Billy X. Curmano is an award winning artist/adventurer and former McKnight Foundation Interdisciplinary Art Fellow. He was trained as a painter and sculptor (If, of course, painters and sculptors can be trained). His more traditional objects have been exhibited both here and abroad since a first solo show at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee in 1970. Notably, some of his paintings represented the USA in the “III Vienna Graphikbiennale” (Austria). His works have also found their way to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and other prestigious collections. Billy X. came to music through the back door using soundscapes in “live art” and is probably best known for edgy performances.
     His more eccentric pieces include a 3-day live burial, 2,000 plus mile Mississippi River Swim, 40-day Death Valley Desert Fast and a sojourn to the Arctic Circle on public transport. He’s won awards for performance and film as well as a solo CD. Billy X. has toured every way imaginable including 6,200 miles and 15 cities in 45 days on a Greyhound Bus and intrigued audiences from the Dalai Lama's World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles to New York City's famed Franklin Furnace. He's been a "Pick of the Week" in the L.A. Weekly and on the City Pages "A List". Journalists have dubbed him the court jester of Southern Minnesota. He has been fortunate to study briefly with John Cage, Rachel Rosenthal, Babtundi Olatunji and Joseph Shabalala.

The micro-theatre is located on the second level of The Rourke, inside the Reading Room + Archive. Films are played on a loop during open hours.

2 Short Films
​by BILLY X. CURMANO

25 June - 9 August 2026

In Swimmin' the River (1987 - 1997), Billy X. Curmano swims the length of the Mississippi River as a political gesture to advocate for the freedom from toxicity. Spanning from the headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico, Curmano uses the river as an artistic medium and political landscape to discuss environmental issues. He wades in the Mississippi as the sunlight glistens and the wind shapes the tide. Each stroke Curmano takes is an attempt to reclaim the river under the banner of art and work toward an agenda for climate justice. The ecology of Curmano's swim can largely be seen as an extended metaphor of pollution-one in which our existence has become contaminated by the effects of eco-capitalism. (29 minutes, 54 seconds)

66° 33' is Billy X.'s sojourn to the Arctic Circle ... via public transportation, of course! The aim of his pan-Nordic trek: to bring together the waters of the Arctic and the Mississippi as only Curmano can spark ongoing conversation at the interstices of art and ecology. (5 minutes)

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