This week: Five local arts stories you shouldn't miss

Posted at 12:04 PM on May 3, 2013 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Dance, Funding, Galleries, Music

It's been a busy week, and I've been off my blogging game because I was filling in on The Daily Circuit. So here's a quick recap to bring you up to speed.

MPR Photo/Euan Kerr

1. SPCO musicians ratify contract, ending months-long lockout

On Monday SPCO musicians ratified a new three-year contract, ending a lockout that lasted 191 days.

The new contract will reduce musicians' annual pay by $15,000, include a retirement buyout for musicians 55 and older, and reduce the size of the orchestra from 34 to 28 players.

Now musicians and management must begin the work of repairing strained relations.

Portrait of Osmo Vanska by Ann Marsden

2. Osmo Vanska threatens to quit Mn Orch if musicians' lockout isn't solved

On Thursday Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Osmo Vanska sent a letter to management stating the orchestra needs to be rehearsing by early September to have enough time to prepare for an appearance at New York's Carnegie Hall in November.

He called the Carnegie Hall performance one of the most significant goals of his tenure, and said if the appearance is cancelled because Carnegie Hall officials "lose confidence in our ability to perform those concerts as a result of the extended lockout," he will be forced to resign as music director.

Striped Robe, Fruit, and Anemones (1940) by Henri Matisse
Image courtesy of the MIA

3. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts will host a Matisse exhibition in February 2014

This week the MIA announced a new exhibition will be coming to Minneapolis next year featuring 80 works by the French master. The exhibition comes from the Baltimore Museum of Art's collection, which boasts one of the most comprehensive collections of Matisse's work in the world.

Art lovers packed Burnet Gallery Thursday night in support Simpson Housing
Image courtesy of Burnet Gallery

4. Artists raise more than $50,000 for the homeless... in two hours.

Last night Art 4 Shelter held its annual fundraiser at Burnet Gallery in Minneapolis. The event features original works on paper - almost all of it 5x7 in size. The more than 1400 works of art sold for $30 a piece, which happens to be the amount of money it takes Simpson Housing to care for one homeless person for one night (including a clean bed, warm meals, and counseling services). In addition, a selection of 8x10 works sold for $150 each, and generous folks could make additional donations to a "giving tree." As a result, artists and art lovers managed to provide shelter for many of their fellow Minnesotans for the coming year.

John Munger
Photo by Scott J. Pakudaitis

5. The Twin Cities arts community mourns the loss of John Munger.

Early this week the Twin Cities performing arts community learned of the death of longtime dancer John Munger. Munger was a sort of irascible uncle to the local dance scene, continuing to dance when other dancers might have felt too self conscious about their age and physique. He was also a great writer - you can read samples of his work in a lovely remembrance assembled by TC Daily Planet's Jay Gabler.

Obsidian Arts offers "Five by Five"

Posted at 3:15 PM on April 29, 2013 by Nikki Tundel (0 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Minnesota Mix, Photography

The phrase "five by five" comes from an old radio communications term that means "loud and clear." So it's a fitting title for the latest exhibition at Obsidian Arts in Minneapolis.

The show "Five by Five" features bold work by five photographers of African descent. They were asked to capture the essence of their individual communities in just five images.

The below photograph of a woman in an Ethiopian market was captured by Getachew Irko, whose professional work has been featured in everything from the in-flight magazine for Ethiopian Airlines to an emergency preparedness documentary for the United Nations.

Getachew Irko hails from Ethiopia and now lives in St. Paul. His work focuses on the nuances of his homeland. That desire to provide unique insights into African communities is what seems to drive all of the photographers in the "Five by Five" show.

Obsidian Arts Curator Roderic Southall says one of the goals of the exhibit is to shatter the idea that Africa is some singular, fused culture. He hopes visitors will "take time to recognize the absence of consistency in the actions, objects, and energies amongst the five blocks of work."

In this exhibition, artists represent a broader, but more personal view of their homelands. The below photo, for example, evokes Liberian-born, Minneapolis-based photographer Tarnue Jallah's vision of the Liberian border.

Curator Roderic Southall hopes the exhibition showcases the "specific cultural and national distinctions" that make up Africa. "It is vital that people toss aside a history of thinking about Africa as some composite whole."

Along those lines, the small exhibition is wide-ranging, with little consistency between the different artists' images. They all bring their individual views of their individual cultures.

Photographer Mohamed Barre was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. These days he documents the lives of Somali refugees and immigrants in the Twin Cities. The below image, two Somali girls in Hannah Montana t-shirts, is just one example of an evolving community

"Five in Five" is on display at Obsidian Arts through June 30, 2013. And it's free.

Northern Clay Center examines the elements of ceramic art

Posted at 3:31 PM on April 19, 2013 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Craft, Galleries, Sculpture

Northern Clay Center's latest exhibition - "Elemental" - presents four artists who explore themes of fire, water, earth and air, all through the medium of ceramics.

The theme is particularly fitting, because those are precisely the four elements of pottery. The challenge for each artist was to highlight one element over the other.

Artist Paula Winokur has three complementary pieces in the Northern Clay Center show: "Ice Cores," "Calving Glacier IV," and "Above and Below"

Ceramicist Linda Swanson was commissioned to create a piece that emphasized "earth," which was a bit of a twist for her since water is so prominent in her work. But it's also fitting, because she uses water to reveal and transform a platform of bentonite clay that contains metallic oxides.

"A lot of the ceramics that we normally experience are in their finished permanent state, explains Swanson, "but as a maker there are all these stages the materials go through - soft to hard, impermanent to permanent. I found that by working with water I could make these stages visible to the viewer - I could reveal aspects of them that are normally only privy to the maker."

"Temperamental Earth" by Linda Swanson, 2013

In Swanson's "Temperamental Earth," nylon sacks suspended from the ceiling slowly drip water onto the surface of the clay. Traditionally, Swanson says, earth is thought of as the most stable element. She wanted to look at how the earth is actually in flux. So as the water drips, the bentonite swells and buckles, and reveals an array of colors as different metallic oxides are exposed.

"Sifted into the clay are different colors of iron," said Swanson. "Red, yellow and black iron; a lack of iron results in white clay. In ancient Greece, those colors also happened to represent the humors of the body. They saw the body as a microcosm of the universe."

Over time, the water will stop flowing, and the clay will dry out and contract.

Air/Breath by Del Harrow, 2013

While the gallery as a whole reflects a minimalist feel, the individual pieces range widely, exploring everything from issues of personal loss to the degradation of the environment.
One piece incorporates electricity (a contemporary version of fire) while another includes video. Swanson says together, they challenge common notions of what ceramic art is.

"Elemental" runs through May 12 at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis.

Photographer Pao Houa Her's vision on display in Minneapolis

Posted at 10:00 AM on April 9, 2013 by Nikki Tundel (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Minnesota Mix, Photography

The biography on photographer Pao Houa Her's website couldn't be more simple:

Pao Houa Her is a visual artist based in Minnesota. [She] studied at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at Yale University School of Art.

What it doesn't say is that Pao is the first Hmong artist ever to receive an MFA from the prestigious Yale photography program. And it fails to mention that her work has been called everything from "remarkable" to "pioneering."

This Hmong American may be one of the most humble photographers around. And she's also one of the most versatile. Her images range from black-and-white landscapes to portraits of Hmong veterans who fought for the CIA but have never been officially recognized by the United States.

Pao's current work is on display at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis. Director Tim Peterson worked with Pao to select which of her many images to include in the untitled exhibit.

"It's the world through her eye and her lens," says Tim. "The more you get to know her work, the more you're impressed by the breadth and depth of her commitment."

As a photographer, Pao can jump from documentary-style images of her family (like this picture of her mother and baby brother) to self-portraits. For the last few years, she's has been using her camera to delve into the world of Hmong mail-order brides. Some of that work is showcased in this exhibit as well.

"I came across this website where Hmong American men connect with Hmong Laotian women," says Pao. "It's mainly just people's photos. What's amazing is how Westernized their ideas of beauty are since a lot of them live up in the hills without much of a connection to the world outside. The pictures are heavily Photoshopped. The European nose is a must, not a flat Hmong nose. To have a bridge, it's very desirable. So they're Photoshopped to look like that."

Pao began collecting images from these dating sites. And she just returned from a trip to Laos, where she photographed Hmong girls and used the same techniques employed in the Internet pictures.

The more popular images on the Internet show women in traditional Hmong outfits in a wheat field or surrounded by rice paddies. Middle-aged Hmong American men, says Pao, often feel like they've lost their connection to Laos. For many of them, these girls represent the Hmong ideal, a link back to a land or a life they lost.

"It's easy to say the men are taking advantage of these women or that the women are using these men for money. Actually, I'm not all that interested in either of those stories," explains Pao (who is portrayed in the image above in a traditional Hmong woman pose). "But I'm very interested in the human psychology behind it all. I think many of my images touch on the idea of desire. Not just desire from a personal perspective, but from a cultural perspective. The desire to belong, the desire to be recognized, the desire to be desired."

Pao Houa Her's images will be on display at Franklin Art Works through May 4, 2013.

If you'd like to hear Pao talk about life as a Hmong American photographer, check this out.

(All photos courtesy of Pao Houa Her)

Creating strange and beautiful images with a smartphone

Posted at 4:41 PM on April 3, 2013 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Media, Photography, Technology

Photographer Buckner Sutter has gone from taking images with toy cameras and old Polaroids to using software on his smartphone to create a similar, otherworldly feel.

"Dream Museum" by Buckner Sutter
Image courtesy of the artist

Sutter, a photographer with thirty years experience, is currently showing some of his recent work at VidTiger Studio and Gallery in the Solar Arts building in Northeast Minneapolis.

The show is titled "Between Worlds," a reference to the space Sutter is attempting to create with his images.

"I'm always going for this borderline place that looks familiar, yet has this dreamy aspect," says Sutter, sitting in the gallery surrounded by his work. "I'm striving to capture that childlike naive connection with the strange and the beautiful... that feeling you have the moment before you recognize something as a dream."

"The Aftermath" by Buckner Sutter
Image courtesy of the artist

Sutter says while he used to work with more expensive cameras, he found smartphones much more portable and easy to work with - albeit relatively crude when they first came out.

"The more I had my point-and-shoot with me, the more pictures I took," explains Sutter, "so I abandoned the more expensive cameras, and opted for a Blackberry, then the iPhone. Nowadays it comes with a nice camera - 5-8 megapixels - which is equivalent to some of my early digital cameras."

Now with multiple photo editing applications like Hipstamatic, Filterstorm and Photowizard, Sutter finds he's able to create layered images that evoke the primitive feel of the old film-based toy cameras - Dianas, Holgas - that he used to experiment with. But now he doesn't have to deal with the unpredictability of film.

"With the digital apps the learning curve is really fast compared to working with negatives," says Sutter. "You can change as you go to get different results.
I do it because I can get the work done; it's always with me. I'm immersed in the visual world and capturing it. I can do this on my break at work - I can walk and edit images at the same time!"

"Under a Silver Moon" by Buckner Sutter
Image courtesy of the artist

Sutter is known on Instagram and other image sites by his handle "Intao" - he says he currently has 1800 images up on Instagram, all created within the last two years. That level of productivity simply wouldn't have been possible for him using film.

Ironically, says VidTiger owner Chuck Olsen, images taken on smartphones never look better than when they're on the phone because of the high resolution it now offers. A 'retina display" - also known as liquid crystal display - means there's no visible pixelation; the images are actually finer than the eye can discern. That means the images don't often hold up to being transferred to another medium. But Olsen says in the case of Sutter's images, which are printed on porous aluminum to mimic the affect of seeing an image on an illuminated screen, the transfer works.

"Shaman Lake" by Buckner Sutter
Image courtesy of the artist

Sutter says that while he knows photography "purists" who swear off digital cameras, he increasingly sees them switching over, enchanted by what technology has to offer.

"Between Worlds" closes tomorrow night with a reception from 5-9 pm at the Solar Arts building, featuring live soundscapes by Chris Strouth and Paris 1919.

Art Hounds: DIY Printing, Paper Garden and Zedashe

Posted at 7:45 AM on March 28, 2013 by Molly Bloom (1 Comments)
Filed under: Arts 101, Events, Galleries, Museums, Music, Printmaking, Theater

Participants at the opening reception of DIY Printing: No Presses Required at the MMAA Project Space in St. Paul. (Image courtesy of the Minnesota Museum of American Art)

The Art Hounds are here this week to whet your appetite with a puppet production that will make you think, an exhibit that showcases inventive printmakers, and a vocal group specializing in ancient harmonies.

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Maria Santiago, who teaches printmaking at the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, loved the energy on display at DIY Printing: Presses Not Required. The exhibit at the Minnesota Museum of American Art Project Space shows that limitations often give birth to great creativity, as printmakers find ways to make art without fancy equipment. The show runs through April 28, with many interactive events scheduled in the next few weeks.

In Mad Munchkin Productions' "Paper Garden: Entomos," puppets help tell the story of a girl and her beloved insects that live in her family's garden. Actor and stage manager Al Broeffle loved that this seemingly simple story raised questions of race, finding one's place in the world and the balance between science and nature -- all while making him laugh. There are five more performances of the show this weekend at the California Building in Northeast Minneapolis.

When puppeteer and public artist Soozin Hirschmugl tells her friends about the Zedashe Ensemble, she says listening to their music is like eating really rich dirt or drinking your favorite glass of red wine. The ancient harmonies from Georgia (the country, not the state) may sound foreign to ears used to western harmonies, but Soozin says they will reverberate through you and transport you. They'll be performing a concert of sacred music on Wednesday, April 3 at St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral in Minneapolis and will also present a concert of both sacred and folk music with dancers and musicians at Concordia University in St. Paul on Saturday, April 6. They'll also be holding workshops at the Tapestry Folkdance Center in Minneapolis.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter. Art Hounds is also available as a podcast on iTunes.

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Art Hounds: The Gateway District, Robert Finkler and Jackie Robinson

Posted at 7:45 AM on March 21, 2013 by Chris Roberts (2 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Painting, Theater

The cast of Jackie and Me, directed by Marion McClinton at Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. (Photo by Dan Norman)

This week's hounds are truly hypnotic as they delve into a children's play about the courageous struggles of baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, a Mankato painter who's mastered his own brand of abstract expressionism, and a strictly rock band from Minneapolis that will warm your winter ravaged body.

Oh, and this week's segment is guaranteed to make you forget about winter, at least for a few minutes. We're not kidding. Listen before you kill someone.

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Twin Cities actor and singer Paul Coate has a love for baseball and a daughter who's also fallen in love with the national pastime, which means they're both headed to the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis to see "Jackie and Me." Some magical baseball cards enable a boy to travel back in time and get an eyewitness account of Jackie Robinson striving to become the first African American in Major League Baseball. On stage through April 14th.

Painter and Minnesota State University Mankato art professor Brian Frink doesn't hold back in praising fellow veteran Mankato artist and teacher Robert Finkler. Brian says Finkler has toiled so masterfully in the abstract expressionist realm for so many years he has in some ways reinvented the art form. "Robert Finkler: Before, Middle, Last, First," is an exhibition of his paintings at the Carnegie Art Center in Mankato through March 23.

There will always be a need to rock. Annie Sparrows, member of the God Damn Doo Wop Band and the Soviettes, knows you know this, which is why she feels strongly you should go see The Gateway District. Annie says this Minneapolis indie rock band practices the art of kicking out the jams. The Gateway District is releasing a new album, "Old Wild Hearts," at a private house party somewhere in Minneapolis this weekend.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter. Art Hounds is also available as a podcast on iTunes.

Art Hounds is powered by the Public Insight Network.

Native American artists take back the headdress

Posted at 4:14 PM on March 20, 2013 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Criticism, Culture, Galleries, Media, Minnesota Mix

When Dyani White Hawk Polk asked a group of artists for work for her exhibition "Make it Pop," she was looking for contemporary pieces responding to issues of the day.

"We've had somber exhibits, politically driven, fine art," says White Hawk Polk, sitting at her desk in All My Relations Gallery. "I wanted this to feel more playful and cutting edge, something that really speaks to our youth and people interested in pop culture as well as fine art lovers."

White Hawk Polk got what she was looking for; the colorful show reflects and comments on popular culture in a number of ways. Interestingly, two artists - Frank Buffalo Hyde and Cannupa Hanska Luger - chose to focus on an issue that has many Native Americans upset: the appropriation of Native Regalia by popular culture - in particular, the headdress.

Shown on the left: "In-Appropriate 3," a painting by Frank Buffalo Hyde responding to the use of a Native American headdress and jewelry on a Victoria's Secret model at a fashion show held on November 7, 2012, shown on the right.

White Hawk Polk says she wasn't surprised.

"It's always been an issue," reflects White Hawk Polk. "It's always been there, but this past year, year and a half, it's just been prolific."

Native Americans belong to many different tribes spread across Native North America. But the headdress, or war bonnet, is a universal symbol of great spiritual importance worn only by highly respected individuals.

So imagine their reaction to images of a Victoria's Secret model dressed in little more than feathers, turquoise jewelry and a leopard skin bikini. Or a Gwen Stefani music video in which she wears a fake braid, is tied up by men and shown writhing against a wall. Or Drew Barrymore's profile picture on Facebook, showing her wearing a headdress along with a Budweiser apron and giving the peace sign.

"Stereotype: The Barrymore" by Cannupa Hanska Luger
The piece was inspired by a photo Barrymore used as her Facebook profile photo, seen left.

Cannupa Hanska Luger says Barrymore's high profile picture is indicative of mainstream culture's continuous obsession with Native American iconography, and it has dangerous repercussions.

"Appropriation of cultural Regalia, such as the war bonnet ...causes sacred objects to lose their power when they are represented out of context," wrote Luger in his artist statement. "Adopting a culture, without context or understanding, drags the stories and history of that culture through the mud and bastardizes a sacred history for the 'kitsch' aspect of an object. These products create a mentality of disrespect toward the culture they were derived from. They do not honor the aesthetic--they steal and consume an identity."

In Luger's piece "Stereotype: The Barrymore," the trappings of Barrymore's photo - colorful chicken feathers - adorn a boombox, literally a "type of stereo." Dreamcatchers are placed where the speakers would be, and the red and white and pale blue trim makes a subtle reference to the Budweiser apron.

"In-Appropriate 1" by Frank Buffalo Hyde, inspired by a still from a Gwen Stefani video, seen left.

Frank Buffalo Hyde explains his paintings this way:

"At no other time in history have we (Natives) been so well equipped and educated, and so willing to fight these derogatory attacks on our images. So No Doubt removed their video and Urban Outfitters is still in court. This conflict of idea versus ideals can only be won when we own our own image. So we are and we do."

Dyani White Hawk Polk says Luger and Hyde's pieces serve to raise awareness while also poking fun at the absurdity of it all.

"Those of us who are really involved in our communities and also very in touch with mass media - it's something all of us have been watching all year long," says White Hawk Polk. "So of course our artists are responding to it artistically - it's an expression of our lived experiences."

White Hawk Polk sees it as the job of All My Relations to break down stereotypes of Native art while promoting a more accurate depiction of Native American culture.

"People expect the old," she says, "they expect native arts to remain frozen in this 1800s era. That's what has been continuously pushed in the media. They expect bead work, headdresses and buffaloes - things like that.

"Because that isn't provided in our education system, because native cultures in their true forms aren't really taught very often in public academic media - there's a huge gap in exposure."

In "Make It Pop," perhaps the best representation of contemporary native culture is found in Jodi Webster's piece "Wabansi Lakeside Chicago-Beyond Swag." In it a young boy sports a Chicago Bulls jersey and a traditional sash.

"It's just so real," smiles White Hawk Polk. "Those are our kids - they've got both going on. Their everyday love of the Chicago Bulls and contemporary fashion, and then they've got their participation in cultural events. Often you'll see kids on break from a powwow, and they'll have half their Regalia on with a hoodie thrown over it - that's just how it is. It's not one thing or another."

"Make It Pop" runs through May 4 at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis.

The relentless photography of W. Eugene Smith

Posted at 2:41 PM on March 15, 2013 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Photography

A mother bathes her daughter's deformed body with tenderness. A soldier holds a dying infant he found abandoned on a mountain path. A country doctor returns home, weary from a long day. These iconic images are the work of acclaimed photo essayist W. Eugene Smith, and are part of a retrospective at Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis.

Gallery owner Martin Weinstein says W. Eugene Smith thought this image was his finest photograph. While at first difficult to look at, the photo depicts a mother's unconditional love for her child, and is reminiscent of Michelangelo's Pietà.
Tomoko Uemura in her Bath, Minamata, Japan, 1972
Gelatin silver print, 11-1/2 x 19 inches
Image courtesy Weinstein Gallery

In some ways the show is long overdue. The gallery typically puts on exhibitions of two historically important photographers each year, and Weinstein was a fan of Smith's work long before the gallery opened 17 years ago.

"Smith was an American photographer who devoted his career toward conveying a morally conscious message," recalls Weinstein. "He developed that conscience in World War II. His pictures became of the angst and the injurious nature of war - the fact that it was the people on the ground who were paying the price."

Smith's camera turned its gaze from the military leaders to the bodies being buried at sea, and to the innocent children caught in the crossfire.

Wounded, Dying Infant Found by American Soldier in Saipan Mountains, 1944
Gelatin silver print, 13 x 10 inches
Image courtesy Weinstein Gallery

Smith was sent home from the front lines after being hit by mortar fire, but he soon found new injustices - and new heroes - to capture stateside. His photo essay for Life Magazine depicting the exhausting work of Colorado country doctor Ernest Ceriani is widely credited as the first work of journalism told entirely through images. In Martin Weinstein's words, "Smith led the charge."

Smith went on to create photo essays on Dr. Albert Schweitzer, poverty in Spain under Franco and the dire effects of mercury poisoning on Japanese children living close to a chemical plant.

Weinstein says what set Smith apart from other photographers was his compassion.

"It's the emotional nature of the pictures," says Weinstein. "Henri-Cartier Bresson is referred to as being the gold standard of photography. If you look at [Bresson's] images, many are witty, and certainly many offer up political commentary, but Eugene Smith is openly emotional with his work."

Smith was known for spending weeks with his subjects, getting to know them and building trust.

Three Generations of Welsh Miners, 1950
Gelatin silver print, 9-1/4 x 13 inches
Image courtesy Weinstein Gallery

Three of the photos on display at the Weinstein Gallery are also in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Curator David Little says many photographers are forgotten today, because their work was purely documentary and relevant only to their own time. But Smith's work is different.

"There is something about these photographs," Little says. "There's a transcendent quality to them. They document, they give us the morality, but then they give us more - it's that extra bit that sets him apart. Eugene Smith was knowledgeable about art and he used art as a way to make people care, and that's why his work carries on."

In today's media-saturated world, it's hard to imagine the impact Smith's photo essays had on a public that could choose from only a few TV channels and knew only rotary telephones. Magazines like Life served as windows on the world. When the magazine printed more than 20 images of a hardworking nurse midwife struggling to meet the needs of her South Carolina patients, readers responded by flooding her with donations that funded a clinic.

Country Doctor, 1948
Gelatin silver print, 19-1/4 x 23 inches
Image courtesy Weinstein Gallery

Weinstein thinks of Smith's work as a sort of visual equivalent to Tom Brokaw's book "The Greatest Generation", each documenting their subjects' flaws as well as merits.

MIA Curator Little says the Weinstein show is one of the best he's seen, and similar to a museum-quality exhibition. All the images are "lifetime prints" -- printed by Smith with the help of his assistants.

In addition, Weinstein has old copies of Life magazine on hand for visitors to page through, allowing them to see Smith's photographs in their original context.

W. Eugene Smith: I Have Tried To Let Truth Be My Prejudice runs through April 27.

Walker lays off eight staffers

Posted at 3:48 PM on March 1, 2013 by Euan Kerr (0 Comments)
Filed under: Arts management, Galleries, Museums

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis laid off eight staff members today to resolve a long term budget gap.

The layoffs resulted from a half million dollar shortfall in the Walker's budget. A Walker representative said the art center's endowment dropped by 26 percent in the financial crisis of 2008. As interest from the endowment usually provides about 40 percent of the Walker's annual income, this drop caused an unsustainable gap between revenue and expenses. The $500,000 represents about three percent of the Walker budget.

Of the eight people losing permanent jobs, five will continue as short-term contractors until they complete their current projects. The Walker will continue to limit its openings to seven or eight a year, and present slightly fewer performing arts events. The job losses represent about 5 percent of the total Walker staff.

Art Hounds: Sid Kaplan, Xavier Marquis, and more saxophonists than you can shake a stick at

Posted at 7:44 AM on January 10, 2013 by Chris Roberts (2 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Jazz, Music, Photography

"#38" by Sid Kaplan (Couresty of Icebox Gallery)

This week's hounds uncover a photographer who captures the images that linger in a motorist's mind, a ensemble of six supreme Minnesota saxophonists, and a local rapper who straddles hip hop and pop.

(Want to be an Art Hound? Sign up!)

MinnPost arts writer and jazz blogger Pamela Espeland has had St. Paul jazz saxophonist Nathan Hanson's 416 Club Commission concert on her calendar for a while now. That's because Hanson has assembled a stellar, six-member saxophone choir featuring some of the best sax players anywhere, playing compositions he wrote especially for them. The show is this Sunday, Jan. 13 at 7:30pm.

