MARCH-APRIL 2018:
The Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents James Dean Pruner: Tell It to the Horses, an exhibition organized by Laura A. L. Wellen, PhD.
Kansas painter, printmaker, draftsman, zinemaker, sculptor, and poet James Dean Pruner (1951-1987/1988) was at the center of a vibrant artist community in Kansas in the 1970s and 1980s. After studying at Emporia State University, he moved to rural Stafford County, where he converted a Cincinnati city bus into his studio, and made work that explored the intertwining of humans, animals, and the land. His colleagues and friends—artists, activists, farmers, poets, and musicians—gathered there for April Fools' Day parties, for star-gazing, for music-making, and for conversations about land stewardship, art, and politics. Tell It to the Horses is the first retrospective in 20 years of Pruner's work, and includes works on paper, paintings, objects, and archival documentation.