State of the Arts

State of the Arts: August 4, 2011 Archive

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Art Hounds: Comic Cookbook, Mankato sculpture, and a suburban art oasis

Posted at 7:00 AM on August 4, 2011 by Chris Roberts (2 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Public Art, Sculpture


This week the hounds are all about salon style comic book art, a walking sculpture tour in the 'Key City,' and an art park nestled in the hills of Eagan.

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rolf.JPGGoing to the Caponi Art Park in Eagan has been on bass player Rolf Erdahl's 'to do' list for a long time. The co-founder of the Vecchinone/Erdahl bass and oboe duo finally took his family over the July 4th weekend. Rolf was captivated by the harmonious relationship between the visual art sprinkled throughout retired art professor Anthony Caponi's 60-acre park, and the earth. The park is open Tuesday through Sunday.


amandagullixson.JPGMankato painter Amanda Gullixson thinks her city needs more public art, which is why she's excited about the "CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour." People can visit 25 sculptures scattered around downtown Mankato from artists around the world, and then vote for their favorite. The city will then purchase that piece and award the winning artist a $2500 prize. Voting is open through October 28.


williamhessian.JPGPerformance and visual artist William Hessian is a big proponent of Altered Esthetics "Comic Cookbook: Just Add Ink" exhibition, which opens on Friday, August 5th. It features comic artists from around the state in a salon style show that will saturate the gallery with art. The show runs through Aug. 25.


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And you can get an early sneak peek at the Art Hounds' picks every week by texting the word ART to 677-677.

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(2 Comments)

MN Poetry: Bao Phi's "Waiting for a Cyclo in the Hood"

Posted at 1:54 PM on August 4, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Minnesota Poets, Poetry

Bao Phi is a nationally known performance poet living in the Twin Cities. While he's performed for years, and has released two CDs of his spoken word, he's just published his first book of poetry through Coffee House Press. It's titled Sông I Sing.

Waiting for a Cyclo in the Hood

Twenty-Sixth Street, a one-way,
flows by my house, keeps going right
out of the hood before spilling into
Uptown: fertile delta of the young,
disturbingly hip, rich by no fault of their own,
nothing to do on a Saturday night but be beautiful.
I sit on the curb, far from lovely,
empty pocket's distance from rich,
wishing I knew
which way to go.
Back in Viet Nam I could
shout for a cyclo, hold up a fist of small đống
peel each dollar from the tension of my hand
and let them fly away to the Dopplar Effect,
one by one,
scream the words to Prince's 1999 in two languages
and not once look behind me to see if the driver was whispering:
this street is one way, I can't take you back
to where you came from, no matter how many American
dollar bills you give up
to the wind.


- "Waiting for a Cyclo in the Hood," written by Bao Phi, as it appears in his collection of poetry Sông I Sing, published by Coffee House Press. Reprinted here with permission from the publisher.

SongISing.jpg

Duluth mural source of controversy

Posted at 3:29 PM on August 4, 2011 by Marianne Combs (5 Comments)
Filed under: Arts around the state, Public Art

Evidently one man's art is another man's "inner city crap."

kingmural.jpg
Bob King / rking@duluthnews.com

Christa Lawler of the Duluth News Tribune reports work has been stalled on a mural in Cascade Park titled "Unity in Community" because, well, the community doesn't think it's very pretty.

"It's the same kind of things that they arrest people for," said Dan Williams, who owns rental property across the street from Cascade Park where work on the mural began last week. "It's graffiti. It's not a craft. It's not art. If it was a mural of quality I wouldn't say anything about it."

"It's going to affect my property value," Williams goes on to say later in the article. "It's going to look like inner-city crap."

According to Lawler's story, the mural - painted mostly by children - is based on a similar technique employed by St. Paul artist Ta-Coumba Aiken, who painted a mural in the student union at the College of St. Scholastica this winter.

The mayor has called a meeting with folks on both sides of the debate to determine whether the project should move forward, or be painted over.

My colleague Bob Collins is taking votes on whether or not the unfinished mural is art. What do you think?


(5 Comments)
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