Yes, Nina Clark sings with the Swedish folk group Flikorna Fem, but she likes all kinds of music, especially when it's live and done very well. Nina saw Minneapolis rapper and producer Xavier Marquis perform and his polished, pop-friendly, palpably energetic performance melted all the icicles in her brain. Xavier Marquis will be performing Saturday, January 12 at Cause Spirits and Soundbar as part of Ceewhy's CD release show.

Minneapolis painter Joseph Giannetti has been following New York photographer Sid Kaplan for many decades. Joseph says Kaplan's latest exhibition of photos at the Icebox Gallery in Minneapolis was shot exclusively from a moving car, while he was driving or a passenger. The strictly black and white images capture forgotten scenes from the road that still reside in our brains. The show is called "Drive-by Shooting" and it runs through Feb. 2.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter. Art Hounds is also available as a podcast on iTunes.

Art Hounds is powered by the Public Insight Network.

Art Hounds: 2012 visual art and music highlights

Posted at 12:03 PM on December 31, 2012 by Chris Roberts (0 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Arts around the state, Drawing, Events, Galleries, Jazz, Museums, Music, Painting, Public Art, Sculpture

We've asked our Art Hounds to tell us about their Minnesota arts and culture highlights of 2011. Here are the music and visual art highlights that we didn't have time to get to on air (see the first and second on-air installments -- and the theater and dance wrap-up):

Mark Mallman's performance of "Minneapolis" at the Ritz Theater
Mark Mallman's upbeat 2011 anthem about coming home to his city/muse was a lot of fun, but this performance revealed that the song went deeper than civic boosterism. For his "Double Silhouette" album release party, he debuted a harrowing, never-before-heard preamble delving into the bitterness and betrayal that led the narrator to flee the Twin Cities in the first place, then triumphantly brought it all back home by launching into an especially exuberant rendition of "Minneapolis" that blew the room away. Mallman is always an intense, kinetic performer, but this performance was electrifying even for him.
-Ira Brooker, freelance writer and the editor of the Minnesota Playlist blog

International Novelty Gamelan performing their original score to Prince Achmed at the Square Lake Film And Music Festival
An absolutely captivated audience watched the 1926 shadow pupet animated film onder the stars surrounded by trees accompanied by the primitive ING orchestra. It was spellbinding to say the least.
-Mike Haeg, Mayor of Minnesota's Smallest Small Town, Mt. Holly, MN (pop. 4), Artist

U of M Jazz Ensembles' Gil Evans Centennial Celebration
A rare opportunity to experience live the music of one of the foremost comoser/arrangers of our time. Musicianship was superb and conductor/Evans Scholar Ryan Truesdell was very informative on his research into the archival treasures of Gil's scores and recordings.
-John Devine, saxophonist and composer

"The Sound of Surprise: A Vijay Iyer Mini-Festival" at the Walker Art Center
Iyer played six sets over two nights -- two solo sets and four with other musicians, including his great trio. It was a remarkable, probably once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear an important young pianist and composer play that much live music, much of it improvised. It was provocative and luxurious, exhilarating and immersive.
-Pamela Espeland, writer of MinnPost's Artscape and the jazz blog, bebopified

Frank Gaard at the Walker Art Center
Frank Gaard, vanguard of the Minneapolis avant-garde, had a much deserved retrospective at the Walker. His vibrant paintings and portraits mix Rock n Roll,drugs, sex, politics and the tenacity of the human spirit together to make art that truly enlightens and entertains.
-Paul D. Dickinson, host of the Riot Act Reading Series

Moritz Gotze at the Rourke Art Museum in Moorhead
Gotze creates intriguing Pop art that uses many of its devices (consumerism, logos, etc.) but also adds elements of history and, especially, art history. His exhibition also marked the first major exhibition mounted by the Rourke's new director, Tania Blanich.
-Kris Kerzman, writer for ARTSpulse

Artists in Storefronts
Over 65 artists have been showcased as part of the Whittier Alliance program directed by Joan Vorderbruggen. By animating empty and underused storefront spaces in the Whittier neighborhood over seven short and long term leases were secured for landlords that had been sitting with empty space for three to seven years. This program touches every part of life in Minneapolis. This project is about art, artists, community, multi-cultures, multi-disciplines and commerce.
-Tim Carroll, artist

Andy DuCett's "Why we do this" at the Soap Factory
The artist very cleverly wove together all of the little things that create our collective consciousness as Midwesterners, and recreated them all in one space. The pieces were almost all interactive, and that is what I loved about it. It has been said that dreams are not linear like a story--that they're more like a sculpture; if so, that's what this exhibition was--a living sculptural dream of the events and objects that make up our experiences living here in the Midwest.
-Billie Jo Konze, actor and singer

The Dubious Sum of Vaguely Discernable Parts by Nyeema Morgan at Bindery Projects
Bindery Projects, Nate Young & Caroline Kent's new alternative St. Paul gallery, brought emerging artist Nyeema Morgan's tripartite exhibit which included delicate prints, sublime photographs, and a simple newsprint publication. In "Forty-Seven Easy Poundcakes Like Grandma Used To Make," Morgan created a print series of 47 drawings, each made up of different recipes on index cards. Morgan's minimalist, grayish photographs of pound cake ingredients, along with actual pound cake served at the opening, set the standard for forthcoming high quality academically bent, sociopolitical exhibitions at Bindery Projects.
-Pete Driessen, artist, curator/director TuckUnder Projects

Northern Spark
I can't imagine the art moment of the year for me NOT being Northern Spark. I couldn't get over just how crowded the city was at 4 a.m. with other inquisitive bikers. The culmination of the experience was laying on the fake grass under HOTTEA's installation at the MIA. I was exhausted and art-ed out (if that's possible) and that piece just spoke to everyone there. I already can't wait for next year.
-Steph Guidera, painter

Jana Pullman, Minnesota Book Artist of the year

Posted at 9:08 AM on December 14, 2012 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Books, Craft, Education, Galleries, Libraries, Printmaking

The Minnesota Book Awards has named Jana Pullman the winner of the 2013 Minnesota Book Artist Award. The award is presented each year to a Minnesota book artist or group of artists that has shown excellence and innovation in the field over the previous three years, and has contributed significantly to the local book arts community.

Pullman is well known in the community for her work as a book binder and conservator, and especially for her work with leather and wood covers. But her knowledge runs deep in several veins of the book arts, including not just binding but paper-making, printing, box-making, and the history of bookbinding.

Pullman has been involved in the book arts for thirty years, studying the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Iowa, where she later worked for several years with noted paper maker Tim Barrett.

"Open Horizon" - a cover for the book Open Horizons by Sigurd F. Olson, about his love affair with the wilderness in Wisconsin.

Pullman arrived in Minneapolis in 1997. Since then she has become a pillar of the local book arts community, regularly teaching classes at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and running her Western Slope Bindery. She also teaches workshops throughout the country, and has received several prestigious awards.

Full disclosure: I've had the pleasure of taking several classes with Jana Pullman over the last few years. She is a treasure of book arts knowledge and a gem of a teacher.

In conjunction with the Minnesota Book Artist award, an exhibit of Pullman's work will be on display at the MCBA January 18 - February 24, and will subsequently tour to other venues across the state.

"Water" - Full bound goatskin over sculptured boards. Silk endbands and chiyogami endpapers. Air brushed background and title in aluminum leaf.

Previous recipients of the Minnesota Book Artist Award include Cave Paper's Bridget O'Malley and Amanda Degener, Regula Russelle, Wilber H. "Chip" Schilling, Paulette Myers-Rich, and Jody Williams.

Images courtesy of the Minnesota Book Awards.

Art Hounds: SINderella, David Petersen and a holiday opera in Duluth

Posted at 7:45 AM on December 13, 2012 by Chris Roberts (0 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Arts around the state, Dance, Events, Galleries, Opera

Part of the current exhibit at David Petersen Gallery, "City of Seals" featuring work by Kristopher Benedict and Fabienne Lasserre (Image courtesy of David Petersen Gallery)

The hounds have great enthusiasm for an arts instigator in Minneapolis who's opened a gallery, a saucy, salacious take on a standard fairy tale, and an opera designed to be an alternative to the nutcracker.

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Freelance stage manager Deb Ervin has long admired the work and vision of Ballet of the Dolls. She's even studying the group for a course at St. Mary's University, where she's getting a master's degree in arts administration. Deb will attend her first Dolls' performance ever when she goes to "SINderella," the group's new holiday production. Ballet of the Dolls is presenting a family version of the show (Cinderella), and a much naughtier, lustful 18 and older version (SINderella) at the Ritz Theater through Dec. 31.

Christopher Atkins at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts says Twin Cities visual art impressario David Petersen blazed a trail with his Art of This one-nighter series and The Dressing Room exhibition space, programmed out of his own home. Christopher, who runs the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at the M.I.A., says Petersen has now opened a contemporary art space called, appropriately, David Petersen Gallery. The gallery will focus on supporting the careers of regional, national, and international artists.

Claire Kirch knows what's going on in Duluth. When she's not doing her job covering the midwest literary scene for Publisher's Weekly, she's out and about, on the town. Two years ago, she saw Lyric Opera of the North's production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors," and was incredibly impressed. The show is back, at the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Duluth, and Claire thinks -- no, she DEMANDS that you see it. It runs Dec. 14 & 15 at 7:30pm, and Dec. 16 at 2pm.

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Innovating the dinner table with sexy place settings

Posted at 4:43 PM on December 19, 2012 by Marianne Combs (0 Comments)
Filed under: Craft, Galleries, Sculpture

In the world of tableware, it would appear there's little room for innovation.

For instance a plate can be given corners, or different colors or patterns, but in its essence it's a flat surface on which to put your food. A plate is recognizably a plate.

Along that same line of reasoning a bowl is a bowl, and a cup is a cup.

Ceramic artist Kimberlee Roth thinks it's time to shake things up a bit.

Nautilus, 2012
Photo by Jennifer Phelps

Roth started out studying physics, specifically material science, more specifically ceramics (ceramics play an important role in superconductors and as insulators).

However Roth soon was so charmed by clay's sensual nature, and its artistic potential, that she left physics to study art.

Over the years Roth has used what she learned in physics about curves, heat and pressure to create sculptural pieces that she hopes people will admire both for their sensual form, and their functionality: sculpture for the dinner table.

Masdevallia Veitchiana- Yana, 2010
MPR photo/Marianne Combs

The shapes are inspired by shells, flowers and the female figure.

"I'm very attracted to the female form," says Roth. "I think the female body is beautiful. I think the male body is beautiful, too, but I found it easier to translate feminine imagery to ceramics than masculine."

Other pieces are inspired by Moorish tiles, or by the terracotta embellishments that decorate many older buildings.

Clover, 2012
MPR Photo/Marianne Combs

Roth's most recent show, at Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis, features several different sets of pieces hung meticulously on the wall to create a larger geometric pattern. They are hung on nails, and can be easily taken down and set on a dining room table.

Roth imagines her as the backdrop to a particularly evocative meal.

"I wouldn't serve spaghetti on these dishes," says Roth, "I'm thinking of sushi, or other food that you would eat with chopsticks or your fingers."

Lotus, 2012
Photo by Jennifer Phelps

Roth says while some artists imbue their work with meaning and symbolism, for her it's simply about pleasure.

"I'm not trying to make provocative work. I'm not trying to get that 'Aha!' moment from somebody. I want people to think these pieces are beautiful, and I want them to frame food elegantly. Special plates, for a special meal."

Roth's exhibit "Bouquet" is on display at Burnet Gallery through January 5.

Art Hounds: Maeve's Sessions, Souljazz Orchestra and an Ottertail County homecoming

Posted at 7:45 AM on December 6, 2012 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Jazz, Music, Poetry

A section of Naomi Schliesman's installation at the Kaddatz Gallery in Fergus Falls (Image courtesy of the artist)

This week's hounds guide us to an interactive poetry reading, vibrant 3-D art in Fergus Falls and a horn saturated Afro-Latin band from Ottawa, Canada.

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According to local poet Kris Bigalk, there's no risk of droning poets, stiflingly warm rooms or excessive sleepiness at The Maeve's Sessions, at Maeve's Cafe in Minneapolis. It features some of the best Twin Cities poets reading their work and interacting with audiences. The next installment happens tonight at 7:30pm, and features poets Leslie Adrienne Miller, Jim Moore, Katrina Vandenberg and Kathryn Kysar.

After ten years of being away, sculpture artist Naomi Schliesman has returned home to Ottertail County. Michele Anderson, program director for Springboard for the Arts in Fergus Falls, says Schliesman has installed an eye-popping 3-D installation at the Kaddatz Gallery in Fergus Falls, which reflects on her homecoming. The show runs through January 5.

Go see the Souljazz Orchestra, says Minneapolis bass player Alex Hamberger, and you will be compelled to dance, whether you want to or not. The band guarantees it. Alex says the group, from Ottawa, Canada, truly thrills with its horn section and Afro-Latin rhythms. The Souljazz Orchestra will heat up the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis on Saturday, Dec. 8.

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Art Hounds: Andy Ducett, Salon Saloon, and the mystery of Jandek

Posted at 7:45 AM on October 18, 2012 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Arts around the state, Events, Galleries, Music

A section of Andy DuCett's "Why We Do This" exhibit at The Soap Factory (Photo courtesy of The Soap Factory, photo credit: Dane McFarlane)

An interesting thread organically emerged in this week's installment. All the hounds' submissions are connected by a cult theme; a cultish musician, cults as phenomenons, and the cult of Minnesota's personality.

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Mike Haeg is an artist, and the straight talking mayor of Minnesota's smallest small town, Mt Holly. Mike applauds what he calls the state's premier live art magazine, "Salon Saloon," for consistently exposing him to new artists and ideas. "Salon Saloon," with one-man art scene and Art Hound Andy Sturdevant serving as facilitator, is presented every third Tuesday of the month at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis. The next show, on Oct. 23, will focus on cults.

Love him or not love him so much -- and Mankato artist and musician Amanda Wirig LOVES him -- the atonal, enigmatic Houston-based singer songwriter Jandek is an original. Jandek is performing this Saturday, Oct. 20, at the Halling Recital Hall on the campus of Minnesota State University Mankato.

For a peek into Minnesota's soul, and maybe even your own history and past, Twin Cities poet and public artist Todd Boss strongly suggests you go see artist Andy DuCett's ambitious solo exhibition,"Why We Do This," which occupies the entire show space at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis. Todd describes it as a series of installations that collectively reveal the Minnesota psyche. On view through Nov. 11, with a closing reception on Nov. 10, 7-11pm.

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St. Paul photographer a pioneer in Hmong contemporary art

Posted at 11:41 AM on September 27, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Minnesota Mix, Photography

A new photography exhibit in St. Paul showcases the Hmong-American experience through the eyes of someone who, as a child, often felt smothered by her Hmong culture.

"Brian and TouMeng Playing Fort" is one of the images in Hmong photographer Pao Her's first solo gallery show "Somebody," which is currently on display at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minn.
Photo courtesy Pao Her

As Nikki Tundel reports, this past spring Pao Her became the first Hmong artist to receive an MFA from the prestigious Yale photography program.

Her's mother and father were refugees from Laos. In 1986, when she was 4 years old, they made their way to St. Paul. As she was growing up, her parents did everything they could to shield her from American culture and strengthen her connection to her Hmong heritage.

"I remember being invited to my friend's birthday party, and my parents telling me I couldn't go because I was going to be the only Hmong kid there and I didn't speak really good English," she recalled. "I remember being so angry at my mom for not letting me go."

Instead she spent time at home, learning how to be a proper Hmong bride and how to wash dishes in a way that would please her future in-laws. But despite all her traditional training, she chose a non-traditional path.

Renowned photographer Wing Young Huie curated Her's show. He said what Her accomplished is remarkable.

"There really isn't a contemporary art culture in Hmong tradition, so what Pao is doing is pioneering," he said.

Hmong immigrants are well known for their tapestry and have made a place for themselves in the literary world, Huie noted. But photography remains a rarely celebrated medium.

"It takes a while for a new immigrant group to produce visual artists, because it's not a very practical occupation," he said.

In addition, Pao Her said, many traditional Hmong, like her parents, still view photography as a way to simply document birthday parties or New Year celebrations. Her fine art photos don't fit that mold.

"My mom, she'll say, 'That's not a photograph. Why aren't they smiling?' My parents will never fully understand, but they're really supportive," Her said.

You can read the rest of Nikki Tundel's story - and see more of Her's photography - here.

A tribute to Suzy Greenberg

Posted at 3:50 PM on September 10, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, People

In Minneapolis, today is "Suzy Greenberg Day" thanks to a proclamation by Mayor R.T. Rybak.

In addition Greenberg, the founder of Soo Visual Arts Center, or SooVAC, is being remembered with an exhibition of her art tonight from 4pm - 10pm at the gallery and the nearby CC Club.

Greenberg died suddenly on August 16, 2012 of natural causes. Tonight's event will be an opportunity for friends and colleagues to exchange stories and celebrate the impact of her life on the Twin Cities arts community.

Art Hounds: Mount Eerie, Helena Hernmarck, and the smallest of libraries

Posted at 7:45 AM on August 30, 2012 by Chris Roberts (1 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Libraries, Music, Public Art

"Poppies," 1978, by Helena Hernmarck. From the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. (Image courtesy of the American Swedish Institute)

This week's hounds put their stamp of approval on a haunting singer-songwriter from the Northwest, a fiber artist whose oversized pieces are as detailed as photographs, and giant bird houses that books fly in and out of.

Minneapolis poet Amelia Foster is drawn to the impressionistic lyrics and layered sounds of Mount Eerie. 'Fuzz folk' is how some people categorize it. Mount Eerie is the moniker of Washington singer-songwriter Phil Elverum, who's making a stop at CO Exhibitions gallery in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Sept. 5. On this Twin Cities visit, "Mount Eerie" will be backed by a full band.

The Little Free Library has changed writer and poet Juliet Patterson's life. Little Free Libraries look like purple martin birdhouses but they're actually repositories designed to facilitate neighborhood book exchanges. Juliet put one in her front yard and is now on a first name basis with book loving neighbors from several blocks away.

Lin Nelson-Mayson says you're in for a visual feast if you go see the tapestries of Helena Hernmarck at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. Lin, who's director of the University of MInnesota's Goldstein Museum of Design, calls Hernmarck one of the world's most innovative fiber artists, whose enormous weavings are known for their eye popping photorealist detail. By the way, Lin says the American Swedish Institute's brand new expansion is quite stunning, too. The exhibition, entitled "In Our Nature: The Tapestries of Helena Hernmarck," is up through Oct. 14.

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Suzy Greenberg, founder of SooVAC, dies

Posted at 11:53 AM on August 17, 2012 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, People

The Twin Cities' arts community has lost one of its champions.

Suzy Greenberg, founder of Soo Visual Arts Center or SooVAC, collapsed suddenly while working out. The precise cause is still unknown. She was 44.

The following statement was posted on the SooVAC website:

It is with the most profound sadness and broken hearts we share that our founder, inspiration, mentor and friend Suzy Greenberg passed away yesterday. Words can't express how many friends, artists and community members Suzy inspired and supported. Her passion and creativity will always be remembered and honored. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones. We are committed to ensuring Suzy's legacy by continuing the vision she created with SooVAC.

A date for a memorial service has not yet been set.

Marcus Young is ready for love

Posted at 1:20 PM on August 15, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Culture, Galleries, Public Art

The other day I sat down with artist Marcus Young in what could have been his living room, if it weren't for the fact that we were in the gallery space of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

The room is furnished with Young's loveseat and chairs, wall art and floor lamps. And it's all for sale.

Young is part of a group show at MCAD of McKnight Visual Artist Fellows. While the other artists' work feature colorful playful sculptures, Young's display makes you feel like you're at Pottery Barn or Room and Board.

I'm trying to do the opposite of retail therapy. You can obsess about the beauty of a thing - say, shoes - and often it's substituting for a lack of human affection. So I thought I could get rid of things that I still really like, in order to make room in my heart and in my house for a new energy, to loosen things up.

Marcus Young's possessions, on display and for sale at the Minneapolis College of Art Design
Photo: Rik Sferra

Included on the didactic labels is not just information on the furniture, but things you might want to know about Young... if you're shopping around in that area of your life, too. Young offers discounts on items to buyers who offer to set him up on a date.

For Young, this show is a test of what art can do:

Every time I encounter an opportunity to work in a gallery, I ask myself where I am in my life right now. Because a gallery is normally about things, not life, and I like to bring life into the gallery. Where I am in my life is I'm looking for love, so I wondered was it possible that my art practice could help me find love? And if not, could it at least help me declutter my house?

As an artist Young is known for blurring the boundaries between art and life, whether it's by imprinting poetry in city sidewalks, taking up residence in a museum, or inviting people to fly wishes on kites.

So why not use art to talk about love?

There's so much shame and embarrassment around not being in love; we are a very partner-centric culture. We look at single people as unlucky at the very best, and unwanted at the worst. You have to be bold enough to tell the world that you're looking for somebody, and something may come from throwing that message into a bottle into the ocean.

Young says if he doesn't try every tactic available for finding love, he's not being responsible for himself. He's even gone so far as to add it to meeting agendas.

The McKnight exhibition closes Friday. In the five weeks it's been up, Young has sold about half of his possessions. But he's only been on one coffee date. Young says it's discouraging.

Maybe it's easier for us to buy and sell than to talk about needing love. Looking for love is so much more noble than buying chotchkies so it should be the inverse.

Young admits that being a gay Chinese American artist means he's looking for someone who delights in the unconventional. He wonders, maybe Minnesota isn't the best place for finding Mr. Right?

Maybe people think it's easier to be accepted if your normal, but at my stage of life I'm ready to not be normal. And there are very few people out there who delight in being different. I don't want to give up on Minnesota - I've been here 25 years, so I believe in Minnesota, but I also believe in love. I hope those two aren't in competition.

For those people who question Young's use of a gallery exhibit to find love and sell his furniture, Young says, that's the whole point.

I've provided some very aesthetically pleasing objects, placed and lit well in a gallery space - so isn't that by definition reaching the minimal definition of what art is? It just so happens that these objects were all in my house. I've signed every piece - does that help? You can buy them off the wall. Ultimately I want people to understand that art is a part of life, it involves your spirit, not just an object on the wall.

Young says his show has been an experiment in which he is the guinea pig. But he's looking at ways of replicating it on a larger scale. Could groups of single people come together to declutter their lives and make room for new love?

Young's show "I'm looking for love, so let's fix the system" runs through Friday in MCAD's main gallery.

If you think you can help Marcus Young find true love, you can contact him at FurnitureandMoreMCAD@gmail.com. If you miss the show, you may spot Young dancing in the Twin Cities as part of his project "Don't You Feel It Too?"

Your weekend, four ways

Posted at 12:40 PM on July 13, 2012 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Events, Galleries, Music, Theater

Does the weekend ahead look pretty tame? Here are four ways to add a little zing...

Zaraawar Mistry in his latest production "The Other Mr. Gandhi"
Image courtesy of the artist

1. Are you looking for love? So is Marcus Young, and he's hoping his latest art exhibition will help him find it. Called "I'm looking for love, so let's fix the system", Young's latest show is a mix of art and life, where the boundaries between the two are completely challenged. Join him tonight at MCAD, buy some of his old apartment furniture, and help him find Mr. Right.

2. Got money on your mind? Check out the latest exhibit at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, titled Medium of Exchange: The Art of Cash
. If you go tonight, you will also be treated to Dylan Hicks reading from his new book "Boarded Windows" and performing music from his new album, Sings Bolling Greene.

3. Zaraawar Mistry is an excellent storyteller. His latest one-man show "The Other Mr. Gandhi" runs this weekend only at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis. It's filled with his signature twists, simple-but-dramatic scene changes, and fabulous characters.

4. Want to put a little rhythm in your step? Tomorrow the Drum Corps International takes over the TCF Bank Stadium as part of its 40th Anniversary summer tour. 26 drum corps will be marching, including Minnesota Brass and the Madison Scouts.

Art Hounds: Rooted, Chaun Webster, and another great Minnesota indie folk band

Posted at 7:45 AM on June 21, 2012 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Dance, Events, Galleries, Minnesota Poets, Music, Poetry

Conscious Spirit, the dance group founded by Rooted's curator Maia Maiden (Photo courtesy of Maia Maiden)

The hounds have unearthed an intergenerational hip hop choreographer's evening, a St. Paul poet who's encouraging African-American artists to take control of their image and a Minneapolis indie folk band with Duluthian roots whose sound is reminiscent of the region it was born in.

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As a black artist, Bianca Pettis, one half of the Minnesota sound collage duo Beatrix Jar, often feels under-represented in the media. Bianca is an enthusiastic supporter of St. Paul poet Chaun Webster's mission to help African-American artists bring a more accurate, nuanced depiction of black culture into the mainstream. Webster will read his poems on Saturday, June 23, at 7pm, at The Bindery Projects, an alternative exhibition space in St. Paul.

Minneapolis songwriter and composer Mankwe Ndosi predicts people who go to Rooted: A Hip Hop Choreographer's Evening, will be rejuvenated by the multi-generational energy that's in the room. The event, at Patrick's Cabaret in Minneapolis on June 22 and 23 at 7:30pm, features seasoned and emerging hip hop choreographers trying to take their style of dance to a new level.

