Laurel Reuter, founding director and chief curator of the North Dakota Museum of Art, was born and raised on the Spirit Lake (Dakota) Nation in North Dakota where she attended reservation schools. She completed her B.A. in English at the University of North Dakota and
M.A. in American Literature at UND while founding the North Dakota Museum of Art (1972).
Reuter founded the Museum as a student gallery in the Memorial Union in the early 1970’s as she pursued her Masters degree in English. Reuter guided the Museum through many stages including:
- In 1985 the Museum was designated as the official State Art Gallery and the name was changed to the North Dakota Museum of Art.
- In 1989 the Museum opened its permanent home, a 1907 campus gymnasium located on the campus of UND, renovated by modernist architect Harvey Hoshour of Albuquerque.
- In 1996 the Museum underwent significant institutional change when UND turned over management of the Museum to an independent Board of Trustees under its own 501 (c) (3).
- In 1998 the North Dakota Museum of Art Foundation was established as a separate 501 (c) (3) charged with raising and managing Museum major gifts and endowments.
With the impossible goal of “building the best small museum in America,” Reuter curated dozens of exhibitions by national and international artists. This contemporary art museum is recognized nationally for 1) the strength of its exhibition program, 2) ground breaking human rights exhibitions, 3) responsiveness to its community, 4) involvement with international artists long before it became usual, and 5) the commissioning of landmark works of art anchored in the landscape, history, and culture of the Northern Plains. Among them are Mary Lucier’s Floodsongs (1998) and The Plains of Sweet Regret (2004).
Reuter went on to author numerous books and exhibition catalogs, including Whole Cloth, Under the Whelming Tide, Marking the Land: Jim Dow in North Dakota, Mouths of Ash: Juan Manuel Echavarría (Spanish/English), The North Dakota Museum of Art and its Collections, and recently, The Disappeared, (Spanish/English) exhibition catalog that accompanies The Disappeared exhibition, currently touring internationally through 2010. Upcoming books include a monograph about Xu Bing, Snow Country Prison: Interned in North Dakota, and several exhibition catalogs.
The Disappeared, which includes fifteen artists from seven Latin American countries, was reviewed by Holland Cotter of the April 2, 2007, New York Times. According to Cotter, the bilingual catalog “is a work of art in itself. From Ms. Reuter’s stunning essay to the supplementary material, it is a total-immersion emotional experience.“ Of the exhibition he states, “There may have been a more moving show of contemporary political art in the city this season than The Disappeared at El Museo del Barrio, but if so, I missed it.” Cotter ends his review by asking, “And why is it that an on-the-road exhibition from a small museum in the Midwest is the most potent show of contemporary art, political or otherwise, in town? All I can say is that curators in our local museums should pay a visit, and ask themselves that question.”
- CBS News Sunday produced two segments about Reuter in 1997.
- ARTnews profiled her in the November 1998 issue.
- In July 1998 Reuter was one of twenty people profiled by the Bismarck Tribune in their first edition of Notable North Dakotans.
- Reuter received the 1999 Award of Distinction from the National Council of Art Administrators, recognizing “her dedication to art and to culture in North Dakota and her struggle to create a world-class museum in a remote environment.” Furthermore, she was cited for “helping a devastated community draw together and recover its spiritual existence.”
- North Dakota Governor’s Award for Individual Contribution to the Arts, 2007.
- Marking the Land: Jim Dow in North Dakota was named one of ten top photography books in 2007 by American Photo magazine.
- The Disappeared was named the most important exhibition in New Mexico in 2007 by the Santa Fe Reporter. It was also named one of the top ten arts events in New York by Newsday.
- Honorary Doctorate of Letters, University of North Dakota, May 2007.
- Reuter received the Apple Valley Curatorial Excellence award for 2007 ($10,000)
- Reuter was awarded a $50,000 Curatorial Research Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation to begin work on a major exhibition focused upon the Middle East. This was the first round of a new grant program in which only two of the ten winners were awarded the top amount of $50,000.