the opening.
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He asks you to remember that Love is Love!