Brandy Dutoit, creator of "365 Music project" blog, calls the Minneapolis indie folk band Portage one of the best new local groups of the year. Brandy hears the band's big sounding acoustic guitars and atmospheric effects and thinks of the upper Midwest. Portage is winding up a month long residency at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall in St. Paul on Wednesday, June 27.

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Art Hounds: Michael Crouser, Edgar Varese, and Crimes of the Heart

Posted at 7:45 AM on May 24, 2012 by Chris Roberts (1 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Photography, Theater

"Dog Run #60" by Michael Crouser (Image courtesy of the artist)

This week's hounds direct us to a Minneapolis/Brooklyn photographer who develops his own pictures, a 20th century French composer as interpreted by the SPCO, and a play about dysfunctional, impulsive southern passion.

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Minneapolis photographer Bernadette Pollard calls Michael Crouser an increasingly rare breed of photographer, who still shoots on film and develops images in his own darkroom. Bernadette says it's resulted in a strong, clear artistic vision that distinguishes Crouser as a craftsman. His work is the subject of the exhibition, "Michael Crouser: Mid-Career Retrospective," on display at the Minneapolis Photo Center through June 16.

Everyone knows about Mozart, but St. Paul composer Justin E.A. Busch says what about the adventurous 20th century French composer Edgar Varese? Both are getting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra treatment this weekend, but Justin is especially excited about the Varese works on the SPCO program. They include what Justin calls a musical exploration for strictly solo flute with no other accompaniment. The concerts will be held on May 25 & 26 at 8pm at the Ordway in St. Paul and on the 27th at 2pm at Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis.

"Crimes of the Heart" drew freelance director and actor Joshua James Campbell to the Bloomington Civic Theatre recently, and he was thoroughly charmed and captivated. It's a play that delves into southern culture by focusing on the lives of three dysfunctionally emotional sisters. Joshua says it's directed by Minnesota theater institution Wendy Lehr, and he could feel her imprint on the production.

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Art Hounds: Alison Hiltner, MaLLy, Roseville Area High School Jazz Band

Posted at 7:45 AM on May 17, 2012 by Molly Bloom (2 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Education, Events, Galleries, Music, Sculpture

Detail from Alison Hiltner's "Supply Drop-Origins Unknown" (Image courtesy of the artist)

This week, the hounds introduce us to a rapper with a mainstream sound but deeply introspective lyrics, an artist who takes us to a beautiful and unsettling future, and a group of a young people playing rarely performed music by a 1960s South African band.

Asia Ward is an aluminum installation artist who sees a kindred spirit in artist Alison Hiltner. Asia appreciates Alison's ability to create futuristic worlds that are beautiful and threatening at the time. You can see Alison's work at Gallery 122 in her show "Messages From The Event Horizon" through June 16.

MaLLy's music speaks to Ali Elabbady. Ali (aka EgyptoKnuckles), CEO and producer for Background Noise Crew, appreciates that even though MaLLy's production and beats are mainstream, his lyrics go much deeper. You can hear MaLLy's introspective rhymes at the release show for his new album "The Last Great..." at the 7th Street Entry this Friday.

Pamela Espeland is an arts writer for MinnPost and she wants you to give The Roseville Area High School Jazz Band a chance. On Friday they will perform music by Brotherhood of Breath, a multi-racial band that fled South Africa and re-formed in London in the 1960s. Pamela says that the RAHS Jazz Band might be the only group in North America playing this music thanks to the tenacity of band teacher Pat Moriarty who tracked down the charts.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter Art Hounds is also available as a podcast on iTunes.

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Art4Shelter: cheap art with a big payoff

Posted at 11:48 AM on May 7, 2012 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Funding, Galleries

Art4Shelter is one of those rare creations in which everybody wins.

Prospective art buyers peruse the hundreds of original works on sale at last year's Art4Shelter event

This coming Wednesday night people will flock to Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis to buy art.

There they will be treated to over 1000 original works of art on paper, all priced at the incredibly reasonable $30 each.

Granted the works are small - 5x7 inches - but many of them will be by well known artists such as Alec Soth, Andrea Stanislav, and Paul Shambroom. However signatures will be on the back of the artwork, so buyers will have to buy according to taste, not reputation - and isn't that the way it should be?

The proceeds will go to Simpson Housing Services.

1000 works of art at $30 each... that adds up to $30,000.

Art4Shelter is the brain child of artist Megan Rye, inspired by a similar fundraiser in New York City. The first year the event was held at Circa Gallery, and the art flew off the walls in just minutes. Rye says the price point is important:

At $30 for each piece of artwork, and no entry fee, almost everyone would feel welcome to attend. Homelessness and poverty are universal concerns, and our goal is to involve and educate as many people as possible.

One of the works of art on sale this year at Art4Shelter

So the shelter gets $30,000, and art lovers get great art at a more than reasonable price. But what do the artists get out of it?

Artists are the most compassionate people I know. Their generosity makes this event possible. One artist said to me, "I could never write a $1000 check. But by making 33 pieces of artwork, I am able to contribute that much to a homeless shelter."

In addition, Rye says contributing artists are listed on the Art4Shelter website, with links to their websites.

Art4Shelter takes place this Wednesday night at Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis. People can peruse the art from 5-7pm; the sale begins at 7pm.

Art Hounds: Alison Scott, Art Du Nord, and a steampunk musical

Posted at 7:40 AM on April 26, 2012 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Theater

Art Du Nord, a pop-up gallery on University Avenue in St. Paul (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Kensok)

The hounds highlight a Twin Cities songstress with some bluesy muscle, a pop-up art gallery along the Central Corridor, and a civil war-era musical from a Brooklyn indie rock band.

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Twin Cities musician Steve Noonan would like to send props to fellow songwriter and performer Alison Scott. Steve says Scott crafts catchy, R&B flavored songs, knows how to wail as a singer and plays a mean keyboard. Alison Scott will be at the Amsterdam Bar and Hall in St. Paul on Friday, April 27, alongside longtime producer and guitarist Kevin Bowe and special guest, '90s stalwart Freedy Johnston.

As a community artist and organizer, Scott Artley is an advocate of using art to rejuvenate vacant buildings and urban landscapes. Scott is a big supporter of Art Du Nord, a pop-up art gallery at 2401 University Avenue in St. Paul. Scott says Art Du Nord, which will feature visual art, furniture and design products from twelve regional artists, will be open from Wednesdays through Sundays from now until May 19.

"Futurity," at the Walker Art Center April 28 - 29, has a lot of ingredients that pique Bedlam Theatre co-artistic director Maren Ward's interest. It's a DIY musical from a Brooklyn indie rock band that's set in the Civil War but envisions a pacifist future brought on by a steam powered anti-war brain machine.

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New exhibition showcases Somali-American men making a difference

Posted at 12:43 PM on March 30, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Culture, Galleries, Minnesota Mix, Photography

Editor's Note: This piece by Nikki Tundel is part of a series called Minnesota Mix. Minnesota Mix is a project of Minnesota Public Radio News that examines the way youth and ethnic diversity are influencing Minnesota arts. Enjoy...

Adnan Hirsi, 6, poses in front of a portrait of his father Ahmed Hirsi (left) on March 24, 2012. The elder Hirsi is one of 13 Somali men showcased in a photography exhibit at the Whittier Gallery in Minneapolis, Minn.
MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel

MINNEAPOLIS -- A photography exhibit at the Whittier Gallery in Minneapolis aims to showcase young Somali men who are improving the lives of others in the Twin Cities.

After years of seeing images of Somali terrorists in the news, photographer Mohamud Mumin wanted to offer a different picture of his community. His first solo show will do just that.

"For me, it's being able to capture an image," Mumin said. "And also trying to tell stories that often times don't get heard or seen."

The exhibit features larger than life-sized images of 13 Somali men who are, as Mumin puts it, "dedicated, passionate and positively engaged in the community."

Photographer Mohamud Mumin prepares for his gallery opening at Minneapolis' Whittier Gallery on March 24, 2012. The show celebrates Somali men who are making a positive difference in their community.
MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel

As Mumin unrolls a portrait of a Somali teenager, the necktie appears first. Then the lips and the crinkled nose. And then the eyes -- which must measure 2 feet across.

The portrait itself is huge -- more than 5 feet tall and more than 3 feet wide.

"I wanted something big," Mumin said. "It's always good to see something up close."

The young men in Mumin's photos include artists and teachers, a youth ambassador to the White House and the founder of the Somali Basketball League. For them, getting to this point hasn't been easy.

This image of Mohamed Jama (the original taken by Mohamud Mumin) is part of the Youth/Dhalinyarada exhibit at the Whittier Gallery in Minneapolis, Minn. Jama, 17, is a community coordinator in the Twin Cities.
MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel

Like all the subjects, Kaamil Haider is a refugee. His family fled their war-torn homeland when he was 6 years old, crammed onto a cattle boat heading to Yemen. They were stopped within sight of the shore, and were not allowed to go any farther because the coast guard was concerned there were militia members on the boat.

"People started jumping off the boat," Haider recalled. "My brother dragged me on his back. On the way, we bumped into little children that passed away. I will never forget that image, moving them to the side so we could get to the coastline."

Haider said the war in Somalia profoundly shaped his identity. Still, "refugee" is just one part of who he is. Today he's a graphic designer and volunteers much of his time at a mosque. He's grateful that Mohamud Mumin's photographs represent the lives people are living now.

"I believe Mohamud's work is shifting away from being a refugee, being an immigrant, and moving towards shining a light on young Somali men that are doing something for the community, for the world, for themselves," he said.

Gallery goers check out Mohamud Mumin's photographs at the Whittier Gallery in Minneapolis, Minn., on March 24, 2102.
MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel

The show opened last Saturday night at the Whittier Gallery in south Minneapolis. Photographer Mohamud Mumin stood quietly in the corner, surveying two years' worth of work.

"Maybe I'll need a moment to just take it all in," he said quietly.

Gallery goers -- both Somali and non-Somali -- positioned themselves squarely in front of the portraits. Some moved in closer and closer, until their cheeks almost brushed those on the images in front of them.

"That's me right there," called Ahmed Ali.

Ali is a teacher and mentor in the Somali community and one of the men showcased in the exhibit.

"This guy here, Ahmed Ali," said Ali, pointing at his picture, "he is black, he is Somali, he is Muslim. But he is also a great citizen, a taxpayer. He cares for his community and he's not so scary. Ha!"

Mohamud Mumin addresses an audience of Somalis and non-Somalis at the Whittier Gallery in Minneapolis, Minn., on March 24, 2012. His photography exhibit showcases Somali men who are making positive contributions to the Twin Cities community.
MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel

Nearby, Abdifatah Farah, a community activist and youth advocate, posed for a few photos in front of his portrait.

"Honestly speaking, I really, really like looking at that picture," said Farah. "It looks like a mug shot, but a good one. If you were to take a mug shot for people doing great things, this is what it looks like. I think the Somali community is going to look at all these photos and be like, 'We are SO proud of them. They are our brothers. They are our sons. They are our family and this is our community.'"

It's a story photographer Mohamud Mumin says he's privileged to be able to share.

"I'm hoping it brings people from different walks of life together," he said.

Then Mumin locked eyes with the giant portrait in front of him and smiled.

Art Hounds: Chatham Rise, Above and Below, and a Twin Cities sci-fi future

Posted at 7:45 AM on March 29, 2012 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Photography, Writing

Image courtesy Rhea Pappas

The hounds this week are caught up in the swirling psychedelic rock of Chatham Rise, art that goes above and below the surface of the water, and a literary journal devoted to sci-fi writing set in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

(Have an idea for Art Hounds? Tell us!)

"Above and Below" is a show tailor made for St. Paul make-up artist Julie Swenson, largely because it features two artists she admires. The exhibition, at the Coffman Art Gallery at the University of Minnesota, juxtaposes photographer Rhea Pappas' graceful, underwater shots of models with Carla Holmquist's abstract paintings of water surfaces from high overhead. The exhibit runs through April 12.

After reading a few stories in "Cifiscape: The Twin Cities," Courtney Algeo now has no trouble envisioning a swarm of zombies marching down Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. Courtney, who works at the Loft Literary Center, writes for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, and is an editor for Paper Darts, is going to the launch party for "Cifiscape: Twin Cities, Vol. II" on Saturday, March 31, at 6pm, at University Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Cifiscape is a literary journal of science fiction writing about the future of the Twin Cities.

Psychedelic rock musician and aficionado Dan Churilla has a spot reserved in his reverb- and feedback-drenched heart for Chatham Rise. Dan, who's a guitarist with the Minneapolis band Delta Lyrae, says the music of Chatham Rise will envelop you, penetrate your core, and put you in a dream state. Dan says he's also been exposed to a wealth of psychedelic music from outside Minnesota from bands Chatham Rise recruits to share bills with. Chatham Rise plays Saturday, Mar. 31 at the Hexagon Bar in Minneapolis.

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Beach plastic: there's no such place as 'away'

Posted at 1:13 PM on March 28, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Museums, Printmaking, Sculpture

Before moving to Minnesota I spent much of my childhood in California. I have very happy memories of waking up to find strange plastic toys on my bedside table, the treasures my mother had gleaned from her morning walk on the beach.

Richard and Judith Lang also take walks on the beach, and they also collect small pieces of plastic. Tens of thousands of them, from a stretch of Kehoe Beach in Northern California. And then they turn the plastic into art.

Bosky Dell
Image: Richard and Judith Lang

The couple writes on their website:

Certain items would catch our interest: milk jug lids, combs, toy soldiers, disposable lighters, cheese spreaders from lunch snack packs. We were attracted to things that would show by their numbers and commonness what is happening in the oceans around the world.

The plastic we continue to find is not left by visitors; it is washing up from the ocean. Back in our studios we clean, sort and categorize the pieces according to color and kind. We use the plastic to make artworks including large sculptures, installations, photo tableaus and jewelry.

The Langs' work has been shown at SFMOMA, the Berkeley Art Center, and other artistic venues.

But of course, while beautiful, the underlying message is a disturbing one. Their work shows that no matter where we throw our trash, there is really no such place as "away."

One Plastic Beach from High Beam Media on Vimeo.

Art lovers unite: the art of Cody Kiser

Posted at 2:52 PM on March 27, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Painting

A piece of art doesn't truly begin to live until people see it and respond to it. And when people view art, they often tend to keep their 'eye of the beholder' opinions, good, bad or indifferent, to themselves.

For the next few months Chris Roberts will be dropping in on art openings around town with microphone in hand to coax a reaction from people to specific pieces.

"See Food" by Cody Kiser
Image courtesy of the artist

Roberts' first visit was to the Gallery 122 at Hang it, Inc. in Minneapolis for the opening of painter Cody Kiser's "White Noise" exhibition. It's a series of new oil on canvas works examining what's on the shelves at local ethnic grocery stores. Take a look at the mammoth 54 x 54 "See Food," and then listen to the audio montage (by clicking on the above player) and see how your response jibes with the viewers Chris queried at the opening.

Art Hounds: The Hebrew Lesson, White Noise, and the story songs of Moors and McCumber

Posted at 7:45 AM on March 8, 2012 by Chris Roberts (1 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Painting, Theater

"Preservationist" by Cody Kiser

This week's hounds were captured by a one-woman show about her first trip to Israel, a collection of paintings which take the viewer on an ethnic grocery store adventure, and a folk duo which favors storytelling over confessional songs.

(Have an idea for Art Hounds? Tell us!)

Betty Tisel, information director for "Minnesota Community Sings," is still processing "The Hebrew Lesson." Esther Ouray's one-woman-show at Dreamland Arts in St. Paul is about what Ouray encountered on her first trip to Israel to spread the ashes of her father. Betty says the performance, which is structured like an actual Hebrew lesson, engages nearly every one of the senses, especially within the confines of the incredibly intimate Dreamland Arts theater. Through Saturday, March 10.

If perusing the products in the ethnic food aisle of Lund's is the primary way you embrace other cultures, local visual artist William Hessian would like to gently nudge you in the direction of "White Noise." William says Cody Kiser's collection of colorful paintings gives a close-up view what's on the shelves in ethnic grocery stores around the Twin Cities. "White Noise" is at Hang It, Inc. Gallery 122 in Minneapolis through April 28. Opening reception is Friday, March 9, 7-10pm.

On their website, the folk duo Moors and McCumber describe their music as "songs full of rich harmonies that take you places," and Mother Banjo can testify to that. Singer songwriter Ellen Stanley, whose stage name is "Mother Banjo," saw the pair perform at a Memphis folk conference a few weeks ago. Ellen, who also works for Red House Records in St. Paul, was taken with the group's ability to weave tales with rich characters, and craft songs with memorable melodies. Moors and McCumber is playing Thursday, Mar. 8, at Ginkgo Coffeehouse in St. Paul, along with Ellis.

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Art Hounds: The Pines, Kruse & Niemi, and a budding gallery district in Duluth

Posted at 7:30 AM on February 23, 2012 by Chris Roberts (1 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Storytelling

The Pines (photograph by Cameron Wittig)

The week's hounds embrace a brooding Americana masterpiece, two storytellers absorbed in the human wreckage they've wrought, and the origins of a visual art scene in Duluth.

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Writer and comedian Brian Beatty was swept up recently by "The S****y Things We've Done," a remounting of a show by storytellers Colleen Kruse and Loren Niemi at the Bryant Lake Bowl. It's a daring, painfully funny recounting of the human toll taken by their platonic and romantic misadventures, organized around the 'Seven Deadly Sins.' The show is being performed every Saturday in February at the BLB, and Brian, who hosts mnartist.org's monthly literary podcast "You are Hear," says audiences have been growing steadily so you might want to get your tickets in advance for the last show on Saturday, Feb. 25.

Jen Dietrich, who teaches in the art and design department at the University of Minnesota Duluth, thinks the beginnings of a gallery district in Duluth may be taking hold. Ochre Ghost Gallery and Prove Gallery are two spaces focused on emerging artists which opened in the last year. They're two blocks apart on Superior Street and are coordinating their openings and using their proximity to spark a 'young artist' energy and excitement downtown. Jen thinks it's just in time to complement Duluth's burgeoning music scene.

Carl Atiya Swanson, writer, actor, and co-founder of the arts and culture blog "Cake in 15," has come up with a string of superlatives to describe The Pines' new album, "Dark So Gold." Carl says it's the Minneapolis folk band's most penetrating, profound work to date, and a must-have for any Minnesota music lover, even if the group's roots are in Iowa. Carl suggests Pines' fans grab the record to hold them over until the band returns from a national tour for a gig at Bo Diddley's in St. Cloud on May 18.

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When a picture is worth two million plastic bottles

Posted at 1:39 PM on January 26, 2012 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Photography

Editor's note: This piece by MPR's Euan Kerr aired yesterday evening on All Things Considered, but I think you really have to see the images for the full effect...

'Plastic Bottles,' by Chris Jordan depicts 2,000,000 plastic bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

St. Paul, Minn. -- When we casually toss around words like millions and billions in conversation, it's difficult to visualize what those numbers actually represent.

It's a challenge which for years has motivated photographer Chris Jordan, who had a frustrating problem. He wanted to find a way of portraying the impact of consumerism in the modern world. For a while he tried taking pictures of huge piles of garbage. They were dramatic, but didn't get the effect he wanted.

"I had this craving to go photograph all of the cell phones that we throw out, or all of the cars that we throw out every day, or all the plastic bottles," Jordan said. "And of course there is nowhere you can go and see everything collected into one place like that, because it never is."

"Plastic Bottles" detail.
Photo: Chris Jordan

Jordan decided photo editing could create such places. He creates large images which represent even larger numbers. But that raised another issue. Speaking from his Seattle studio, Jordan says the numbers involved were so huge, they were incomprehensible. Jordan says when it comes to millions or billions most people can't get their heads around them.

"These numbers are far beyond our comprehension, and if we can't comprehend what we read if we can't comprehend these issues, then it's very difficult to feel anything about them."

Jordan's series called "Running the Numbers" is now on display at Carleton College's Weitz Center for Creativity in Northfield, Minn.

'Gyre,' by Chris Jordan. The image represents 2,400,000 pounds of plastic dumped in the world's oceans ever hour.

Many visitors will recognize the image on the gallery's far wall as the famous 19th century Japanese print of a great wave cresting in the Pacific with Mount Fuji in the background. It's only when Bradley takes everyone close up that it become clear that it isn't a print. It's an image created from photographs of plastic -- lots and lots of tiny pieces.

"Two-point-four million pieces of plastic," says Laurel Bradley,director of the Weitz Center's Pearlman Teaching Museum. "Equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution entering the world's oceans every hour."

'Gyre' detail, by Chris Jordan

The images on display appear to be examples of different artistic schools: from Jackson Pollock-like splatters and pop art, to nature painting and industrial fantasy art. Yet none of them are as they seem. What appears to be the George Seurat's pointillist masterwork "A Sunday on La Grand Jatte" is actually a depiction of 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used every 30 seconds in the U.S.

Then there's a huge image of what looks like a demented slinky. It turns out to be stacks of one million plastic cups, the number used every six hours on airline flights in the U.S.

"I think there is a gestalt of 'Wow' and 'Oh, my God,'" said Carleton College psychology professor Neil Lutsky. "There is an astonishment at what's depicted and then also an astonishment at how he has done it, how he has composed something with so many things in it."

'Cans Seurat' by Chris Jordan. The image is made up of 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used every 30 seconds in the US.

Lutsky initially proposed bringing Running the Numbers to Northfield. Statistics are important to psychologists, but Lutsky takes it one step further, teaching what he calls quantitative literacy, dealing with numbers in a way that makes them understandable.

Some of his students have worked with local high schools on research projects where the final result is a graphic representation along the lines of a Jordan photograph. They are on display in another gallery at the Weitz Center.

Detail of 'Cans Seurat,' by Chris Jordan

Another person who contends with colossal numbers on a daily basis is MPR economics correspondent Chris Farrell who is along on the tour. He says Jordan's pictures are arresting in their own right but what makes them so powerful is the layering of images, ideas, and then the vital addition of a revealing line of text by each picture. "In one sense this doesn't work for me, unless you have the text that explains what it is I am actually looking at" Farrell said. "And then I go, hey that's kind of cool, that's pretty clever."

"I agree completely," Lutsky said. "I don't think that the experience as a whole would be same if you didn't have that interaction."

And that experience is ultimately unsettling, Bradley said.

"When you are confronted with this expanse of image accumulated out of these details, it has an impact on your body and your soul if you will."

"Plastic Cups," by Chris Jordan, represents the one million plastic cups used every six hours on airline flights in the US.

Jordan says he hopes that moment of realization is the start of an internal conversation for a viewer about what we contribute to the accumulating detritus of a mass consumption society.

"The question of 'Do I matter?' What's the role of one individual any more in this incomprehensibly enormous collective that we all find ourselves part of," Jordan said.

And in what may be a blessing and a curse, Jordan says that incomprehensibly large number means he has enough ideas to keep his series going for a long time.

Detail of "Plastic Cups" by Chris Jordan.

For the modern Indian artist, traditions loom large

Posted at 10:10 AM on December 13, 2011 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Galleries, Minnesota Mix

Editor's Note: This piece by Nikki Tundel is part of a new series called Minnesota Mix. Minnesota Mix is a project Minnesota Public Radio News to examine the way youth and ethnic diversity are influencing Minnesota arts. Enjoy...

Minneapolis -- Some people take one look at Native American artist Bobby Wilson's long, braided hair and start treating him like he just stepped out of a 19th-century Edward Curtis photo.

"People act like I don't keep up with the times," said Wilson, of Minneapolis. "They want to tell me about a sweat lodge they went to once or they got to see a powwow one time and it was so beautiful. And you can't shake people who are romantic about Indians from being romantic about Indians."

Bobby Wilson stands in front of a mural of Amos Owen on Dec. 1, 2011, in Minneapolis, Minn. "He was a highly regarded community elder," said Wilson. "The most wonderful part was that everyone who walked by when I was painting this seemed to have a story about this man and how he affected their lives." (MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel)

The term 'American Indian art' often evokes images of beads and buckskin -- and that can be a challenge for contemporary American Indian artists, whose work has nothing to do with quills or birch bark.

"[People's assumptions are] always going to be the beautiful culture or the peaceful, loving Indians who are stewards of the land," he said. "Whatever."

Whatever the notion, said Wilson, it gets in the way of reality. And that can be a major challenge for the 27-year-old American Indian artist.

Wilson has many sides. He's a graphic designer who excels at spoken-word poetry. He's a graffiti artist known for sporting neckties. He's an educator with a tattoo across his Adam's apple.

"I'm a Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota in Minneapolis, Minnesota," Wilson said, leaning on the rhyme.

People often expect feathers and animal hides when they look at his work. Wilson gives them aluminum and spray paint. "I've actually had people tell me that it wasn't Indian art because it's contemporary," said Wilson. "If this was beaded, then it would be Indian art? But if it's painted or sawed or whatever, it's not?"

