Artist and mediator Dorit Cypis was born in Israel and currently lives in California, but in the 1980s and ’90s, she called the Twin Cities home. Politicized by the AIDS epidemic, the censorship of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography, and issues surrounding identity, the body, and sexuality, she created multimedia works at the intersection of performance, photography, and social sculpture.
The founder of Kulture Klub, an arts program for teens experiencing homelessness, Cypis was part of the 1998 exhibition Sculpture on Site, and her work is represented in the Walker’s permanent collection. As part of our series, Then and Now: The Twin Cities in the 1980s, she recalls a decade when art became institutionalized, identity politics became entrenched, and her own work more deeply embraced both politics and performance.