Artist Bobby Wilson stands in front of his sculpture "Naturally Synthetic" at the All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis, Minn. on Dec. 1, 2011. Wilson painted images from traditional Dakota quillwork onto skateboards. He arranged the skateboards to appear like a feather fan or headdress. (MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel)

That tension between traditional and contemporary is the focus of the current exhibit at the All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis. "Native arts are still often really relegated to the past, frozen in a particular place in time," said Dyani Renyolds-White Hawk, who curated the show.

Renyolds-White Hawk appreciates seeing American Indian artwork in historical museums. She'd just like to see it in modern galleries as well.

"There is a lot of expectation outside of Native communities, and even within Native communities, for Native artists' art to look Native," she said. "Our goal with this exhibit is to really expand the definition of what is traditional Native arts."

At the gallery, moose hide mixes with Italian silk. And a series of bandolier bags leads to a sculpture made out of skateboards. That last one is Wilson's contribution.

Wilson crafted brightly colored skateboards and splayed them against the wall. From a distance, they resemble a fan of feathers.

"It's just five skateboards put together," Wilson said. "But when you come to an Indian show and you have a preconceived notion of what the art is, then they're feathers or a headdress or something. I just love that idea."

Wilson said it's vital for Native art to make its way into contemporary galleries. But he's dedicated to keeping it outside their walls as well.

Bobby Wilson designed this mural in Minneapolis, Minn. "People have seen so many images of Indians looking stoic," said Wilson. "I wanted to make sure to show Indians smiling." (MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel)

For years, Wilson's been designing public murals. His work can be seen all along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis.

"Most of the people in the American Indian community are not actually going to go to a gallery," said Wilson as he walked along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis to look at some of his work. "What I am trying to do is display some of my work that they can identify with and in the places I know they're going to go."

Cars rumble by as he points to one piece.

"It's so gratifying to hear other Indian people, as they walk by, say, 'Man, that looks good, bro,' " he said.

Wilson's ancestors painted on buffalo hides. He prefers the sides of buildings. But being a contemporary artist doesn't mean abandoning tradition completely.

"The borders of this mural are playing with the design motifs that you would find within the Ojibwe and Dakota community," he said, referring to a Franklin Avenue mural.

Within those borders, Wilson painted portraits of local community leaders. He added images of his niece and nephew alongside. All of them are smiling. He said that's something you rarely see American Indians doing in those old sepia-toned photographs.

The designing women of Minnesota

Posted at 3:46 PM on November 4, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Design, Education, Galleries

Stepping into the College of Visual Arts gallery in St. Paul, it's hard to know which way to look.

The room is covered with images and words all designed to grab your attention, and then intrigue, persuade, educate or seduce you. The show is titled WOMN: Women in Minnesota Design, and it celebrates the rather formidable community of female designers here in the state.

Monica Little
Target Team Member Communications
Since 1995

Cynthia Knox is the president of Kilter, a marketing and communications firm with a strong design edge. She says while most people get what they know about the advertising industry from Mad Men, the past 20-30 years have seen some real changes, especially in smaller design firms.

Ad agencies have to be more aggressive, and as a result they tend to to reward the people who are putting the long hours. In design firms it's less of a day to day battle for women. It's what you bring to the table, not how late you stay at the office.

Knox says the Twin Cities, populated with such retail and food-oriented companies as Target and General Mills, created opportunities for women to take on positions of leadership in marketing departments. She says you'll also find many independent design firms runs by women.

Now we have more women in senior roles - we have a bigger voice in bigger companies. There's a way for women to keep their careers and be flexible. We're seeing more real women and real scenarios in advertising, versus the idealized and glorified images of what women should be, according to men.

Knox says women create a more sensitive, nuanced message to give a portrait of a brand or product experience.

Werner Design Werks
Mrs Meyer's Clean Day, Packaging and Catalogs
2001-2008

Looking around the gallery, the Target brand logo pops up repeatedly. Knox says the company has an unusual amount of power and influence on the local design scene.

Without them the warehouse district would be a bit of a ghost town. Because Target pushes designers to do creative work and embraces it, it ends up in a lot of our portfolios. However I know there are lots of changes going on in Target, so this might not continue, which would have a huge impact on the local design scene.

There's also a distinct Minnesota design style, Knox says, which she can often pick out of a line-up of ads.

It's sensitive, detail oriented, with layers and subtext. There's a crafted quality that you don't see in New York. We're closer to San Francisco in terms of the level of sophistication.

Laurie DeMartino
Hurricane Katrina Poster
2005

This is the 7th year the College of Visual Arts has put on a design-based show, and the first year it chose to focus on women in design. Out of the 25 designers it invited to attend, 23 participated in the show. Knox says she's not that surprised:

It's a large and yet closeknit group. I've lived in some other cities, and we have a large proportion of female designers here. NYC is more competitive; here we network more, support each other more.

Still, Knox says, woman have a long way to go to be on an equal stance with men in the advertising industry.

It's really funny working for cosmetic companies and hearing male execs talk about what women need, as though we're from a different planet. They rely heavily on research, not on their own women designers.I think it's absurd for men to be telling women what they want.

WOMN: Women in Minnesota Design runs through November 13 at the College of Visual Arts gallery on the corner of Selby and Western in St. Paul.

The best of Twin Cities fine arts

Posted at 4:00 PM on October 20, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Museums

Art on the Town, a ten day event showcasing Twin Cities fine arts organizations, came to a close on October 16.

But the event is not quite over.

Today the Twin Cities Fine Arts Organization announced the winners of its first ever TCFAO Awards to recognize particular achievements in the gallery/museum scene.

Here are the results - I've added links in case you're interested in checking out the winning galleries in person:

Outstanding art gift shop: Textile Center Shop

Outstanding curator: Betty Bright and Jeff Rathermel (MCBA) for Fine and Dirty: Contemporary Letterpress Art

Most memorable: A Reasonable Facsimile at Christensen Center Art Gallery at Augsburg College

Outstanding reception: Grand opening of Anita Sue Kolman Gallery

Outstanding artist talks: Mark Allen of Machine Project (The Soap Factory) for "Conversation with Mark Allen"

Most inspiring (tied):

I Am a Link: Pictorial Rugs by Dorothy Sauber at Textile Center

Convergence at Traffic Zone Gallery

People's choice: Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Bob Dylan: musician,author, painter... plagiarist?

Posted at 1:15 PM on October 19, 2011 by Marianne Combs (3 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Music, Painting, People, Photography

Minnesota troubador Bob Dylan is causing a stir in the New York gallery scene.

Evidently his paintings, now on display at the Gogosian Gallery, were billed as "painted from life" from his travels in Asia, when really they should have been billed as "painted from Life magazine." His paintings are almost exact copies of old photographs, some of which are in the public domain, some not.

On the left, Bob Dylan's painting "Opium"; on the right a photograph by Léon Busy, taken in Vietnam in 1915.
Images from Gogosian Gallery and Musee Albert Kahn, respectively, via ARTINFO

The evidence is overwhelming - click here to see a slideshow of the paintings next to the photographs at ArtInfo - and it's also not the first time Dylan's been accused of plagiarism, according to NPR reporter Joel Rose:

A song from his 2001 album, Love and Theft, lifted these lines from the Junichi Saga novel Confessions of a Yakuza:

My old man, he's like some feudal lord
He's got more lives than a cat
I've never seen him quarrel with my mother even once
Things come alive or they fall flat
Dylan was also caught borrowing quotes and anecdotes from Mark Twain, Marcel Proust, Jack London and a host of other sources in his memoir, Chronicles: Volume One.

Fans and critics largely defended him in those cases, but this time even some longtime Dylan watchers are dismayed

Michael Gray, a blogger and author of the Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, says he's disappointed about what Dylan has presented as his own work.

"Lots of people paint from photographs," he says. "But ... the entire composition, the exact composition of a painting -- Dylan has copied that. That just seems to me to betray a lack of ideas, a lack of originality about the whole thing."

Neither Dylan nor the Gagosian would grant interviews for this story, and the gallery no longer claims that the show is based solely on Dylan's travels in Asia.

What do you think? Is Dylan using the show as an opportunity to put on a performance, and challenge our ideas of what's original? Or is he simply making money off of other people's images?

Did Albrecht Durer leave secret messages in his art?

Posted at 1:35 PM on October 14, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Drawing, Galleries, Museums, Printmaking

Art collector Elizabeth Garner believes she's found hidden messages in Renaissance master Albrecht Durer's engravings and woodcuts. Messages that have been overlooked by centuries of art historians.

"Melencolia" is riddled with clues. Elizabeth Garner says Durer believed in hiding things in plain sight. The magic square in the top-right corner is not something to be solved as much as it is a clue that the entire picture is a puzzle. Image courtesy MAGJECKL Collection, Elizabeth Maxwell-Garner

43 of Durer's prints, belonging to Garner, are now on display at the Hillstrom Museum on the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter.

MPR's Euan Kerr spoke to Garner, who says she became fascinated with Durer after studying and copying one of his works in an art class.

One day, looking at a print called "The Young Couple Threatened by Death (The Promenade)" something struck her.

I said 'The woman is wearing an illegal dress,' because they had very strict laws in Nuremberg about what anybody could wear. I said, 'It's an illegal dress and everybody is going to know it's an illegal dress. I don't understand why he wasn't arrested for making this particular type of print.'

She decided Durer wanted people to really look at the dress and that's when she noticed a word hidden in the neckline.

"I couldn't understand how nobody else had found it," she said. "But it turned out it was supposed to be me."

It was a coded reference to Durer's origins. Soon she was finding other clues hidden in other Durer's, she just had to work out what they meant.

"It's like the Da Vinci Code, just without Da Vinci," she said.

She bought print after print, cross-referencing what she found with contemporary accounts of life in Nuremberg. Finally she says she understood what Durer had hidden in his pictures, and why he could sell them.

"When I finally realized they were about scandals, it was like 'Yeah! OK! Well, this is basically like the National Enquirer.' "

Garner will lecture on her theories at Gustavus on Sunday afternoon. She'll then lead a gallery tour at the Hillstrom on Monday evening.

Listen to the entire story by clicking on the audio link below:

Artist tackles adoption, racism in new show

Posted at 4:21 PM on September 29, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Drawing, Galleries, Sculpture

Dana Weiser has put up with a lot. Take for example, this experience:

I was in the elevator by myself with this man, and he said "I just have to ask - where are you from? Are you Chinese? Japanese?" He listed off all these Asian countries, and I said 'no' to each of them until finally he said "what's left?" I told him "I'm Korean." He leaned in and smelled me and said "where's the kimchi?"

"Prejudiced?" by Dana Weiser

Weiser didn't want to be rude, so she just got out of the elevator and away from the man as fast as she could. But afterward she thought about all the things she would have liked to say to him.

It's moments like these that inspired Weiser's solo show "Who are you?!?" at Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis.

The drawings started from that - because I get so stunned and shocked by what people say and I don't want to come off as being rude. So I started coming up with these words - things that I would like to say - but I didn't want them to be in your face. So I started picking these patterns and tracing them and they became really meditative and therapeutic as well.

Just as Weiser's thoughts are hidden behind her desire to be polite, so the words are obscured by the lovely antique designs she's recreated in painstaking detail. But look closely and you'll see such phrases as "you're rude" or "not funny" or "xenophobic?"

Where are you from? by Dana Weiser

Weiser is used to working in three dimensions - primarily ceramic sculpture - so even her drawings evoke layers of depth. So do her mirrors, which she etches with patterns and words, so the viewer sees him or herself behind each phrase or question.

I really liked the idea of putting these questions that I've been asked so many times on the viewer. And the work changes all the time because of what's reflected in it.

Weiser says she doesn't want to be accusatory, but simply create a space in which viewers are encouraged to look at their own behavior and words.

Orphan Babies, silver and gold, by Dana Weiser

Weiser, a Korean-American adoptee with Jewish-American parents, is also interested in issues surrounding adoption.

I live in LA now and I think celebrity babies are becoming this new trend. Whereas before it was those teacup puppies that people put in their purse, I feel now adopted babies have become an accessory.

Weiser created orphan babies tricked out in Swarovski crystals and gold and silver paint to drive home her point. The babies are distressed, with their arms outstretched, based on memories of a visit she paid to the Korean orphanage from which she was adopted.

Weiser says as a child she turned to art as a means to cope with racism she experienced. Now it's allowing her to raise her voice, and fight back.

You can see Dana Weiser's solo show "Who are you?!?" at Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis through October 16.

Minnesota treasures on tour, and in new book

Posted at 2:40 PM on September 13, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Arts around the state, Books, Galleries, Museums

For a museum without a building to call home, the Minnesota Museum of American Art is certainly doing a good job of making its presence known.

Currently the museum is touring some of the finer pieces from its extensive collection to different galleries around the state. First stop: the Tweed Museum of Art on the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota. The exhibition is titled "Our Treasures" and features work by everyone from sculptor Paul Manship and muralist Thomas Hart Benton to potter Warren MacKenzie and photographer Wing Young Huie.

"Indian Hunter and His Dog" by Paul Manship

Along with the touring exhibition, the MMAA has published its first ever catalog of highlights from the collection, also named "Our Treasures." Selected works of art are accompanied by essays by museum curators and other scholars. MMAA Director Kristin Makholm says the publishing of the catalog marks an important step for the museum.

Minnesotans need to recognize what a significant collection the MMAA has so they understand the need to get it back into the public eye. Most people have no idea of the riches this museum holds. For the first time, we've opened a panorama on the history of the MMAA and its collection, confirming our long-time commitment and dedication to the visual arts in St. Paul and to showcasing the best in American art since the 19th century. This is part of the message we need to deliver to bring people back as supporters (and lovers!) of a permanent and sustainable Minnesota Museum of American Art.

"Our Treasures" in on display at the Tweed Museum of Art through October 23. From there it travels to the Hillstrom Museum of Art in St. Peter and then to the Perlman Teaching Museum on the campus of Carleton College.

Art Hounds: Hamlet, Latino artists, and a neighborhood art crawl

Posted at 7:00 AM on August 25, 2011 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Craft, Drawing, Events, Galleries, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, Theater

"Sustainable Farming" by Nancy Robinson

This week's hounds can't resist a Latino art show inspired by miracles, an art crawl the Longfellow neighborhood way--from home to home, and an attempt to scale the theatrical heights of Hamlet for the first time.

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The Twin Cities Latino artist collective Grupo Soap del Corazon has a fan in former Minneapolis Institutue of Arts assistant curator Molly Huber. Molly, who now works at the Minnesota Historical Society, highly recommends the group's latest exhibition, "El Milagro," at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. It's a collection of paintings, photography, sculpture and mixed media pieces from the area's most dynamic Latino artists, all inspired by the presence of miracles in their lives.

No Bird Sing emcee and McNally Smith College of Music faculty member Joe Horton will be on foot, going from home to home in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis this weekend, on the hunt for art. The League of Longfellow Artists, or LoLa, will be hosting the third annual LoLa Art Crawl, in which artists open up their doors and showcase their art. Joe says the art is fantastic, and so is the community building that results.

Veteran Art Hound and Minnesota Monthly writer Gregory Scott is always game for a production of his favorite play, Hamlet. This time, the Jungle Theater is taking a stab at Shakespeare's masterpiece for the first time in its 21-year history, with 2008 Guthrie BFA grad Hugh Kennedy in the title role. It's a level of boldness that Gregory admires and thinks should be rewarded. On stage from Aug. 26 - Oct. 9th.

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Call and response: poetry transformed into art

Posted at 3:58 PM on August 19, 2011 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Books, Galleries, Poetry

While you've probably heard of the sonnet and the limerick, have you ever heard of an "ekphrastic" poem?

The term is used specifically for a poem which is inspired by another work of art. John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a famous example.

Poet Kathryn Kysar, along with several artist friends, is turning around the concept of the ekphrastic poem, and instead using poetry to inspire works of art.

Kysar says the idea in part came out of her struggle to move beyond the typical poetry reading circuit.

Poetry does not easily make its way into the world, and I am not much of a performer. I was looking for ways to get my poems off of the page and into the artistic and literary community, a way to reach an audience in a more exciting way than standing at a podium and reading poems in a monotone voice.

Love Poem from Jes Shimek on Vimeo.

An exhibition of artwork inspired by Kysar's poetry collection "Pretend the World" opens tomorrow night at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts. It includes video, sculpture, paintings and photography, each inspired by specific poems.

Artist Jan Elftmann says the experience pushed her in two different directions: to create art literally about a poem, and to use a poem as a place from which to leap:

Using Kate's poetry was a little challenging for me in the beginning. I read "Pretend the World" many times, even taking it to bed it with me at night. Often times it was a few words of poetry that spoke to me and other times a greater meaning of the whole poem.

Jan Elftmann's "White Horse," created in response to Kathryn Kysar's "Early Spring: Dark Lake, 1997"

Jan Elftmann's sculpture "White Horse" was inspired by Kysar's poem "Early Spring: Dark Lake, 1997."

With the "White Horse" piece, Kate's poem, "Early Spring: Dark Lake, 1997", I took the image of the horse in her poem into my mind and the feelings of winter colors. I encrusted the horse with small, white and silver objects. The process was painting with objects, thinking of shape, color value and texture. I also added words from the poem. Words have never been a large part of my art before, so that was definitely an inspiration from Kate.

Kysar considers the exhibition a sort of "call and response;" she's even contemplating creating a body of new poetry in response to the exhibition.

Ultimately, I hope the show is a conversation between image and text, writer and artists. The viewers will be able to see the different interpretations each artist had of the book. I am excited about the diversity of the show, which includes photographs, paintings, videos, installations, and sculpture. Working on this project has been a wonderfully fun experiment.

"Pretend the World" runs through September 30.

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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Going 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.

Mankato 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.

Performance 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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Art Hounds: Big Business, the Dari-ette, and a corporate wizard

Posted at 7:00 AM on July 28, 2011 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music

The hounds have live-action role playing, a '50s drive-in, and heavy metal of the two-person variety in their hearts and minds this week.

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Fiona MacNeill, performance and digital media artist in Minneapolis, is more than just a little curious about "The Amazing Adventures of the Corporate Wizard in the Land of L.A.R.P." It's a 72-hour role playing extravaganza at the Soap Factory. Artists and players from around Minnesota will take on roles in a rambunctious, at times contentious narrative that reflects upon corporate America's moral map. You can observe or join this weekend, July 29-31.

After losing Porky's, Erin Hanafin Berg of the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota is pleased we still have the Dari-ette in St. Paul as an architectural landmark and symbol of the car culture of the '50s and '60s. The Dari-ette is holding a 60th anniversary party on Saturday, July 30th, with a live radio broadcast and era-appropriate bands galore.

Jess Miller is on the board of the Rose Ensemble, she's a clarinetist and she loves heavy metal, especially if it's Big Business. Jess says Big Business is a thunderous, L.A.-based two-piece that doesn't take itself too seriously but knows how to bring the noise. Big Business will rattle the walls of the Triple Rock Social Club on Friday, July 29th along with Miami metalheads Torche.

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Contemporary printers: breaking all the rules

Posted at 4:59 PM on July 26, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Books, Galleries, Libraries, Poetry, Storytelling, Writing

Printmaking - especially letterpress printing - is a precise art with a long tradition and a lot of rules.

In fact, says the Minnesota Center for Book Arts' executive director Jeff Rathermel, letterpress printers on the whole are a little bit anal.

For instance, the print should "kiss" the surface of the paper; embossing or indenting the page is considered "bad printing," because it will show up on the other side of the page.

Rathermel continues to rattle off a number of other rules involving page size and design, colors and fonts. Indeed, there are a lot of rules.

Macy Chadwick
"Connect the Dots"

But Rathermel says there is letterpress as a fine art tradition, and then there's the letterpress of the contemporary artist, which is constantly testing the boundaries of the form.

And that's why the MCBA is currently presenting an exhibition of letterpress artists who know all the rules, and have chosen to ignore them.

And they're not just breaking the rules in order to be mavericks -they're doing it in service to the art. Everything about an artist book is in service to the content- you're breaking rules because it's helping you to tell the story. It's adding another element to the text. It's adding a visual component, a texture, a layer to the story. Whereas if you're going by the traditional rules, you have a very straightforward approach to telling the story.

The exhibition is called "Fine & Dirty: Contemporary Letterpress Art."

Simon Redington
"Bomb"

The show comes at a time when book artists are enjoying newfound respect in the art world. According to Rathermel, just twenty-five years ago, letterpress printing was oft dismissed as irrelevant.

Rathermel co-curated "Fine and Dirty" with book arts scholar Betty Bright. Bright is the author of No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America, 1960 to 1980, the first comprehensive history of the book art movement in America. Bright says what's changed in the world of book arts in the past 25 years is, well, pretty much everything.

When I walk through the gallery, I am struck by the rampant diversity on show. Pattern and scale, text and image, structure and material - the letterpress printed book continues to absorb and transform every conceivable artistic element into a cohesive art work that you can touch and hold, page through, then pass along to the next reader.

Karen Kunc
"Air, Water, Oil"

Bright says contemporary artists are not only working with new media, but are using their voices to speak out on all manner of issues and ideas. And, she says, they are exploring and playing with the physicality of the book.

I believe that a larger cultural influence driving the interest in book art is a reaction against the overwhelming screen-based media stream that all of us live within. We don't live in our bodies as we used to, and we reach out to a medium that reconnects us with all of our senses. Don't get me wrong: I do not ascribe to a simplistic Luddite attitude, quite the contrary. Computer technology has played the hero's role in the revitalization of book art and of letterpress in particular. What I mean, is that the hours spent in front of a screen fosters an equal desire in humans for the sensual, for touch, for contact.

This show, according to Jeff Rathermel, features "the best of the best" in contemporary letterpress, with more than 40 artists from several countries. It also includes work by local artists Chip Schilling, Regula Russelle and Paulette Myers-Rich, among others.

Betty Bright says, by all art world standards, the field is healthy and growing.

Over the last twenty-five years book art has grown in every conceivable category. Every major U.S. city boasts a strong collection of artists' books, along with a place to study, either at a community-based or at a higher educational institution. Collections of artists' books exist at colleges and universities, in book art centers and museums (where they are often dispersed among print and photography departments). I cannot keep up with the organizational and educational vitality: it appears to be in a constant growth pattern.

"Fine & Dirty: Contemporary Letterpress Art" runs through October 16 at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Botanic drawings raise awareness of northwoods trees at risk

Posted at 9:32 AM on June 24, 2011 by Marianne Combs (5 Comments)
Filed under: Arts around the state, Galleries

Throughout the summer, the residents of Fergus Falls will be paying attention to detail.

Four different venues - the Kaddatz Gallery, A Center for the Arts, the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center and the Minnesota State Community and Technical College - are hosting an exhibition of botanical drawings by ten Minnesota artists.

It's called "Minnesota's Boreal Forest at Risk: Vanishing Trees."

Red Pine Branch
Pinus resinosa
watercolor
Mary Ann O'Malley

The exhibit was inspired by the northern forest, which, due to several factors (fires, invasive insects, changing climate), is under increasing stress.

The artists, under the guidance of forest ecologist Dr. Lee Frelich and mycologist Dr. David McLaughlin - both at the University of Minnesota - concentrated their artistic efforts on the trees and plants most affected by these forces. They identified ten trees at risk, as well as 30 plants associated with these trees.

Jack Pine Tree, Pinus banksiana
colored pencil
Kathleen Reeves

Botanical art, for those who aren't familiar with the field, is really more a combination of art and science, requiring extremely high standards of accuracy when it comes to describing the various parts of a plant. A small drawing or painting can easily take more than 50 hours to complete; many botanic artists will tell you that this meditative process creates a special relationship between the artist and subject.

Old Tamarack Branch
Larix laricina
graphite, watercolor
Debra Greenblatt

The exhibition runs through August 12, with a reception for the artists at the Kaddatz Gallery on July 7th.

On July 28th, the Kaddatz Gallery will also host a talk by Dr. Frelich on the changes to the Boreal Forest and Agassiz Lake Plain.

Art Hounds: American Indian festival, Paper Toys, and pioneering painting

Posted at 7:00 AM on June 9, 2011 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Arts around the state, Events, Film, Galleries, Music, Painting

Still from the documentary film "Naked Vision"

This week's hounds have their eyes on a Duluth screening of the documentary about painter Philip Pearlstein, an art show in which paper takes on an added, more playful dimension, and an encompassing American Indian art festival in Minneapolis.

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Minneapolis Institute of Arts curator Joe Horse Capture has been waiting a long time for a festival that cuts as wide a swath through American Indian culture as the Twin Cities American Indian Arts Festival. It'll be held this Saturday and Sunday on the corner of 16th Avenue South and Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis.There will be music from six native bands, a hand drum contest, native food, and a fine arts plaza, which will feature more than 30 Native American visual artists.

Kelly Krantz is always on the lookout for shows at the Pink Hobo gallery in Minneapolis because she says they offer affordable art and never disappoint. Kelly, who makes zines and mini comics and blogs about theater for Metro Magazine, says Pink Hobo's "Paper Toy II" will feature cut, folded and manipulated paper sculpture, wall pieces and toys. It's a great opportunity to start an art collection, according to Kelly. The show opens on Saturday and runs through July 29.

Peter Spooner, curator at the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota Duluth, says the documentary "Naked Vision" is a compelling portrait of a 20th century master who's still going strong. Philip Pearlstein was an Andy Warhol contemporary who started as an abstract expressionist but moved into realism at a time when it wasn't cool. "Naked Vision," from Minnesota filmmaker and artist Jen Dietrich, will be screened at the Sound Unseen Festival in Duluth on Saturday, June 11, at Spirit of the North, at 2:30pm.

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Soap Factory: making the ordinary extraordinary

Posted at 9:05 AM on June 6, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Soap Factory director Ben Heywood is a quote-making machine.

Exhibit A: "The problem with contemporary art is most of it's boring."

Exhibit B: "Understanding art is about learning how to trust lies."

Exhibit C: "It's real, but it's not real REAL real."

Those are just a few of the provocative statements Heywood made as he showed me around The Soap Factory's latest exhibition "The Erasers." The group show features works that compel you to look deeply at moments or details that you would other wise ignore, or simply miss.

And really, isn't the primary challenge of all art to get you to look?

One of the standout pieces is titled "Extended Bliss," and it features an image many of us see every day.

Extended Bliss, Mike Ruiz

Heywood says Ruiz' image immediately grabbed him:

It's a mundane object - a screensaver - and here it's blown up into a full canvass. The title of the piece - "Extended Bliss" - I like that kind of romantic impression that it gives. It's extending the metaphor of that computer/internet interface... falling through a flat panel into an extended world, this blissful landscape of new possibilities. But it's also just this crap image on everyone's computer monitor. Who chose this image in the first place? Why?

Oh and about Heywood's comment that most contemporary art is boring; in large part Heywood blames the galleries.

"One of the problems I have with contemporary art display is that it's exhibited in a "non-place" - a tabula rasa, a blank white room. The aesthetics of our building - an old warehouse - creates a wholly different dialogue with the art. It gives you just a little bit of a spark - it ignites a stronger interest in what you're looking at, than if it were a sparse empty space."

Other works in the exhibition include almost missable rusty nails stuck in the old factory's support pillars (in truth, the nails are carved from wood and painted to resemble rusty iron). Is it art if it blends in completely? Is it art if you don't even know you've seen it?

No Locative, Justin Schlepp

While some things you might not see purely due to a lack of awareness, other moments are simply too fleeting to catch, such as the above still of Julie Andrews in the film Mary Poppins. Is she about to sneeze? Is she singing? Or simply rolling her eyes at Bert's childlike behavior? Whatever she's doing, she doesn't look at all the way we think of her. But anyone who has seen the movie has seen this moment - we simply didn't realize it.

Replaced Mona Lisa, Mike Ruiz

Perhaps the most playful piece of the bunch is another work by Mike Ruiz. And in this case what's notable is what's missing. The most recognized face in art history - Mona Lisa - has left the painting.

Remember Heywood's comment "Understanding art is about learning how to trust lies?"

Heywood says Ruiz is challenging our understanding of art.

"Art is fiction," says Heywood. "What's behind Mona Lisa? Nothing! It's a painting. But in this painting it's as though she's gotten up and walked away."

Mona Lisa is a real person, Heywood says, somebody painted her; but the painting of her is not really real.

In fact, Ruiz didn't even paint the painting. He hired a painter in China to create this canvas in the Renaissance style. So who's the artist? What's the art?

Heywood says throughout the exhibition, viewers must determine whether or not they can trust their own eyes.

"But," he adds, throwing out his last provocative quote of the day, "aren't all artists telling lies?"

The Erasers runs through July 17 at The Soap Factory.

Walker celebrates Cunningham in new performing arts season

Posted at 12:01 AM on May 26, 2011 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Dance, Galleries, Museums

When the Walker Art Center announced its multimillion dollar purchase of Merce Cunningham materials, Philip Bither knew what part of his new season had to be.

"When we announced the purchase of sets props and costumes that have been part of Cunningham's works for 60 years a couple of months ago we also realized we have to bring the company back one last time," Bither said in his office yesterday afternoon.

Cunningham, who died late last year, first performed at the Walker almost 50 years ago, culminating with "Ocean," a huge production in the round performed in a granite quarry near St Cloud. His company will disband after one final tour with a show in New York on New Years Eve. Despite this long association, the MCDC has never actually performed at the Walker itself, always using other stages around the area, so this show will be both a first and a last.

Bither has build a 10 day festival around the MCDC performances. It will feature an exhibit of pieces Robert Rauschenberg made for Cunningham, the first of several such shows planned for coming years featuring other artists who worked with the choreographer. There will also be a Cunningham inspired performance by French choreographer Jerome Bel.

The centerpiece of the show will be the performances of three works from throughout Cunningham's career.

"It's a piece from 1958 called "Antic Meat" with sets and props designed by Robert Rauschenberg and costumes," said Bither. "A piece from '68 with sets by Andy Warhol and then a piece from '98 with a set by Roy Lichtenstein and music by Brian Eno."

The release of the Walker performing arts season is always a little daunting because of its size and scope.

"Our 2011-2012 season spans from experimental theater and performance art through contemporary dance in all its various styles into avant-guard jazz, experimental rock, new sounds from all over the globe, contemporary classical music and then all the hybrids in between," he said.

There are six commissions in the season, including a residency and new work called "Story/Time" by Bill T. Jones which is actually based on a piece called "Indeterminacy" created in 1959 by Cunningham's long-time collaborator and partner John Cage where he told 90 stories in 90 minutes. Jones, who is riding high with his Broadway hits "Spring Awakening" and "Fela" will perform stories he has written himself as members of his dance company move around him. (below)

Other highlights include: a festival of new music and dance from the Congo call "Despair Be Damned" and "Structures and Sadness" by Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin which was inspired by the collapse of a bridge in Melbourne and is likely to have local resonance given the I-35 bridge disaster.

'Out There 2012: New World Performance' will feature works from Tokyo, Buenos Aires, and Beirut, and "Untitled Feminist Multimedia Technology Show" by Young Jean Lee's Theater Company which explores feminism and gender fluidity with a cast of performers who are nude for the entire show.

There is a two day mini-festival featuring the work of jazz composer Vijay Iyer, and a multimedia collaboration between spoken word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph and visual artist Theaster Gates. Contemporary classical darling Nico Muly will reunite with several of his collaborators in the 802 tour, and Seun Kuti, son of Fela Kuti, will bring his incarnation of Afrobeat.

Another Walker commission features Brooklyn indie band the Lisps, performing "Futurity" which imagines a correspondence during the Civil War between a
Union soldier and Ada Lovelace as they attempt to design a steam-powered brain to save humanity. The season rounds out with the return of indie band Tortoise to collaborate with Twin Cities jazz musicians, and then David Zambaro will turn the Maguire stage into a club with a performance of "Soul Project."

Can art cure what ails you?

Posted at 10:59 AM on May 25, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Imagine sitting in a doctor's office, describing your latest ailment. She or he takes notes, then writes out an appropriate prescription and hands it to you.

It reads "Picasso: blue period."

Suffering from hay fever? Monet's haystacks are just what you need.

This is close to what someone might experience if they walked into the clinic of "Art Healing Ministry" in New York City, run by conceptual artist Alexander Melamid.

The New York Times recenty profiled the clinic, and the doctor/patient experience:

While the patient reclined, Mr. Melamid sat in a chair under a portrait of himself and took notes on a clipboard. He wanted to know specifics about the patient's malady, and about any museums he had visited recently. Told that the patient had been looking at a lot of Whistlers, he nodded and said, "Not enough masterpieces."

After a moment, he said: "This anxiety of yours is a very typical problem of modern man. And woman. And everything in between. My function is to help you see the right things."

He went on to explain that a lot of visual information was bad for the patient. "So when you go to a museum," he continued, "you have to be very discreet. You don't want overexposure -- that's as dangerous as to take too many medicines. Art needs to be taken in moderation and according to a specialist who can prescribe the right dosage."

Clicking through a series of paintings on the small computer screen, he stopped at a Cézanne and said: "If you have hay fever, you go to see Claude Monet, that's for sure. For your problem I would recommend Paul Cézanne. When you go to the museum, don't look around much. Go direct to Paul Cézanne. It's very powerful painting, but in a way it's also pacifying."

According to news channel NY1, the clinic also offers "art water chargers" in which the water is charged by the artwork inside the bottle; "Botticelli water" and "Lichtenstein water" are both available.

College of Visual Arts celebrates teen artists

Posted at 1:39 PM on May 17, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Education, Galleries

The College of Visual Arts Gallery, located on the corner of Selby and Western in St. Paul
All images courtesy of the College of Visual Arts

Each year the Minnesota State High School League organizes contests in a wide variety of categories, including the visual arts.

And each year, the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul displays the winners of the "Judge's Choice" award. CVA's Director of Admissions, Elyan Paz, coordinates the event, which is now in its 6th year.

We wanted the Judge's Choice recipients to be recognized for their achievement and create an exhibition that celebrates some of the best high school artwork in the state. The artists have their work in a gallery and participate in an artist's discussion with their peers during the reception. We also recognize the high school art educators that submitted the artwork for their school.

Students will travel from all over the state with their parents in tow to attend the reception, held this Saturday afternoon. There they'll be treated to more than 80 works of art, including paintings, drawings, photography, ceramics, sculpture, stained glass and welding.

Luke Listad, Grade 12
Title: Dream Gear
Forest Lake Senior High School

The exhibition program was the idea of Anoka High School Art Educator Kevan Nitzberg back in 2006. Since then, Paz says she has since a steady increase in the sophistication of the work submitted.

The artwork medium has evolved along with the technology that is available for students within the classroom and beyond. We are seeing more digital artwork, and there are more pieces using mixed media within the sculpture and craft categories. I attribute this to the teachers and the increased exposure students have to the world around them.

Nancy Yang, Grade 12
Tile: World Maps (one of two paintings)
Century High School, Rochester

Paz says she's always impressed by those pieces which no doubt took up far more time than was allotted for in class, revealing a deep commitment on the part of the student. And she say the arts educators supporting these students are incredibly dedicated and passionate about the art.

A challenge for art colleges and art teachers is educating everyone on the importance of art within our schools and communities. Research has shown us that art is an important element of a strong and vibrant community. One way of bringing attention to our talented high school artists is by participating in the MSHSL Visual Arts festivals and the Minnesota State Visual Arts High School Exhibition.

If you want to see the award-winning work of these high schoolers, you'll want to hurry; the students get to take their work home with them after the reception on Saturday.

The baggage we carry

Posted at 3:40 PM on April 14, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Culture, Galleries, Sculpture, Video

Still from the film "Detachment," part of Catherine Kennedy's installation "The Baggage We Carry" at Pillsbury House in Minneapolis.

Imagine having to flee your country because of war, move to a completely foreign land where you don't speak the language, and try to survive. How would you keep your sanity?

For artist Catherine Kennedy's grandmother, who fled Liberia's civil war and ended up in Minnesota, the answer came in the form of a regular gathering with other similar women. Each month they came together for what was almost a spiritual ritual, cooking food, singing and sharing stories all night, all dressed in white and thanking God for their salvation.

They appear very poignant about their source of strength, God first and each other. They are each asked to shower prior to joining their peers in the designated space of a gathering. Their use of white clothing per their words goes hand in hand with their belief that God is holy and in order to stand before Him to thank him, one must be cleansed. Further, the color of the fabric signifies purity for them, new beginnings.

Kennedy was fascinated by her grandmother's gatherings with her friends, and the stories of the suffering they endured in Liberia. Many were raped, witnessed the killing of their husbands; their children were kidnapped and forced to become soldiers in the war. What she learned about their lives formed the basis for her body of work "The Baggage We Carry" which is now on display at Obsidian Arts, located in the lobby of Pillsbury House in Minneapolis.

"The Baggage We Carry" at Obsidian Arts

Kennedy says creating this installation was a way for her to grieve the death of her grandmother, while also trying to better understand her.

She was not one to give up easy on anything. Although she was not a literate woman, my memories of her was a courageous and virtuous woman who would do whatever it took to see her children succeed in life. She went from selling crops prior to the war to running transportation and becoming an indigenous governor to her region in her lifetime. The war wiped her to zero forcing her to move not once but several times in other countries seeking refuge before even settling in the USA. In Minneapolis, her confinement to the weather and language barrier and personal struggles with brain injury, depression amongst other health issues did not stop her from co-creating the group.

Some of the images Kennedy creates are distorted stills from videos of these monthly gatherings. Much in the same way a foreigner can't truly understand the rituals of another culture, the viewer can't see clearly what is going on, and only gets hints or glimpses of the event.

In one video installation, called "Detachment," Kennedy removes a number of bandages from her face. She winces in pain as she takes them off her eyes and from her cheeks. It's a striking visual metaphor for how the healing process can in itself be painful, leaving us fragile and tender.

Obisidian Arts director Roderica Southall says Kennedy is one of the most talented emerging artists he knows, carefully presenting her ideas from a number of different angles.

She tenderly tells a really horrific story. It's a delicate way of treating a really serious subject. And one of the results is that it really put into focus the comfort in which the rest of us reside.

Throughout the lobby of Pillsbury House, Kennedy has placed bowls she made for people to pick up and examine. The color of gristle and bone, the bowls are a gruesome reminder of the hunger and suffering of refugees, as well as the spiritual emptiness that is left in the wake of tragedy. Kennedy says if these Liberian women taught her anything, it's that there are no limitations to a person's ability to cope.

Their faces are filled with sweat, their eyes closed, and smiles across their faces create such a strong energy as you stand in their presence. A vibe of sincerity, conviction and sense of purpose simmers in the air as they stand for what they believe. These women evoked for me a sence of sustaining personal worth belonging to a group of tribal women with a common thread... they share language barriers, illiteracy, culture shock, post traumatic stress... and they are able to be joyful about it.

Kennedy says the experience of studying these women has allowed her to look at her own deeper sense of worth and tap into questions surrounding life, death, religion and culture. She says if she wants viewers of her work to take away anything, it's the knowledge that even lives that have been marked with immense pain and trauma can find new hope, beauty and love in the right community.

Catherine Kennedy will give an artist talk tonight at Pillsbury House, and will be joined by art historian Suzanne Roberts and professor Patricia Briggs. "The Baggage We Carry" runs through April 23.

Howard Oransky named director of Nash Gallery

Posted at 4:12 PM on March 28, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Arts management, Education, Galleries

Howard Oransky is a man with a strong resume in both art and education. And so he seems a fitting choice to lead the University of Minnesota's Katherine E. Nash Gallery.

For 14 years Oransky worked at the Walker Art Center; among other duties he served as the museum's staff project manager on its internationally touted expansion project.

In the mid-nineties he taught critical studies as an adjunct professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design; when he left the Walker he then became MCAD's director of continuing studies.

In addition, he's a co-founder of Form + Content Gallery, where he has curated two group shows, including Love Never Dies.

About his new job, Oransky writes "I feel fortunate and excited to become the next director of the Nash Gallery. The University of Minnesota is a major center for research in many fields and my vision for the Nash Gallery is that it will become a research center for the practice and interpretation of the visual arts."

Oransky started his new job at the U of M today.

Burnet Gallery: a "Fresh" look at contemporary art

Posted at 1:51 PM on March 23, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

"Blue Fog Prophet," Andrea Stanislav

I remember the day I first heard about Chambers Hotel's (then) new Burnet gallery. "A hotel gallery," I mused. "How corporate. Well, I'll probably never have reason to cover that."

Whoops.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Over the past five years, gallery director Jennifer Phelps (pictured at left) has continued to showcase great talent in her space on Hennepin Avenue, and the majority of the artists have been local names with national chops. Now, whenever I get a press release announcing a new show at the Burnet Gallery, I know to give it a thorough read.

The gallery wasn't originally intended for showcasing local artists, however. Phelps says when she was first hired - just before the hotel opened - the idea was for the space to show items from Ralph and Peggy Burnet's (of "Coldwell Banker Burnet", the couple are major art collectors), personal collection, rotating in new work every three months. But Phelps says that plan didn't last long:

"After three months Ralph said it was too boring," laughs Phelps. "He decided he wanted to show local and international artists. It's really Ralph's desire to support the local art scene, but also to bring in work from out of town, to expose the locals to new work as well. And so Minneapolis photographer Angela Strassheim had the first solo exhibition in the gallery in May, 2007."

Phelps certainly knows how to pick them. Since the 2007 show, Strassheim's career has continued to skyrocket; she's taken her studio to New York City full time, shown her work in Europe, Israel and the Ukraine, and is now the subject of an exhibition back home at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

"Untitled," Angela Strassheim

Strassheim's work is now back at Burnet as part of a group show called "Fresh," celebrating the gallery's fifth anniversary. Other artists include Andrea Stanislav, David Bartley, Allen Brewer, Chris Larson and Megan Rye.

"It was tough," says Phelps. "We just whittled down the parameters to artists who had solo shows here before, but not too recently."

If there's a theme to "Fresh," it's that several of the artists are trying completely new things; David Bartley went from angst ridden collage work to minimalist painting, Andrea Stanislav - who normally does thick layered resin pieces and sculptures - brought in a print. Megan Rye, whose solo show featured paintings of military scenes in Iraq, produced a series of studies of butchered pigs at a market in Puerta Vallarta.

Pig 21, Megan Rye

Burnet Gallery hosts six solo shows a year, and typically four of them are local artists. Phelps says she tries to balance the work between new artists who are just starting out, and well-established artists who haven't let the success go to their heads.

"People tell me that they appreciate the fact we show so much local work. But I don't want to peg us as a local-only gallery," says Phelps.

Looking to the next five years, Phelps says she feels like there are destined to be changes ahead, because social media and technology is rapidly changing the world of exhibiting.

"Artists have a lot more control of their careers, or have more ability to promote themselves," says Phelps. "The hierarchy is shifting, which makes me think about what is a gallery? It seems like everything changes on a daily basis. And maybe there are different ways to approach art. I don't have the answer yet, but it's kind of exciting."

Phelps says she feels like the art world is on the edge of the unknown, and it doesn't yet make sense which way to go.

"Fresh" runs through May 1 at Burnet Gallery, located in the Le Meridien Chambers Hotel on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis.

Thanks to Cameron Wittig and the Walker Art Center for the photo of Jennifer Phelps.

The changing face of portraiture

Posted at 1:33 PM on March 21, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Museums

Vesna Kittelson (b. 1947), Giovanni, 2009, Oil on paper on silk, 28 x 22 inches, Courtesy of the artist

The portrait may seem at first glance a bland, straightforward genre of art. It's just a person's face, right? But an exhibition at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts reviews more than a century of portrait-making, and in doing so, holds a mirror to a fast-changing nation.

"About Face" is presented by the Minnesota Museum of American Art, which is bringing its art to various venues in the greater Twin Cities metro area while it continues to search for a permanent home. Executive Director Kristin Makholm, who took on her position little over a year and a half ago, says each show she puts together presents another opportunity for her - and the public - to get to know the MMAA collection better.

I just went through it and looked at which portraits stood out. Some were obvious from the beginning - works by Chuck Close, Gordon Parks, Andy Warhol. My goal was partly to highlight the top pieces of our collection but also help the public connect to that collection as a body of work. It's a portrait of the collection. So when you come in here you can see a variety of things that constitute the MMAA, because many people don't know the collection.

Nicholas R. Brewer (1857-1949), Portrait of Mrs. John Kiser, c. 1910, Oil on canvas, 43 ¼ x 33 ¼ inches, MMAA

Makholm says the collection has a strength in Minnesota artists past and present, including everyone from Paul Manship to Wing Young Huie, and the "About Face" exhibition places an emphasis on work by Minnesotans.

The earliest works, like the Portrait of Mrs. John Kiser shown above, are typically oil paintings of wealthy people of European heritage. The image is posed, the subject dressed and surrounded by objects that suggest their status as well as their pastimes.

As time passes, we see the inclusion of images of Native American Indians, either captured in photographs out of anthropological fascination (many people believed they were documenting a dying race), or portrayed in brightly colored pencil to advertise a burgeoning railroad.

Edward Curtis (1868-1952), Two Leggings--Apsaroke, 1908, Photogravure on Japanese paper, 15 5/8 x 11 5/8 inches, MMAA

Over the course of the twentieth century, the images and media continue to transform - from the paintings of Nicholas Brewer and the sculpture of Paul Manship to the pencil drawings of Chuck Close, the photographs of Gordon Parks and the video of Mike Hazard. The faces depicted change, too, from Caucasian land owners to elderly landladies to immigrant business-owners.

Makholm says today's portraiture presents a much more broadbased, democratic view of who we are:

It's a fascinating portrait of America, and how we present ourselves. Our culture embraces so many Americans - Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans. But even how we portray a young man, then and now - our image of ourselves has changed. We consider the huge variety of who we are now.

Frank Big Bear (b. 1953), Nuclear Portrait #2, 1996, Prismacolor pencil on paper, 22 x 33 ½ inches, MMAA

Perhaps even more important than who's depicted in the portrait is who's making the portrait. While in the past photos of Native Americans were taken largely by white Americans, now we Frank Big Bear's portrait paintings to consider, providing us with a very different view. Included in the exhibition are self-portraits by young Hmong-Americans, trying to figure out who exactly they are as they straddle two cultures.

Seeing the dramatic changes in portraiture made over the 20th century leads one to wonder, what will portraits look like in another hundred years?

"About Face" is on exhibition at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts through March 26.

The book as art form

Posted at 2:06 PM on March 9, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Books, Craft, Galleries, Sculpture

Erica Spitzer Rasmussen's "Book of Sustenance"

When is a book not a book? And when is something that doesn't appear to look at all like a book, actually a work of "book art?"

These are the questions I keep returning to when I see a show at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, because - like all good art - the works on display regularly challenge my assumptions about what is, and what could be.

Currently on display in the Center's gallery space is a group show called "Parts of a Whole"; it consists of work by MCBA staff, faculty, co-op members and past artists-in-residence.

MCBA Managing Director Jeff Rathermel says while on the surface many of the works look nothing like books, they share themes of repetition, storytelling, and time.

It's the true power of a book that you have a time element within it, rather than just one snapshot view. Unlike a photograph or a painting, you have more time with the viewer/reader... you repeat ideas to emphasize them, you build upon them. But that's also a real responsibility and a challenge. To do this successfully you need to be a "page-turner" to engage people in the entire process - an artist book has a lot more in common with a film or a musical score than it does with traditional print-making.

Julie Sirek's "A Family Matter"

After perusing the exhibition, I was interested by strong themes that emerged around domesticity and women's work.

One of the most powerful works in the exhibition is Julie Sirek's "A Family Matter." It consists of 30 miniature dresses, made from gampi paper, thread, glass and wire. Sirek made each of these dresses to represent the 30 women from Minnesota who died as a result of domestic violence in 2009. Rathermel says in this work, each dress is in essence a page in a haunting narrative.

The delicateness of those small dresses really works well as a metaphor of vulnerability. And the other thing that I think is really interesting, is that it demands intimacy. Each of those dresses appears relatively similar, but as you start to engage with it you see that each one is unique. By demanding that intimacy you're pulled into a very uncomfortable situation - it's a quiet and powerful conversation.

From a distance, the dresses appear innocent and pretty. But once you move up close you notice subtle differences; one has a tear in the skirt, another a cigarette burn in the chest, a third has wire thorns in the collar. Each of them has been disfigured in some way.

Chandler O'Leary's "Mnemonic Sampler"

On the opposite wall is a piece with a completely different, far more playful, tone. Chandler O'Leary's "Mnemonic Sampler" consists of embroidered letters of the alphabet, alongside images of ordinary objects whose names start with the given letter (N is for needle, O is for oven mitt, etc). Rathermel says Leary is known for exploring what we have traditionally called "women's work."

At one level it's playful and whimsical, with great detail and humor, but I think there's also this addressing of the "art vs craft" hierarchy, and addressing what we've typically thought of as "women's work" in the community. Certainly it's much better now, but we still have these biases... I think Chandler is interested in reclaiming some of these craft traditions, to say that it's more than just women's work, and that anything done at this particular level could be considered art.

Detail of Erica Spitzer Rasmussen's "Book of Sustenance"

Erika Spitzer Rasmussen seeks to raise the life of the working-mother to that of high glamour. Her "Book of Sustenance" is a wearable work - similar to a ruffled collar that Queen Elizabeth might have worn. But this collar consists of a grocery list printed on grocery bags stained in cherry Kool-Aid. The result, Jeff Rathermel says, is both stunning... and unsettling.

She's worked with corsets in the past - this notion of being both decorative and restrictive;To have something this big around your neck...and in this case, blood red. She's talking about sustenance and food, and yet collar appears to restrict your throat.

In her artist statement, Rasmussen referred to the repeated pages on the collar as a sort of "mantra for domestic divadom."

"Parts of a Whole" runs through April 24 at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Finding Fame at Interact

Posted at 1:14 PM on March 16, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Education, Galleries

Anna Halvorson poses with her wall of tiles, the results of her artistic partnership with ceramic artist Kelly Cox.

Currently on display in the Interact Gallery in Minneapolis are the results of four artistic partnerships. Titled "Fame," it showcases the work that resulted from a sort of mentor/mentee relationship between four Interact artists and four artists who work in their field professionaly.

I say "sort of" because in some cases the mentors learned just as much from the Interact artists. Take for example the partnership between Kelly Cox and Anna Halvorson.

Halvorson spends much of her days throwing pots on a potter's wheel. She's also a very vivid visual artist. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Halvorson describes having psychic presences that influence her work, creating highly spiritual scenes featuring both vampires and angels.

For the Fame program, Halvorson was paired with ceramic artist Kelly Cox, who exclusively hand builds her pottery, and often creates sculptures that blend animal and human forms. Cox says it was a delight to work with Halvorson.

Since we both draw on our clay surfaces I tried to show [Halvorson] some materials that I thought she would have better results with, and to work with her on creating depth in the drawings by establishing a foreground and a background. With ceramics, the aesthetic is often more appealing if you loosen up and have confidence.

One of the many tile pieces Anna Halvorson made while working with Kelly Cox. This piece was drawn from reference material, something Halvorson wouldn't normally do.

Cox said sometimes the mentorship felt a bit odd, because "Anna knows just as much as I do if not more," however she found working together both very peaceful and a great break from her regular studio routine.

Halvorson agreed, it was good to work with someone new for a change, and to get out of the Interact studios into a different, professional studio.

I was having a little trouble with my colors - underglaze detaching. [Cox] gave me color mixed with slip - engobes - that helped keep the color and glaze intact.

Cox also works from references a lot - she collects a lot of pictures, and uses them in her artwork - which is something I could do more.

Halvorson said Cox actually reminded her of herself when she was younger.

Ceramic artist Kelly Cox

Welles Emerson, who organized the Fame program for Interact, says mentorship plays a crucial role in an artist's development.

It provides critical artistic feedback, emotional support, and an investment in the artist's professional evolution.

In addition, Interact artists often don't have access to the latest tools or equipment, so partnerships can expose them to ways of working they've never seen before. Emerson says this years program was a particular success.

I am extremely pleased with the personal and artistic outcomes of this year's mentorship experience. I have seen amazing growth in the artwork of the Interact artists and observed the power of the deep friendships formed over the mentorship period.

"Fame" is on display in the Interact gallery space through March 27.

All My Relations: a new gallery for new Native American art

Posted at 5:39 PM on March 23, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Galleries, Painting

All My Relations Gallery

One of the great joys of covering the arts in Minnesota, is that through the artistic lens, I also get to explore and celebrate our state's cultural diversity. And so it was with great pleasure that I went to visit "All My Relations" gallery, the new home to contemporary Native American art, on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis.

It's located in the same building as the offices of NACDI - the Native American Community Development Institute - and is a key part of NACDI's efforts to revitalize the Franklin neighborhood.

Elizabeth Day, Arts coordinator for "All My Relations," says the mission of the gallery is not just about promoting American Indian contemporary fine art, but also about community building, and empowering people. She says the new space, and its reception in the community, has completely exceeded all of her expectations:

I didn't really know what to expect, but I didn't expect this - the amount of community support we've had, the quality of the space. We tried to hire as many Native American workers as possible for labor - and we didn't realize it until the end, but the workers donated their time off-hours to make this happen. I think the community has a lot of pride in this gallery - it's bigger than us.

"Atomic Warrior," Frank Big Bear

For its inaugural exhibition "All My Relations" is showing new work by Frank Big Bear, on display through March 27. Approximately 400 people showed up for the gallery's opening celebration, including Minneapolis Institute of Arts curator Joe Horse Capture. He says it's a great time to live in Minneapolis:

The opening of All My Relations Gallery is so important to our community, and their first featured artist, Frank Big Bear, sets the stage for great exhibitions. It provides a new venue in our city where Native American artists can share their work with the public. There are very few art galleries that are owned and operated by Native Americans in the country.

The gallery fills a hole left by the closing of "Ancient Traders Gallery" which shut down in January of 2010. Ancient Traders was just down the street, in the building that houses Maria's Cafe.

"Silence of a Cricket," Frank Big Bear

Keeping the gallery in the neighborhood on Franklin Ave was very important to Heid Erdrich, the current curator, and to NACDI, in order to make the art as accessible as possible to the local Native American community.

"My goal for the program is to see a higher profile venue for the artists we work with at an inviting, accessible location," says Erdrich. "It is a huge thrill to see this gallery open."

NACDI has also opened "Pow Wow Grounds" - a coffee shop - in the gallery lobby to encourage people to hang out.

"The whole gallery we feel is a critical piece to our larger piece which is the Native American Cultural Corridor," says Elizabeth Day, "and we feel the arts are an important part of that community development, and creating a destination feel to this area."

"Poetry of Joseph E. Big Bear," Frank Big Bear

Looking to the future, Heid Erdrich says she wouldn't be surprised if NACDI developed an Arts Center, or a live/work space within the American Indian Cultural Corridor.

Art Hounds: "Four Little Girls," sculpted memories, and a Guqin virtuoso

Posted at 7:00 AM on February 3, 2011 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Theater

This week's hounds get behind a children's play about a horrific bombing of a black church in 1963, an artist who molds memories into objects and a master Chinese musician coming to the Twin Cities.

(Want to be an art hound? Sign up!)

In honor of Black History Month, Nordic Roots performer Kari Tauring is urging people to see Steppingstone Theatre's "Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963." It's about four young African-American girls in Birmingham, Alabama, who were killed when their church was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan. Kari says remembering this event and the girls who died is an act of healing. "Four Little Girls" is on stage through Feb. 27th.

Fiber artist and arts educator Mimi Holmes greatly admires the work of sculptor and University of Minnesota landscape architecture professor Rebecca Krinke. Krinke has a solo show at Rosalux Gallery through Feb. 26th. "Visitation" is a sculptural installation inspired by lost and recovered memories. The opening reception will be held Friday, Feb. 4th and will feature an improvisational theater performance.

Gao Hong is one of the premier Chinese pipa players in the country. Gao, who teaches Chinese music at Carleton College, wanted to make sure people knew that Zhao Jiazhen was coming to the Twin Cities! Zhao Jiazhen is the world's foremost Guqin (seven-string Chinese zither) musician. She'll be performing on Wednesday, Feb. 9th, at the Loring Theater in Minneapolis. Jiazhen will also join the local world music group "Speaking in Tongues" in a concert on Sunday Feb. 13th at 3pm at O'Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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

Landscapes real and imagined

Posted at 4:13 PM on February 2, 2011 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Museums, Painting, Photography

Margaret Wall-Romana
Memento Lucem (Remember the Light) [detail], 2010
Oil on panel
58 x 133 x 2 in.

Walk into the Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program galleries at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and you will find two very different bodies of work hanging on the walls. But spend a little time with them both and you may find yourself pondering similar questions.

Margaret Wall-Romana's work is lush and breathtaking to behold. Her giant canvases are rich with imagery - primarily plantlife - in various states of growth and decay. MAEP coordinator Christopher Atkins says Wall-Romana's work combines everything from naturalism to abstract expressionism, surrealism and color fields:

Margaret's work is really formal - she sustains a sense of history and technique that I don't see very often in painters in this town. She's very much a large scale studio artist, playing with scale, and creating these intricate structures from bones, wood and plants around her.

Margaret Wall-Romana
Towards & Away, 2010
Oil on panel
46 x 116 x 2 in.

Wall-Romana's work draws you in to explore her compositions that are both gorgeous and other-worldly. If you pay close attention you can even see the strokes of her palette knife across the canvas.

Peter Happel Christian, by contrast is a photographer who's work, while beautiful, is more conceptual and minimalist. In a series of photographs called "Blackholes and Blindspots" Happel Christian purposefully blacks out the very center of each image. By obscuring the focal point, he's actually making us look harder at an image of an urban landscape that we might otherwise take for granted.

Peter Happel Christian
Blackholes and Blindspots (No. 8), 2010
Chromogenic print
8 x 11 in.

For Happel Christian, the artwork is as much an embodiment of the artistic process and his own questions than it is a final product. For his work "Witness Tree" he went back to his childhood home and took a myriad of photographs of the redbud tree his parents planted around the same time Happel Christian was born. In essence the tree is a marker of his own life. But, according to Atkins, when it came to really capturing the tree and what it represented, Happel Christian felt any one photograph was lacking, so instead took a picture of all of the photographs bound together. He's basically saying "this is not the definitive image."

Christopher Atkins says it's that artistic inquiry that drives Happel Christian's work throughout:

He really takes an idea and explores it in depth in a variety of ways, whether it's through photography or installation pieces. You can look at his work and see beautiful photographs, but what's important for him is that the idea underneath is clear as well.

Peter Happel Christian
Witness Tree, 2010
Chromogenic print
15 x 13 in

So while Margaret Wall-Romana's paintings are sensual and expansive, Happel Christian's work is more of an intellectual pursuit, bringing our attention down to a single point.

Upon further contemplation, however, these two artists are similarly preoccupied with the natural landscape, and how we manipulate it. They both seek to capture the eye of their viewers - one by creating lush landscapes, the other by thwarting our initial attempts and making us look harder. Each are passionate about their pursuits - one through technique and form, the other in concept and method.

"Painting Before and After Words: Maragaret Wall-Romana" and "Ground Truth: Works by Peter Happel Christian" are both on view in the MAEP galleries of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts through April 3.

Do what the clouds do

Posted at 4:32 PM on January 28, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Charles Matson Lume's installation piece "do what the clouds do" at the College of Visual Arts

With his latest installation piece, Charles Matson Lume invites people to pause, reflect, and notice the light around them. Titled "do what the clouds do (for Charles Wright)," Lume has filled the College of Visual Arts' gallery with patterns of light, using little more than reflective paper and a few bulbs.

The piece is inspired by the final line of a poem by Charles Wright titled "Disjecta Membra" - here's an excerpt:

Take a loose rein and a deep seat,
John, my father-in-law, would say
To someone starting out on a long journey, meaning, take it easy,
Relax, let what's taking you take you.
I think of landscape incessantly,
mountains and rivers, lost lakes
Where sunsets festoon and override,
The scald of summer wheat fields, light-licked and poppy-smeared.
Sunlight surrounds me and winter birds
doodle and peck in the winter grass.
I'm emptied, ready to go. Again,
I tell myself what I've told myself for almost thirty years -
Listen to John, do what the clouds do.

Matson Lume says the line stuck with him, and seemed wonderfully simple and complex at the same time, open to both interpretation and extrapolation.

"Especially in a culture that's so hurried and rushed - doing 'what the clouds do' sounds pretty good right now," said Matson Lume.

Matson Lume's creations rely on little more than proofing paper and lighting

Matson Lume discovered a trove of the paper at Art Scraps. Already working with light, he was intrigued by how something with sharp edges could create such soft and fluid images.

It makes beautiful patterns of light. To me it's really sexy, the idea of a mirror, not for you to look into, but that gives you something else. I think of myself as an image-maker even though people walk into this installation. I started out as a painter, and so I still think in those painterly terms - texture, light and dark.

While in the past Matson Lume has often created pieces for walls, a particularly cold bout of weather and an unheated studio forced him to wear three pairs of gloves, all at the same time. Unable to glue-gun things to the wall, he started tossing sheets down on the ground. He liked what he saw.

Matson Lume thinks of "Do what the clouds do" as a sort of reflective space, in which people journey inward

On the floor of the College of Visual Arts' gallery, Matson Lume has laid out the sheets of reflective paper mindfully, not only to create specific "clouds" of light on the wall, but to also guide people as they walk through the room.

By one person being in the space, the piece is changed in one particular way, and with each additional person it changes even more. It's open to the change people bring to it, and yet it still maintains a visual integrity. We're not just observers - we're participants. Even if we think we're just observers, we're affecting things around us.

Matson Lume says he was surprised - and delighted - by the number of people at the gallery opening who chose to sit down on the floor and just be in the space. Perhaps they were reflecting on what "doing what the clouds do" means to them.

"do what the clouds do (for Charles Wright)" is at the College of Visual Arts through February 5. Interested in how a guy named Lume ended up playing with light? His journey was the subject of an interview on the radio show "The Story."

From mural to canvas: the art of Jimmy Longoria

Posted at 12:00 PM on January 27, 2011 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Painting

A detail from Longoria's painting "Se Comen los Corazones"

Jimmy Longoria's art work is equally at home on the street, or in an art gallery. Longoria, who currently has a show of his paintings up at Hopkins Center for the Arts, proudly describes himself as a Chicano street artist:

Chicano artists work in the community - so you're multi-faceted by nature. If the community wants you to paint a fence, you paint a fence. If they want a mosaic mural, you make a mosaic mural.

Longoria is originally from Texas, but worked for many years in both Los Angeles and in Chicago before moving to Minnesota. Along with his wife, Longoria runs the organization "Mentoring Peace Through Art." He spends his summers working with youth to paint murals on buildings in troubled parts of Minneapolis, in an attempt to prevent graffiti tags and create an inhospitable environment for gangs. And over the years he's developed a very thoughtful approach to his work:

In a gallery you're up for 30 days and then you're gone. On a street mural you're up for years, and thousands of people see your work. I want to create a narrative that continues to unfold over time. The average museum visitor spends just over three seconds in front of a work of art - I've got a captive audience that will be living with a work for years, generations even.

The works on the wall at Hopkins Center for the Arts are in a sense Longoria's drafts for future murals - he regularly tests out ideas and images on canvas in his studio before taking them out to a city street.

Longoria runs his hands over the canvas of a work at Hopkins Center for the Arts

Longoria paints with an eye to how his work appear viewed from different angles, at different speeds (i.e. in a car versus walking), and from different vistas. He purposely paints images down low on the mural that will catch the eyes of toddlers, who may be looking at the wall more closely than their parents.

"I don't paint for my contemporaries - I paint for today's youth," says Longoria. "Murals are primal - they go back to cave paintings. Today's cave is the laptop computer."

That's why, Longoria says, he often uses bold bright colors that are more likely to be found in the digital world than the natural one.

"Trabajador y Nino"

While Longoria paints for future audiences, he draws inspiration from his past. Many of his works refer to his youth working on his grandfather's Texas farm. A series of painted shovels adorn the walls, referring to a system his grandfather started with neighboring farmers to brand their shovels so that farm hands wouldn't walk off with them.

Upon remarking that his works reminded me of some of Picasso's early line drawings, Longoria points to the shared history of Spain with Mexico

Picasso's own evolution stylistically beginning with naturalistic painting and rendering, moving through abstraction and re-interpretation of naturalism, ultimately brings Picasso back to himself as an Iberian. My connection comes through the Longorias settling in northern Mexico/southern Texas in 1593, and enjoying constant trade and importation of culture up until 1850, when the stage is set for Texas separating from Mexico, after already having separated from Spain.

"Blue Horse"

Longoria bemoans the lack of real attention paid to Chicano artists, or recognition for Chicano art as its own distinct tradition. But there are signs, at least locally, that this might be changing. Longoria recently received a "Fine Arts" fellowship from the Bush Foundation. He had been a candidate in both the fine arts and native/traditional arts categories. His wife Connie Longoria Fullmer says they couldn't be happier with the category he ended up in, stating "in the Fine Art category they're not looking at the color of his skin, just the quality of his work."

Longoria's paintings are up at the Hopkins Center for the Arts through February 27. The exhibition includes work by two of his Chicago colleagues, Roberto Valdez and Salvador Vega. You can see images of Longoria's murals here.

Sticks in the mind

Posted at 2:35 PM on January 21, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Sticks in the Mind opens this weekend and runs through February 20 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Carole Fisher finds it a bit maddening to witness society's collective short-term memory, in particular when we fail to learn the mistakes of past environmental atrocities.

Fisher, the daughter of a union iron worker, has a strong streak of activism in her, and describes herself as a "campfire girl gone bad." It's a combination that has led her to stubbornly tell the same story over and over again - that of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.

Fisher, who is on staff at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, is the creator of "Sticks in the Mind," a multimedia installation the brings the voices and stories of people affected by the spill over the past two decades together in one space. The gallery has been transformed into a sort of chapel or memorial hall, where viewers can read, listen and watch footage from the initial spill, as well as interviews from three different trips Fisher made to Alaska.

Of course, in the wake of the recent BP oil spill, the story is more relevant than ever. But what Fisher offers us is a long view, an opportunity to see how the real damage happens over not in the weeks after the spill, but over the course of years and decades. Industries die out, people lose their jobs, and what was a booming community becomes a wasteland.

Fisher says her work is in part inspired by her love of nature, but nature is scarce in her exhibition. A collection of black podiums of all different sizes could be interpreted as a forest, but if so, it's been clear cut. In fact the only real nature present are dead branches. All "Y" shaped, the branches ask the question "why" while simultaneously appearing to be in search of clean water. Or perhaps they are sling shots, flinging the truth or our actions back in our faces.

At the periphery of the gallery Fisher has transformed the walls into chalkboards, inviting students to comment on the work. It's a risky move, and sure enough some comments come with a sting attached. One asks "where is the art?" Another points out that many of the materials Fisher is using in her art are in fact oil-based.

Fisher says she understands how people may see the social issue side of her work first, but at heart she is working with language, and stories. She is, in a sense, curating the voices of this story, selecting which to words to emphasize, which words to let fall on the cutting room floor.

"You can't tell a story like this with a painting," she says. "I love language. This is about the stories we tell, and how we choose to tell them."

"Sticks in the Mind" runs through February 20 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, with an opening tonight at 6pm.

All images by Peter Hunner, courtesy of MCAD.

Night Swimming

Posted at 2:49 PM on January 20, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Painting

Recede by Betsy Ruth Byers
72" x 72", oil on canvas

Betsy Ruth Byers recalls fondly from her youth the trips to the family cabin on Lake Aaron. She remembers her mother waking Betsy and her two older sisters in the night, and leading them carefully down the steps in the dark to the lake for a swim. It was an ethereal, otherworldly experience - to be floating in a void, not able to tell where your body ends and the water begins.

Over the years those swims became a ritual, and now they are also a source of inspiration for Byers' abstract paintings.

There's so much to explore within that experience. It's a specific moment that I can draw from, that I can play with... a sort of microcosm. I'm preoccupied with our bodies - how they relate to or remember space - and how abstract painting can grapple with those things. The paintings are not an homage or a tribute, but serve more as a first step in drawing those memories out, and triggering similar memories in viewers.

Disjuncture by Betsy Ruth Byers
72" x 72", oil on canvas

Byers' paintings - the subject of a solo exhibition opening this weekend at Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis - are filled with the rich blues and greens of deep lake water. The elements of her childhood memories - the steps down to the dock, the cabin, the refracting light on the water - are all there, floating in the void as though caught in slow-motion, mid-explosion, broken apart by her receding memory.

Many of the canvases are six feet wide and equally high, inviting the viewers to lose themselves in their own watery memories. Byers, who teaches painting at several Twin Cities campuses, says while night swimming was the inspiration for her paintings, she doesn't feel it's key to know that in order to appreciate the rich geometric imagery. Instead she hopes her work inspires others to think about how their own bodies move through space, and their own physical memories.

Erode by Betsy Ruth Byers
48" x 48", oil on canvas

Byers works in a small studio space in Minneapolis, surrounded by several canvases that she paints in tandem, sometimes over the course of an entire year. While much of her work appears dark blue or green, she sometimes starts with a canvas that is candy apple red in order to keep her color in perspective. But after months upon months of layering paint, the red is all but lost.

Byers admits she sounds like a romantic, because she's constantly striving to do something she knows is impossible - to convey a precise feeling through images.

The appeal is the constant questions - never being able to solve something, but being so close. Painting for me is always about getting somewhere visually. It's a vision I'm trying to communicate or express.

Suppress by Betsy Ruth Byers
48" x 48", oil on canvas

Byers' exhibition of paintings, titled "Elsewhere," opens tomorrow night at Burnet Gallery in Le Méridien Chambers Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, with a reception from 6-9pm. The show runs through March 6.

Art Hounds: Hungarian dances, The Vault, and remembering Rondo circa 1956

Posted at 7:00 AM on January 13, 2011 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Theater

The hounds discover traditional Hungarian folk dance in a St. Paul church, a new student run art gallery that's bringing a bohemian flavor to downtown St. Cloud, and a theatrical portrait of St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood just before it was annihilated by Interstate 94.

(Want to be an Art Hound? Sign up here!)

Local songwriter Erik Brandt and his family lived for a time in Budapest, Hungary, and grew to love Hungarian folk dances or "Tanchazes." He's been able to re-live those experiences with the help of the group "Minnesota Hungarians," which is sponsoring a Tanchaz at Unity Unitarian Church in St. Paul on January 15th with music by the Madison-based band Szaszka.

St. Cloud visual artist Char Hopela predicts The Gallery Vault, a new St. Cloud State University-sponsored, student-run art gallery will bring a new aesthetic and creative energy to downtown St. Cloud. The Gallery Vault will feature mainly student exhibitions, with occasional faculty shows as well.

If you're looking for a meaningful and musical way to mark the upcoming MLK holiday weekend, uber-vocalist Maria Jette says you should strongly consider "Rondo 56: Remembering St. Paul's African American Mainstreet." Commissioned by the MN Historical Society and written by Dan Chouinard, "Rondo 56" is a look back at St. Paul's most prominent black neighborhood on the eve of its destruction by an interstate highway. It features an all star roster of local singers and will be performed at the Church of St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis on Sunday, January 16th.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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

Blooms from years gone by

Posted at 4:05 PM on January 12, 2011 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Drawing, Galleries

All images courtesy the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

There's nothing like the gray days of winter to inspire a gardener to reach for his or her seed catalog and dream of spring. And so what better time to celebrate the artwork of antique seed catalogs?

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum presents "Seed Stories: Catalogs of Life and Gardens in America" featuring covers pulled from the Andersen Horticultural Library's collection of more than 57,000 seed catalogs. Curator Kathy Allen says many of the covers, dating from the late 1800s and early 1900s, feature beautiful engravings, ranging from folk art to more art nouveau imagery.

Allen's personal favorite is an 1893 image of an angel floating above an orange canna (pictured above), because of its ties to the Chicago 1893 World's Fair and its unique imagery.

The exhibition includes images from several Midwestern seed companies, including Northrup King, Lippincott (both of Minneapolis) and Farmer Seed
of Faribault. It's worth noting that Lippincotts was one of just a few seedhouses owned and run by women - in this instance, Miss Carrie Lippincott.

In this detail from a seed catalog, the seed harvesters of Northrup King navigate the troubled waters of "carelessness" and "inexperience."

The exhibition does include artwork from one modern seedhouse - Plant Delights, Inc. - but Allen says such illustrations are increasingly rare.

The majority of modern printed catalogs use photographs, although some are reprinting historical images from their "heyday." Mostly these companies are fighting for their lives right now & aren't commissioning art. There's a strong trend towards web-only catalogs, so the printed ones are fast becoming collector's items!

In addition to the artwork, "Seed Stories" includes letters and essays dealing with such concerns as the influenza pandemic and the first world war war, as well as images depicting the history of particular seed companies.

"Seed Stories: Catalogs of Life and Gardens in America" runs through April 3 at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

Keith Hollihan's fame spreads in unusual ways

Posted at 3:30 PM on December 8, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Books, Galleries

It's a big month in the Hollihan/Williams household.

For one thing Keith Hollihan's debut novel "The Four Stages of Cruelty," hits bookstores this week, and he'll do his official book-launch tomorrow at the Loft in Minneapolis.

The novel hits the ground running, having already been named one of the top books of 2010 by Publishers Weekly.

"I hope it gives the book some extra steam," he told me the other day when he came to MPR to talk about the book. "I really, really appreciate the recognition - love to get some more!" he smiled.

The novel is a tense prison tale which swirls around the drama caused by, of all things, a hand-drawn comic book. It goes missing after a prisoner is found hanged in an abandoned part of the building, and everyone has a different theory of its role in the death.

You can hear our interview about how he came to write the novel on ATC tonight, and on the MPRNews page.

However it's not just in the literary world Hollihan is getting exposure. He is married to Rosemary Williams, an artist who attracted some attention for her project to visit every store in the Mall of America, to collect a bag from each one.

Williams latest show "Belongings" opens at the Soap Factory on December 18th.

"Hopefully, we're both having a good December," Hollihan said.

"With this show she literally videotaped herself holding every single object in our house, including every scrap of paper, every toothbrush. It took her a great deal of time, and more computer memory than I think anyone would have expected."

The video images will be displayed on screens around the Soap Factory Gallery. Hollihan says it was a painstaking experience, and one which had an unexpected consequence.

"I think that interestingly that the genesis for that was when her father passed away,' he continued. "And she brought home some of his belongings that seemed so attached to him as a person, as a personality. And when they arrived at our house, they no longer seemed to be attached to him any more."

"It's interesting how that holding up of objects actually detaches it from the emotional sense that this is ours," Hollihan said. "I mean I do recognize, yes, that's my hockey stick, yes, that's a book that I've read, but...." he trailed off.

He says as he wrote "The Four Stages of Cruelty" there were times when he felt he was in prison. When I suggest perhaps the "Belongings" project is a form if imprisonment for Williams, he nods in agreement.

"She has some sort of strange desire to chronicle the infinite," he laughed.

Kyle Fokken's elegant "smash-ups"

Posted at 2:23 PM on December 7, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Looking at Kyle Fokken's artwork evokes for me the term "mash-up" - in other words, bringing together two disparate things to create a new whole (the cast of Glee does it all the time with songs).

When I told Fokken this, he laughed and said perhaps "smash-up" would be a better term. Fokken calls his work "3-D collages," combining things like churches and airplanes into one single other-wordly creation. It's something he's been doing for a long time.

As a kid, I didn't have very much money to purchase new model kits and would often times get destroyed or thrown away ones made by other kids. I decided that I really liked the dioramas and the 'distressed' look that was popular among professional modelers. I learned their technique of using found objects to mimic elements that were part of the planes, but not part of the kits.

Planes, machinery, churches, dogs and wooden clogs are all recurring images in Fokken's work. Fokken says he's drawn to collage because it allows him to work with a
bigger visual pallet. He says when he combines objects he creates - and learns - something new.

I refer to making pieces along a series akin to choking off the end of a garden hose in a manner that increases the force and direction of the stream. Series are a way of focusing the mind and the work. The dog form to me deals with the idea of potential. Since there are so many variety of dogs out there, I use it as a metaphor for the potential of a child growing into adulthood. I added the "klompen" (dutch for wooden shoe) after finding out more about my German/Dutch (Friesian) heritage and taking a visit there. I like the idea that it's silly looking and very humble - a peasant's shoe in the low countries. It's also the "sabot" in "saboteur" or a "clog" in more plain English which I think is intriguing. Maybe I'm here to "sabotage" the conventional thinking of mixed media sculpture - who knows?

Fokken says his interest in churches comes from his own small-town upbringing; he sees run-down country churches as symbols of the loss of American culture.

Once Fokken has come up with a new form, he pays strict attention to both the skeleton and skin of it, making sure that it looks as real as possible from the point of structural engineering.

Every piece I've made has an internal "logic" to it. Things that are low slung look "fast". Upright things may be slow or have a vertical function like a helicopter. I want people to also look at nature in my work since I study it to see how things function together and how the natural world has dealt with the problem. This is actually how many scientists and engineers are making new strides in military and civilian aviation.

People have associated Fokken's work with the "Steampunk" movement, but he says that would be a mistake by definition, since many of his creations deal with piston machinery. But like Steampunk creations, Fokken's pieces are filled with nostalgia, at the same time as they evoke worlds never seen. Fokken thinks of his work as "retro-futurist."

I draw a lot of my inspiration from the Art Deco movement and Popular Science/Mechanics of that era; there's all this wonder at what the future will hold - which happens to be now... and it doesn't look anything like they imagined.

You can see Fokken's retro-futurist "smash-ups" on display at his alma mater, Saint Cloud State University, in the Atwood Gallery.

All images courtesy of the artist.

Hello Masterpiece

Posted at 4:10 PM on November 19, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Hello Michelangelo, by Leslie Holt

Leslie Holt estimates she has about 500 Hello Kitties.

"Purely for research!" she laughs.

Holt says she wasn't interested in Hello Kitty - or her fashion accessories - as a child, but over time the little Japanese character took on a sort of hip, pop-culture icon status.

She's so recognizable. I like her visually, she's sort of like a pill - mass produced, her colors, portable, you could just eat her up - she's candy like.

Holt says Hello Kitty just appeared in her work one day as she was experimenting with mixing adult and kid imagery (she did a series of works juxtaposing Hello Kitty with prescription pills).

It was while teaching art appreciation that Holt had a flash of inspiration. Who better to take us on a tour of the great masterpieces than one of the most recognizable characters around the globe?

In Holt's series "Hello Masterpiece" she recreates masterworks of European and American art in miniature. Most paintings are about the size of a postcard - which, for most of us, is how we see them, on a rack in a museum gift shop. In her artist statement Holt writes:

The famous paintings become pop culture icons akin to Hello Kitty, and the paintings' appeal as take home sized objects reinforces their context as commodities in a market. In these paintings Hello Kitty is often taking a tour through art history and dressing up to "match" elements of the famous painting. Hello Kitty becomes a toy version of Cindy Sherman, capable of changing identities by transforming her outer appearance. However, her "toyness" and her obvious overlay on the image disrupt any illusion that she actually fits in the scene of the artwork.

In a reproduction of a Marc Rothko colorfield, Hello Kitty is sucking on a popsicle that matches the color of the painting. In Monet's waterlilies, she's wearing scuba gear, ready to take the plunge. At the Last Supper, she's serving bread; in Picasso's Guernica, she's hula-hooping, all the while looking at us with big eyes and no facial expression whatsoever. What is she thinking?

Hello Guernica, by Leslie Holt

Holt says she's not using Hello Kitty to comment on these masterpieces, or to show any disrespect for them. Instead she's examining how these images have already been reduced to something much less than the original work of art.

With most of these, I haven't seen the originals in person. That's a loss. You're missing something if you're just looking at the poster, postcard or buying the t-shirt.

In [certain] images from this series, Hello Kitty is pointing toward social or political issues, such as war, genocide, or gender identity. I rely on her to charm the viewer into looking, but her innocent, playful appeal contrasts with the serious adult subject matter. With this contrast of adult and childlike content and these "high" and "low" cultural icons, I hope to elicit laughter and irony.

Holt says one surprise outcome of this series is the number of well-to-do parents who have bought Holt's paintings as a way to introduce their daughters to fine art.

Hello Klimt, by Leslie Holt

Burnet Gallery Art Director Jennifer Phelps says what appeals to her about Holt's work is her social commentary:

Here she takes the most recognizable icon of the day (for adults, teens, young children; male and female; national and international) and places it in some of the most famous artwork throughout history. This act is something people may think sacrilegious; a commercial icon interacting with a masterpiece. Her actions disturb the hierarchy of art and design by bringing "low art" to the same level as "high art"; by actually ridding of the hierarchy within art.

Just as importantly, Phelps says, she picked Holt's artwork because it makes people happy.

Hello Masterpiece runs through January 9 at Burnet Gallery in downtown Minneapolis.

Kaddatz Galleries and Charles Beck

Posted at 2:09 PM on November 11, 2010 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, Printmaking

A cat in an artist loft window peers down at the visitors to Kaddatz Galleries below

Walking down Lincoln Avenue in Fergus Falls, it's hard to miss Kaddatz Galleries, located just across the street from the Fergus Theater, in the old Kaddatz Hotel. The galleries may have only been open for a year and a half, but they have already become a home for regional artists looking to show their work.

Front and center in the showroom is the work of Fergus Falls native, Charles Beck. Beck, now in his 80s, helped found the Fergus Falls arts scene, and inspired future generations of artists while teaching at M State's Fergus Falls campus.

Beck's wood block prints depict Minnesota landscapes and wildlife in all seasons, using patterns that are often as geometric as they are natural. He's shown his work at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Walker Art Center.

While Charles Beck may be the best known artist based in Fergus Falls, other talent abounds. The Kaddatz Galleries currently have three exhibits up, including a show of assemblage pieces and pastel drawings by Kirk Williams. Then there's a group show of artwork all made from the same recyclable paper bag. Hanging on display are the costumes for Universit of Minnesota, Morris' recent production of "As you like it," which, in addition to being beautiful and period appropriate, are made entirely from re-used objects like pop bottle tops and tea bags.

Early Snow, Charles Beck

Created by A Center for the Arts, the Kaddatz Galleries have since spun off into their own non-profit. Gallery manager Gretchen Boyum says its mission is to foster arts education and appreciation, and to maintain a gallery space where the works of Charles Beck and other artists in the region are accessible to the local public:

Our main goal is to really give the audience a better understanding of the many artists that work in the area, the various mediums that they work in, and how art relates to their lives. With each new exhibition we try to give people some insight by including some interpretive text that talks about the artist, the medium, or the theme of the exhibition. We also host the Artist's Lecture Series where exhibiting artists come in to talk about their work.

With the help of ArtSpace Above the galleries, the upper floors of the old hotel have been converted into artist lofts that currently house two photographers, four painters, and two musicians.

Assemblages by Kirk Williams

In addition, Boyum has been taking the art out into the community, leading printmaking workshops for school children, and hosting "artful afternoons" at local senior care facilities.

We recently held a pottery workshop at a care facility for people with memory problems, and the staff was amazed at how the residents really were able to focus on the artist, and they each painted their own hand-thrown plate. I received an email from the staff that said the residents were still talking about it the next day.

One of the costumes for the production of "As You Like It" at the University of Minnesota, Morris

Boyum says the community response to the galleries has been great, with more than 100 people attended the most recent opening.

People are impressed with the quality of the exhibits and the art work, and sometimes they are even more impressed when they find out the artists live in Fergus Falls! It's nice to be an advocate for rural arts, and to let people know that we are not void of culture in small towns. I think we have become a source of community pride. Many of the artists I work with comment on how the idea of having a gallery here inspires them to work harder, and hopefully it will help keep the visual arts vital in our area by attracting and retaining other talented artists as well.

Kaddatz Galleries is located at 111 W Lincoln Avenue in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Paintings seeking to be something more

Posted at 3:02 PM on November 5, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Funding, Galleries, Painting

End of Nowhere, Tynan Kerr and Andrew Mazorol, 2010
various paints on canvas, 66"x54"

Shows presenting the work of a group of artists who all received the same fellowship can often feel a bit awkward. The only thing bringing them together is money.

Not so in the case of the MCAD/Jerome Fellowship exhibition, which closes Sunday.

MCAD/Jerome Fellowship Program Director Kerry Morgan says the emerging artists who were picked for this past year's fellowship have influenced one another:

They have literally been in "fellowship" with one another, and that's why they were so adamant about mixing their work throughout the gallery, rather than each taking their own section of the room.

Bag, 2010, by Steven Accola
acrylic on canvas panel, 20" x 16"

Morgan says something else these artists share is a desire to stretch themselves and their art in new ways.

This show features four painters not satisfied with the traditional practice of painting. I think that as paintings, none of them are content to just be paintings. They want to be objects; there's a physicality about it. We're so inundated with images these days, it's almost as if being two-dimensional isn't enough anymore.

Indeed, just as the stars of musicals, overcome with emotion, burst into song, these artists have burst into new dimensions. Steven Accola gives you the chair from his studio on which to browse through a book, and one of his paintings still rests on his easel, as though you're just stopping by for a visit. Tynan Kerr and Andrew Mazorol, who paint collaboratively on the same canvases, make an offering of painted twigs in the middle of the gallery floor.

Caroline Kent, whose work is heavily influenced by a recent trip to Iceland, found that to capture the immensity of the mountainous landscape, she had to leap off the wall.

Cathedral in the Heights, 2010 by Caroline Kent
plaster, wood and colored lights, 72" x 31" x 52"

Morgan says what she finds most exciting about the work of this group of fellows is how their work is simultaneously accessible and elusive.

They suck you in with the allure of a storyline, but you never get it. There's something that draws you in and makes you ask 'is thjs representational or abstract?' They're evocative, and spark your imagination - they're demanding of the viewer - it's not like candy that gives you immediate pleasure - you have to work for it.

Kids, 2010 by Tony Sunder
color video with sound

The pieces involving the most work are likely those by Tony Sunder, which at first glance least resemble paintings. Sunder's varies dramatically across the room, from a video of kids gleefully racing bikes to a couple of smears of paint on a piece of notebook paper glued to the wall. Sunder says he's playing with people's expectations of art:

People are smart enough to know what art is, but of course then they have these wild expectations. They expect literally a "show." I undercut myself all the time, because I don't want people to look for me as an authority. I want the viewer to sort of have to make up his/her mind without me.

In his artist statement Sunder wrote "Its not that I believe art does not have power, I just believe that art's power is only there when there is no language for it."

The 2009-2010 MCAD/Jerome Fellowship Exhibition runs through Sunday on the MCAD campus in Minneapolis.

Video break: Carlos Amorales

Posted at 3:03 PM on November 2, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Animation, Galleries, People, Video

The real dirt on "Naked" in a gallery

Posted at 4:08 PM on November 1, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Dance, Galleries

Eiko and Koma perform at the Walker art Center (Images courtesy WAC)

The Walker Art Center staff lifted the veil slightly today to talk about the challenges of putting "Naked," the latest performance by movement artists Eiko and Koma, into one of the WAC's galleries. The duo have a three decade relationship with the Walker, but most of their pieces have been performed in a theatrical setting.

"Naked" is quite different. The piece is set in a corner of the "Event Horizon" show, cordoned off by canvas screens flecked with feathers and scorchmarks. Beginning tomorrow Eiko and Koma will perform for six hours a day on what they call 'the island.' It's a mound of feathers and what appears to be foliage set on a dirt floor.

As the title suggests Eiko and Koma will perform without clothes, lying on the island, and moving constantly, but slowly. The lighting also keeps changing to match the movements, and the only sound will be of water dripping from the ceiling. Eiko says the idea is to create something beautiful, but also to depict a sense of being feeble.

Audience members can enter through gaps in the canvas, or even peer through the holes. There are seats inside and people can come and go as they wish.

Putting on the show has been a challenge for the Walker - and not just because there are naked people rolling around on the floor.

"We are learning a lot as we go," says Performing Arts Curator Phillip Bither. "I mean the culture and practice of visual art curators installing art into space is extremely different than performing art producers mounting a live production."

In other words what's normal in a theater doesn't always wash in a gallery filled with very valuable artworks.

"Even something as simple as how do you have enough power and have enough connection points to have theater lighting in a gallery space," Bither continues. And that's before you get to the dirt.

"We are used to on-stage dumping two tons of dirt in a relatively small square foot area," Bither says.

Dirt can be a very effective stage prop. But it can also be an effective vehicle for rotting organic material (leaves for example, or worse smellier things,) and insects.

Bither says smells and creepy-crawlies are rarely a concern on stage.

"It (smell) goes away soon enough, and bugs aren't really a concern, but in gallery spaces we had to literally fumigate the two tons of dirt before it went in, and that was new to Eiko and Koma as well."

Bither says there have been other lessons too, like how to convey performance context though the signage on the walls. He thinks this kind of collaboration will have an impact outside the Walker as the lessons learned are passed around the museum and gallery world.

"That's what is the great adventure," he says.

Bringing artists to the world of print

Posted at 2:07 PM on October 27, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Printmaking

Hybrid Solid Composition 2
Intaglio & relief print, H 42 1/2 in x W 29 1/2 in
photo: copyright Rik Sferra, 2010
artwork: copyright Carlos Amorales & Highpoint Editions, 2010

Mexican artist Carlos Amorales works primarily with paper silhouettes, cutting out images of birds, spiders, and people in blacks, reds, and grays and then combining them in ways that resonate and intrigue. He's also created animated videos using his silhouettes, much as noted American artist Kara Walker has done. But in Amorales' hands the images become an exploration of Mexican history, class and culture.

Highpoint Center for Printmaking's Cole Rogers saw in Amorales the makings of a great print artist.

The work had a very strong graphic quality that at the same time had an air of mystery or ambiguity which doesn't usually go with a graphic style. It's that tension between the known and unknown that was intriguing to me. Something that's recognizable but at the same time has parts that are unfamiliar... but not so unfamiliar that you can't relate.

Rogers paid a visit to Amorales' studio in Mexico and invited him to collaborate with Highpoint on a series of prints. Amorales would come up with the images, and it would be Highpoint's charge to translate those images to ink and paper.

Little did Rogers know what he was getting himself into.

Snake Glyph 3
Intaglio & relief print, H 60 in x W 40 1/2 in
photo: copyright Rik Sferra, 2010
artwork: copyright Carlos Amorales & Highpoint Editions, 2010

The prints which now hang on the walls of Highpoint's gallery represent months of work; some individual prints took three days to make, running the same paper through the press over and over again. But Rogers says it's undeniably been worth it; he's incredibly pleased with the beauty of the show:

I think they're wonderful images, intriguing, very unlike anything we've done before - they are so hard edged and graphically oriented.

Amorales' style of working is very playful; sometimes he would simply shake up a box full of plastic silhouettes, open the lid and say "there, that's what I want to print." Other times he would take an image in Photoshop and copy it over and over again, with the click of a mouse. It was Rogers who then had to figure out how to create the same image with ink on paper.

Like the best collaborations it starts out with an unstructured game - playing with media, and ideas, and seeing where the story leads us. Sometimes it's a relationship based on trust and a willingness to accept failure en route to finding something new.

Azar composition 2
Intaglio & relief print, H 48 in x W 36 in
photo: copyright Rik Sferra, 2010
artwork: copyright Carlos Amorales & Highpoint Editions, 2010

Part of that collaboration, Rogers says, involves helping each other to see with new eyes.

[Amorales] came with some tools for making some drawings, and he was interested in making prints with them. We found that the tools could function in a very different way -he looked at the edges and I looked at the surfaces. And through experimenting with that, he found a new way of making related images, but in a different way than he'd expected.

For his part, Rogers was coaxed from saying "No, we can't do that - that's impossible" in response to certain ideas to "okay, we'll give it a try."

The fact that [these images] are so pristine, and the lines and shapes are so precise - everything has to be right. There are no grays, or chances for a fingerprint to be hidden here or there. A small crease of the paper, any slip of the hand shows. And when you have three people working simultaneously on a piece that is 4X6 feet and has 180 printed components, there are lots of chances for error. But really going for it, making the best statement possible rather than trying to economize, is always worth it. You have to take those risks.

Skeleton Image 1
Intaglio & relief print, H 48 in x W 36 in
photo: copyright Rik Sferra, 2010
artwork: copyright Carlos Amorales & Highpoint Editions, 2010

So why does Rogers go to all the trouble helping artists bring their ideas to life on the printed page? He says he enjoys the challenge.

Someone asked one time if I still make my own prints, and I could. There are people who grind their own inks, make their own papers, do their own printing. But in this I'm more a partner in a larger production. I like to think of it as the difference between making an exquisite home video, and being a professional photographer on a movie set. This way I'm part of something bigger. We've helped him accomplish something he couldn't do on his own; we get to contribute to a greater whole, and that's really satisfying.

In exchange, he says, the artist comes away with something he or she might never have otherwise done, which may lead them down new paths in the future.

Useless Wonder Map 1
Relief Print, H 39 1/2 in x W 52 1/2 in
photo: copyright Rik Sferra, 2010
artwork: copyright Carlos Amorales & Highpoint Editions, 2010

Amorales is currently extremely busy, with simultaneous shows in Mexico, Zurich, Amersterdam, Rome, New York and Minneapolis. He's set to come to town in mid-November to see his digital ideas brought to life, hanging on Highpoint's gallery walls. Rogers says he imagines it will be akin to an author getting to hold his beautifully bound book for the first time.

Skeleton Images Tossed by Chance runs through November 20 at Highpoint Center for Prinmaking in Minneapolis.

Art Hounds: Haunted Basement, ARENA Dances and one-liners with line breaks

Posted at 7:00 AM on October 7, 2010 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Criticism, Events, Galleries, Poetry, Storytelling

This week the Hounds introduce us to a truly frightening haunted factory, an athletic dance company and the funniest man in Minneapolis.

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Betsy Maloney, a dance teacher at the Main Street School of Performing Arts, will be taking her students to see "not so good at standing still" by ARENA Dances. The company gets its name from the intersection of athletics and arts, and this is evident in their physical, kinetic style. There will three performances this weekend at the LAB Theater in MInneapolis, with a Q&A following Friday night's show.

For writer John Jodzio, there is no funnier man in Minneapolis than Brian Beatty. His very dry sense of humor is showcased in his "one-liners with line breaks." Beatty is a performer as much as a writer, sometimes showing up to readings in a bear costume. Beatty will be reading at Magers and Quinn this Saturday, along with poet John Tottenham.

Looking for a truly frightening experience to get you in the mood for Halloween? Videographer Ben McGinley highly recommends you pay a visit to the Haunted Basement at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis. This artist-designed haunted house contains shocks, but plays with your mind more than anything else. And don't worry -- you can always cry uncle if it gets to be too much. It's open every weekend through the end of the month.

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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.

Art Hounds: Frank Theatre, Ojibwe stories and new life for old objects

Posted at 7:00 AM on September 16, 2010 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Theater, Writing

"Reclamation Project: Repatriation Exercise #1 (Procyon lotor)" 2010 by Pamela Valfer

This week the hounds take us to Liberia during the civil war, a fictional reservation in Northern Minnesota and to an alternative future.

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Gregory J. Scott is an arts writer for the Downtown Journal and Vita.mn. He's excited about the new work being shown by Allen Brewer and Pamela Valfer in "Alternative Futures" at SOO Visual Arts Center. He particularly likes how Valfer's work, which involves returning things like fur and rodent-shaped piggy banks to some form of a natural state, plays with people's reactions. The "cuddly yet repulsive" work reclaims objects that could easily be forgotten and gives them new life. The show runs September 18 through October 31, with an opening reception this Saturday, 6-9pm.

Claire Wilson, a writing teacher at the Loft Literary Center, is always eager to see the plays put on by Frank Theatre. She knows that they will take her somewhere she's never been before, and even if it's uncomfortable or difficult, she knows it will be worthwhile. "Eclipsed," Frank's latest production, will take Claire to Liberia during the civil war. The play, written by Macalester alum Danai Gurira, opens today and runs through October 10 at the Playwrights' Center.

Ben Kimball is an engineer by day, and by night a book reviewer for Minnesota Reads. He loved Linda LeGarde Grover's collection of inter-connected short stories, The Dance Boots. The stories span several decades and are set on a fictional Indian reservation in Northern Minnesota. Ben loves Grover's powerful writing, her use of Ojibwe language and the complexity of her characters. Grover, a professor at University of Minnesota - Duluth, will be reading from her book this Friday at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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

Twin artists, working side by side

Posted at 3:47 PM on September 10, 2010 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Drawing, Galleries

Twin brothers Rowan and Bly Pope stand together in front of a display of their artwork at Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul.

Rowan and Bly Pope have been creating things together ever since they were little kids.

"We'd make masking tape monsters and little ghosts as kids - it was that kind of art making we did as kids that brought us together," said Bly recently at Grand Hand Gallery, where the two are showing their artwork. "We'd go exploring in the woods, which is where we developed our appreciation of nature," Rowan added.

"Now we're exploring the wilderness of our minds," says Bly, to which Rowan quickly tags on "and our childhoods."

This is what it's like talking with the 30 year-old fraternal twins; so often do they finish each other's sentences that it's almost like talking to one person, or witnessing someone talking to himself. While the two profess to have different groups of friends, and differing personalities, they have lived the majority of their lives together, with Rowan following Bly out of the womb by just ten minutes.

"Our parents say Bly forges the path and then I follow along and augment the path, or add imaginative ideas," chuckles Rowan.

Graphite portrait of Freya Manfred by Bly Pope

Rowan and Bly are the children of an artistic family. Their mother is poet and memoirist Freya Manfred, daughter of the novelist Frederick Manfred. Their father is screenwriter Thomas Pope (writer of F/X and Bad Boys among others) who teaches film theory at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Raised in the outskirts of Bloomington, the brothers say they spent a lot of time out in the woods, learning to entertain themselves.

Growing up the two formed a bond atypical even for twins. When the two enrolled in different colleges at either end of the country, Rowan soon found the distance too much.

I started out at Wesleyan, but I found I was too lonely without Bly, so I came home for a while, and realized that I needed my brother so much that I ended up applying to Stanford and transferring to be with him. That was the first time I realized how much I needed my brother.

At Stanford both Bly and Rowan majored in studio art and minored in psychology. That's where they began to seriously explore drawing. They found they were both extremely gifted in creating hyper-realistic images using nothing more than a .3 millimeter mechanical pencil and a q-tip. But it is in their choice of subject matter that the differences between the twins emerge.

Eucalyptus by Bly Pope

Bly describes himself as an avid fan of photorealists like Chuck Close and Richard Estes. He chooses subjects like plants and faces, in moments that might be overlooked by the common eye. He portrays things as he sees them, and leaves others to give the image meaning.

Rowan, on the other hand, has a fantastic imagination, and he uses that imagination to create tableaux that are filled with emotion and storyline. It's only after he's imagined the scene that he starts taking pictures in order to start building a catalog of visual details to draw from. He calls the technique "composite photo realism."

The photos provide me with so much detail that I couldn't come up with on my own. I take a huge number of photographs - maybe 500 - and then narrow them down to 15 or so which are used as sources for the final image.

Judgement by Rowan Pope

Bly somes up their artistic differences this way:

Rowan's work is not just about technological virtuosity, it's symbolic and has deep layers of meaning. Mine is more deadpan, literal and straightforward.

To which Rowan adds:

But you are also glorifying the mundane.

The brothers say they feel lucky to have each other. While they don't draw works together, Bly says they consult each other's feedback regularly, and support one anothers efforts.

It's really been a source of confidence and strength for both of us. We played sports together too; art was a way for us to work independently, and express our individual selves, yet also give us a sense of collaboration and unity.

Rowan, remembering his experience at Weseyan, says he's conscious of the downside, as well:

It's a blessing and a curse. Because we are so close, we rely on each other so much, we need each other that much more.

Orange Flower by Bly Pope

Rowan and Bly Pope will speak tomorrow at an artist talk at Grand Hand Gallery from 2 - 4pm, and there will be a reception for the exhibition on September 18 from 5-8pm. The exhibition of their works, which takes up the front portion of the gallery, will be up through October 10.

Iraqis and Americans: reconciliation through art

Posted at 1:01 PM on August 25, 2010 by Marianne Combs (4 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Galleries

"Mideast Madonna" by James Allen

For the past month, raw, honest artwork by Iraqis and Americans have been presented together on the walls of Tarnish & Gold Gallery in Minneapolis. According the Kathy McKay, Director of the Iraqi/American Reconciliation Project, the exhibition was created by her non-profit to stimulate dialogue around the war in Iraq.

The Iraqi/American Reconciliation Project came together to facilitate connections betweens Iraqis and Midwesterners, connections that break down the stereotypes we're fed through the media. The primary image Americans are presented with are suicide bombers, while the primary image Iraqis get are of people in military uniforms with guns coming to their front door.

For some years the IARP - created by a bunch of self described peace-niks in their 50s and 60s - has been showing and selling traditional Iraqi art in the United States. But McKay says it wasn't until some new young blood got involved in the organization that the idea was hatched to bring Iraqi and American artists together in an exhibition about the war.

"Airport Village Diptych" by Aaron McLeaod

One of those relative "young bloods" is curator Tricia Khutoretsky, who sifted through submissions from artists all over the country wanting to lend their voice to the conversation.

I was expecting a broader range of artwork about conflict in general, but people were very focused on the Iraq war. I thought most people would be numb to it by now, but the work we got was very charged and very specific. The artists weren't all necessarily involved directly in the war, but as Americans they wanted to say something about it.

Images range from paintings of destroyed mosques and war-inspired fashion to a woman holding a child, overshadowed by an approaching helicopter.

"Mosque" by Matthew Lawler

Khutoretsky says she was interested to see how the work by Americans differed from those pieces submitted by artists in Iraq. On the whole, Khutoretsky said, the Iraqi artists dealt much more in abstraction, while the American works tended to be "in your face."
Perhaps the Iraqis are so close to the war and its atrocities, that abstraction is more palatable, while Americans are trying to make the war more real for themselves and their audiences, and so they focus on the harshest images?

One artist, Fatin-Al-Jumail, who came to the United States for the opening of the exhibition, painted a piece titled "Iraqi women" which at first glance appears to be an assemblage of colorful dots and lines. During a panel discussion she revealed that for her, the dots represent women, and the lines, fencing. It is only where the women are clustered densely together -supporting one another - that they can break through the binds that oppress them.

"Iraqi Women" by Fatin Al Jumail

The exhibition, titled "The Art of Conflict,"
got a bit of a rocky start when it opened with out the work of its Iraqi participants, due to visa and passport issues which delayed their arrival. But a few days later their work was up, and the show had a four-week run, featuring panel discussions with the artists and movie screenings on related topics. By the end of the week the exhibition's website will have a gallery of images not just from the show, but from those artists who submitted work, but didn't make the final cut. "They all had something they wanted to say," said Khutoretsky, "and we want to honor that."

Once the exhibition is over (it closes tomorrow) the American art will be returned to its owners, but the Iraqi/American Reconciliation Project is looking for other places to show the work by the Iraqi artists, to keep the dialogue moving forward.

A visit to Color Wheel Gallery

Posted at 2:48 PM on August 24, 2010 by Marianne Combs (3 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Tammy Ortegon sits in the client chair of her art gallery/beauty salon.

Tammy Ortegon wants to make the world a better place - one haircut at a time.

For eight years Ortegon has been building community in her Kingfield neighborhood by bringing together her two great loves: cutting people's hair, and making art. Her business, the Color Wheel Gallery, displays art and sells gifts made almost entirely by herself and other artists in her neighborhood. But she says the gallery wouldn't get by if it weren't for the salon chair sitting in back where Ortegon cuts and styles hair.

The barber shop has traditionally been a space where people come together to talk and share ideas, or simply vent about their lives. Some people don't even notice the art when they come here, other people get their hair cut here precisely because it's a gallery.

Ortegon regularly shows the artwork of area youth.

Ortegon doesn't just sell artwork by local artists; she gets the neighborhood youth involved with an annual show featuring the work of teenage artists. And for eight years she's put on an exhibition around Mothers' Day called "Fight Like a Mother." She says the artwork celebrates what it means to be a mother, with images ranging from the precious and tender to the brash and political. The exhibition is accompanied by spoken word performances.

I like to use my gifts in all different ways to allow people to understand that art is of the people and for the people... to make art accessible to everyone, because we come together through art. Art is not only beautiful but it makes you think about things in a new way.

Because of that belief, I often choose art work that might not sell as well, but will inspire a reaction and a conversation.

Ortegon's salon is a colorful work of art in its own right, with homages to artists like Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh.

It's hard to imagine someone could walk into Color Wheel Gallery and not see the art, but then sometimes people see only what they want to. Ortegon, who sells her artwork at art fairs, says she often gets complaints about the number of "brown faces" in her artwork. She says one person asked her bluntly "don't you like white people?" For Ortegon, artwork is a way of depicting the world she wants to celebrate and be a part of, and that includes cultural diversity.

If you go into a lot of galleries you can't tell their politics - that's good business. But I feel I have a responsibility and an obligation, because I feel so strongly about my morals... I can't remain neutral.

Sometimes that means people walk into Ortegon's store and then walk right back out again. A visit to the Color Wheel Gallery's bathroom reveals a wall covered in political statements, asking provocative questions of a captive audience.

Ortegon displays her own work at the store, including prints of this painting, inspired by Powderhorn Park.

Ortegon says she's drawn to artwork that is both colorful and engaging, with a story to tell. Her work reflects an interest in folk art, and so do her shows. Currently on display at the Color Wheel Gallery is an exhibition titled "Street Art: The Art of the People" which involves an eclectic array of prints, paintings and jewelry.

Color Wheel Gallery is located at 319 W 46th St in Minneapolis.

The Big Blaq Show

Posted at 11:16 AM on August 19, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Photography by Stephanie Morris

This past week a large hallway in a St. Paul warehouse has been transformed into a gallery showcasing large, bold artworks by a group of Twin Cities' African-American artists. It's called "Big Blaq: The End of Acquiescence."

The artists are all members of TAWU (The Art Within Us), a group that formed back in the late 1990s to support artists of color in their professional development. They meet for monthlly critique sessions, and range in membership from folk artists to formally trained painters and photographers.

While TAWU has exhibited its members' work at many local art fairs, and at other local galleries, this is the first time it's organized its own exhibition.

Christopher-Aaron Deanes with his sculpture "Man's Thoughts."

TAWU member and show curator Christopher-Aaron Deanes says this is the first in what will become a series of exhibitions of members' work, every six months or so.

Deanes says he's been excited by the appearance of artists of color in major Twin Cities' museums, especially the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

I almost cried when I saw Kehinde Wiley's piece in the MIA's baroque gallery. That the curators were bold enough to do that. And in their exhibition "Until Now: Collecting the New," I was blown away by the number of artists of color included in the show. But there were no people of color walking around the galleries looking at them. That needs to change.

Painting by Richard Amos

Deanes says one of TAWU's goals is to help people of color feel more comfortable in a gallery setting.

There's not a large community of color coming into galleries. They might look in the window, but they don't feel invited for some reason. So what we're doing is creating a different type of salon, a different opportunity to show outside of the galleries.

Deanes says TAWU is hoping to inhabit empty storefronts for its temporary shows, in order to be more accessible to the general public. For Big Blaq, he marketed the opening the same way you might see a club party advertised. The event featured jazz, funk and R&B music, as well as soul food, Ethiopian food and lots of desserts and beverages.

Deanes says the event drew over 300 people:

I saw everyone from guys who hang out at a barber shop I go to, to people that I've seen in the art world, and a lot of youth. It was really a great experience.

"I Am Not My Hair" by Melodee Strong

Deanes said the show also presented him with the opportunity for "teachable moments." When a teenager touched one of the works of art, he talked to him about the oils in our fingers can corrode a work over time. Deanes told the teenager that if he went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, he might see people standing around in suits, looking serious, protecting the artwork. It's a small step that might help one kid feel a little more prepared to walk in the door of a big museum.

Ultimately, Deanes says he'd like to see TAWU events reflect the same energy and enthusiasm he sees in images of openings at Rush Arts Gallery in Chelsea, New York, or the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Tonight the artists will gather at 6pm at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis for a panel discussion on the exhibition and their work. The exhibition, located at 558 Vandalia in St. Paul, ends tomorrow.

Art Hounds: Comic book art and bluegrass music

Posted at 7:00 AM on August 12, 2010 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Galleries, Music, Theater

Listen as the hounds wax poetically on a local comic book convention in a box, a Pakistani "Sex in the City" at the Fringe, and the premier Minnesota bluegrass event of the year.

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It makes sense that St. Louis Park illustrator Chris Lyons stopped by Altered Esthetics Gallery in Minneapolis to check out "Lutefisk Sushi Vol. D." It's a mini comic book convention featuring bento boxes of comics from more than 60 local artists. It also includes a display of comic art on the walls which Chris was very impressed with. "Lutefisk Sushi Vol. D" is at Altered Esthetics through Aug. 26.

Mizna board member Nahid Khan likes shoes, wears a headscarf, and is an American whose parents emigrated from
Pakistan, which is partly why she's drawn to the Minnesota Fringe Festival production of "That Sara Aziz!" It's about four modern Pakistani-American women who want to embrace the bounty of American life while maintaining their their globally dispersed family relationships. You can see "That Sara Aziz!" Aug. 12, 14, and 15 at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis.

It's one of Marv Menzel's favorite times of the year, when pluckers and pickers converge on the campground El Rancho Mañana in Richmond, Minnesota for the annual Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival. Marv, who's proprietor of the Homestead Pickin' Parlor in Richfield, is especially looking forward to hearing national headliners Blue Highway and local heroes The High 48s on the main stage during the four-day celebration, which begins Aug 12.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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

Art Hounds: A pop-up publishing house and eye-popping theater magic

Posted at 7:00 AM on August 5, 2010 by Chris Roberts
Filed under: Art Hounds, Books, Events, Galleries, Music, Printmaking, Theater

Hot Off The at the Soap Factory

This week, the hounds track down a day full of blues and roots music, magical (and free) theater for all ages and zinesters running a temporary publishing house.

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Rolf Erdahl is a bass teacher and bassist in the Vecchione/Erdahl Duo. He liked Open Eye Figure Theatre's Milly and Tillie so much that he's planning on seeing it for a second time this weekend. Rolf loves how this slapstick, magical show reminds him of the feeling of possibility that he had as a child. The show is free and can be seen tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at 7pm.

Tom Haakenson, chair of liberal arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and one of the editors of the online journal Quodlibetica, thinks you should try to get published this weekend. Hot Off The is a pop-up publishing house that is offering a behind-the-scenes look at publishing, from taking submissions to printing and binding books. They'll be at The Soap Factory every Thursday, Friday and Sunday through Aug. 22.

Danette Olsen is the executive director of Festival Theatre in St. Croix Falls, WI. She's really looking forward to this weekend's Red House Barnfest. Danette is impressed by the line-up of blues and roots musicians, but she's especially excited to see Danny Schmidt. This Austin, TX-based singer-songwriter is being compared to everyone from Bob Dylan to Greg Brown, but she thinks his unique voice should be heard live. The Barnfest starts at 1:30pm at the Hobgoblin Music Outdoor Amphitheater outside of Red Wing.

For more Art Hounds' recommendations, check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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

ARThouse: home to contemporary art missionaries

Posted at 3:33 PM on August 2, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

ARThouse, located in New London, Minnesota brings contemporary art to a rural setting.

Andrew Nordin and Lisa Bergh want YOU to get to know contemporary art.

Nordin and Bergh moved to New London, Minnesota about five years ago with their young son. Located about 50 miles southwest of St. Cloud, New London is not what one might consider a typical artist's haven. It's a quiet country town. But Bergh says once you have a small child the urban artist's lifestyle doesn't look nearly as glamorous.

We love our country life. I thought it was going to take forever to adapt, but within a week I lost all desire for Starbucks.

Andrew Nordin and Lisa Bergh in front of their New London home, which they transform every few months into a gallery for contemporary art.

Nordin teaches art at St Cloud State, and Bergh does marketing for a local winery, but they are also both working artists. And they did miss the vibrant art experiences they were used to finding in a big city.

Rather than complain, they set about creating their own alternative.

For the past four years, Bergh and Nordin have been periodically taking out all of their living room furniture and storing it on their neighbor's porch, while they convert their house into a gallery space. The exhibitions last just one day, and feature the work of a Minnesota artist whose work they admire. They called their phantom gallery "ARThouse."

Bergh says the first time they hosted a show, they were delighted by who showed up.

It was a completely different audience than I'd ever experienced. It was far more casual, far less pretentious, and many people with no direct connection to the arts. They asked some of the most engaging questions of our artists; they want to know about the materials, the process, the lives of the artists, how they get their ideas.

Art House events draw in New London neighbors and Twin Cities curators who are willing to make the four-hour round-trip drive for this one day exhibition.

At every ARThouse event, the first fifteen people who show up for the exhibition get a "door prize" - an original work of art by the guest artist. The art is in the living room, the food in the dining room, beverages in the kitchen (visitors are welcomed to help themselves to white wine in the fridge and beer in the cooler), and a band plays out in the backyard. There are lots of chairs for people to grab and hang out while listening to the music.

Scott Stulen is on the staff of Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and was the featured artist in ARThouse's second show. He says ARThouse feels like a blend of a contemporary art opening, a block party and a county fair. And it works.

It's really important that it's here, and in some person's house. There are certain expectations around how you behave in a gallery versus how you feel in someone's home. Many of the people here wouldn't be comfortable going to the Walker Art Center, but they do feel comfortable here. And they're seeing really cutting edge work.

An image from Scott Stulen's exhibition at ARThouse in 2007. Stulen grew up in nearby Spicer, and paid homage to his youth by transforming an old snowmobile into a glowing beacon. The snowmobile is now on display at a bank in nearby Atwater.

Stulen calls One artist friend called Lisa Bergh and Andrew Nordin "contemporary art missionaries," and Bergh loves the description. For her, one of the primary goals of ARThouse is to make contemporary art accessible to people who might not otherwise feel welcome or engaged.

Contemporary art can and should be everywhere - there's no reason it should be exclusive to urban environments. I'm always excited to have students come to our events and talk to artists who are living and working in outstate Minnesota.

She also wants residents of New London to be comfortable not just looking at contemporary art, but living with it. Thus the door prizes. Bergh says some of her neighbors who have come regularly over the past four years now have pretty extraordinary collections.

Artist Karl Unnasch set up a table on the Nordin/Bergh's front porch, so that he could show visitors how he creates his artwork.

This past Saturday's featured artist was Karl Unnasch. Unnasch decided to take the whole concept of connecting people to art one step further. He invited people to send him personal objects, which he would then transform into a work of art. At the end of the evening, they got to take their newly transformed works home.

I congratulate them on being brave, because they're stepping up to give me something of theirs, and they have no idea what I'm going to do to it. I might add context, change the context, maybe make it more beautiful, maybe not.

For the duration of Saturday's show, Unnasch set up a workbench on the front porch, so that he could greet everyone who walked in the door, and simultaneously invite them into the art-making process.

Karl Unnasch's "The Lure of Pork"

ARThouse may only exhibit shows three or four days out of the year, but it's still being recognized for its impact. Greta Murray is the Executive Director of the Southwest Minnesota Arts and Humanities Council, which just gave ARThouse a grant for the current exhibition year. She says ARThouse is one of the coolest things happening in the region.

It's not the kind of art that people are used to seeing. There are abstract and contemporary artists who work in regional Minnesota, but they're not well exhibited in the area. So this is an opportunity to see something really unusual in our own backyard.

Murray says she believes the house/gallery is exposing area youth to new and creative ideas. She says ARThouse is particularly successful at making itself both accessible and enticing. The art is typically smart and witty, and often involves flows out of the living room onto the yard, or onto the exterior of the house itself, drawing passers-by in.

ARThouse will next open to the public on September 25, with an exhibition of Andrew Nordin and Lisa Bergh's own work.

Interact gallery: artists with ability

Posted at 10:59 AM on July 27, 2010 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Untitled by Steve Accola, an Interact artists who recently received a grant from the Jerome Foundation for his work.

If Chuck Close started out his artistic career in a wheelchair, would he have been as successful and respected?

Curator Welles Emerson poses this question to me as we sit in her office at Interact Center in Minneapolis. As Visual Arts Director, Emerson overseas a team of 80 "artists/clients." These are artists with disabilities, but Emerson wishes the word "disability" never entered the conversation:

I see in the artists here an unparalleled dedication to and focus on their work. They regularly spend three to five days a week, working six hours a day making art. They make art because they have no choice - it's who they are, they're artists.

"Eye of the Beholder" by Sindibad

Unfortunately people unfamiliar with Interact and its work are likely to see the disabilities of its clients - the wheelchairs, the speech impediments or the down's syndrome - first. But Emerson says that doesn't last long. She regularly brings in professional artists to teach and partner with Interact artists.

The artists who come here, as soon as they see the art, they stop seeing the disability and just focus on the art and the artistic process. The art is exceptionally interesting and is being created outside of traditional parameters.

Interact's goal is to provide its artists with the materials and resources to create their art. Emerson stresses her job is not to make anyone a better artist, but simply provide them with access to information and supplies that allow them to pursue their own vision.

"Blue Pizza" by Chris Mason

Emerson describes the work of Interact artists as broad and diverse, often defying categorization. She regularly uses the phrases "outsider art," "visionary" and "fringe."
She says while the artists she works with are freed of many of the restrictions of mainstream artists - funding, working a day job, etc - they are also denied its benefits, namely community respect and recognition.

Interact is working to change that, says Emerson, creating a main gallery space with professional lighting for artist exhibitions.

The art benefits from being exhibited in a formal, neutral way that elevates the work and is not distracting. Don't want it to fall into a stereotype of either folk art or visionary art. We frame with high quality frames and we try to present the work in a way that the viewer can bring whatever they want to the experience.

"Blue Angel" by Anna Halverson

While Interact artists are not caught up in the gallery world's pressures and spin, they do love to get recognition for their work, whether it's through an audience or a sale. While getting a tour of the artists' studios I stopped by to check in on artist Donovan Durham, who I profiled a few years ago. Durham gave my hand a vigorous shake, and then leaned up to whisper in my ear "Hey Marianne, do you want to buy one of my paintings?" Ever the one-man salesman, he insisted I take a look at his latest work.

Imagine that drive and enthusiasm times 80, and you have a sense of the creative energy that Emerson is charged with curating and exhibiting. And she is passionate about getting the word out. Back in 2008 Midway Contemporary Art hosted an exhibition of work by Interact artists. And high profile community artists like Wing Young Huie regularly come in to work with the artists. But Emerson says exhibitions are still dominated by artist families and friends.

We also have the Interact supporters who support our philosophy and mission of radical inclusion and social justice, and then we have artists in the community who are delighted and blown away by what's made here. But we'd love to expand to an even broader art audience. Because really I think there's something for everyone here.

Bird Food Soup by Bill Borden

Newcomers will have the opportunity to take in the work of Interact artists this Thursday, when the gallery opens its latest show "Eat Art" and an accompanying side exhibition titled "MUD: The Art of Coffee." The reception will feature, in addition to the art, a performance by a vegetable orchestra.

Blurring the Boundaries Between Blight and Beauty

Posted at 12:13 PM on July 16, 2010 by Luke Taylor
Filed under: Galleries, Photography

Peter L. Johnson poses in his St. Paul studio with "Father Hennepin Park Earth Day clean up of toxic stream #146" along with the items featured in the photograph.

St. Paul photographer Peter L. Johnson thinks we all have an innate need to connect to beauty. He just seeks it in places a lot of us would rather avoid.

"I intentionally go to polluted sites and witness our mistreatment of the earth," Johnson says. "As I am searching with my camera for beauty amidst the dystopia, I see without judgement or anger and if I'm lucky, a moment enlivens me and I am able to capture part of that in a photograph."

In his artist's statement, Johnson says his transformative approach to trash gives him "a peek at the path toward a more caring relationship with this planet."

His recent study, Specimens, focuses on detritus Johnson finds strewn along the Mississippi River: discarded pipe and Styrofoam become a quizzical face against a marble backdrop; a length of telecommunications cable and a plastic soft-drink bottle become a floral bouquet in a sun-dappled stream; an abandoned rubber ball becomes a view of Earth from space.

Made in China rubber ball in toxic stream entering the Mississippi River # 133

With more than 25 years of traditional and digital darkroom experience, Johnson highlights shapes, colors and forms to enliven each image. He doesn't use software to enhance or alter his photos, nor does he crop his images. "The integrity of the frame when I take the photograph is sacred," Johnson insists.

Right now, Johnson is preparing his work for a summer exhibition at Bloomington Theatre and Art Center. Called Impact, the exhibition opens today and features the work of Johnson and two other environmental artists, Michael Karekan and David Lefkowitz.

To bring people further into the work he does and the larger issues it represents, Johnson will be exhibiting his work in a new way; specifically, next to each photograph that features a found object, he's displaying the actual object on a table or in a museum specimen case.

Johnson has also been building frames from driftwood or discarded wood he finds near his photographed objects. "It's one more way for me to bring somebody to where I am and what I'm doing without actually taking them there," he says.

Karen Schik is an ecologist and project manager at St. Paul-based Friends of the Mississippi River. Newly introduced to Johnson's work, Schik finds it quite fascinating. "I marvel at Mr. Johnson's ability to create beauty out of pollutants," she says. "While he is clearly making a statement, he has a certain non-judgemental approach that I find refreshing. He isn't chastising humanity for our evils, but he's bringing awareness by creating these photos that have a haunting sort of sad beauty."

Wire and jug washed up on the Mississippi River shore # 120

With the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a show like Impact may have added weight, but visitors won't find Johnson preaching about environmentalism; he prefers to let the art speak. "I just don't believe in that dogmatic way of saying what we should do," Johnson says. "We need to see it and really understand it at a different level if we're going to actually change it."

"Impact" runs July 16 to August 27, 2010 at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center. Johnson is scheduled to do an artist talk on August 12 at 7 p.m. in the BTAC's Inez Greenberg Gallery. See more of Peter L. Johnson's work at peterljohnson.com.

McKnight shows, part 2: MCAD

Posted at 7:10 PM on July 14, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Funding, Galleries

Aldo Moroni's "Fragilearth"

As I mentioned earlier today, it seems practically every arts outlet these days is hosting an exhibition or performance with the word "McKnight" somewhere in it.

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design partners with the McKnight Foundation to administer its visual arts fellowships, which is bestowed annually on mid-career artists living in Minnesota. The fellowship year culminates in a show at the MCAD gallery.

This year's show features the work of Aldo Moroni, Piotr Szyhalski, Michael Karaken and Carolyn Swiszcz. MCAD Director of Gallery and Exhibition Programs Kerry Morgan says each of the artists took the opportunity to push themselves in new directions:

Each of them created new work, and tried new methods. We provided the technical support, which in some cases was a real challenge. All of them have put so much thought into these works - so much labor and so many hours. I was amazed - each of them was incredibly focused.

Detail of Aldo Moroni's "Fragilearth"

For Aldo Moroni, the fellowship gave him the opportunity to "think big." His sculptural installation, "Fragilearth," stands at approximately 14 feet high, and dominates the front of the gallery. It references the large mountains found in traditional Chinese landscape painting (and in the MIA's "Jade Mountain"), while offering a visual metaphor for man's relative impotence compared to his natural environment.

Video cameras have been set up in the gallery so viewers can watch the sculpture as it changes over time. Moroni plans to work on the piece throughout the exhibition, reflecting the effects of time on the landscape.

Piotr Szyhalski's "Twins, Mirrors, Echoes: side A: Loyalty Dance"

Piotr Szyhalski's multimedia installation continues his exploration of history and propaganda. A series of records hanging on the wall are adorned with labels richly layered in meaning. In the above label, the numbers refer to the times when planes hit the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in 2001. Meanwhile on a table, planes fly in irregular patterns and occasionally crash, making lights flash above.

Szyhalski grew up in Poland. Curator Kerry Morgan says his work asks viewers to think about how history is presented. Who's doing the talking? What history do they want you to believe?


Michael Karaken's "Green Bottles"

Michael Karaken is known for his paintings depicting trash, and he does not vary from that vein with this latest body of work. However he did take the opportunity to create a large triptych of paintings. The shifting perspective in the different panels leave the viewer unsettled. In other pieces, his attention to detail increases as he approaches the center of the canvas, drawing the viewer even more sharply into the piles of car batteries, plastic bottles, and other refuse.

Detail of a still from Carolyn Swiszcz' "Offering"

Perhaps most delightful to explore is Carolyn Swiszcz work. She used the fellowship to branch out from her paintings and create videos. In both, Swiszcz explores the melancholy nature of boring architecture and large, empty parking lots.

In her video "Offering" Swiszcz creates a replica of a K-mart out of twinkies and other junk food, and then offers it up to the seagulls in the parking lot. Both humorous and sad, the video reminds us that so much that was once real has been replaced with artifice.

The 2009-2010 McKnight visual artists will display their work at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design through August 13. In what feels like a bit "musical chairs" later this month MCAD MFA students will show their work at Burnett Gallery in downtown Minneapolis.

A local gallery with national business savvy

Posted at 1:17 PM on July 19, 2010 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Grand Hand Gallery shows and sells fine craft, primarily by Minnesotan artists.

Ann Ruhr Pifer shows more passion for her work than the average art gallery owner.

My job is to try to turn my artists into rock stars.

Sitting at her desk in the back office of Grand Hand Gallery on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, Ruhr Pifer proffers tea poured from a pot by Dick Cooter, whose work she sells. It was her love for his pottery, she says, that got her into this business.

I had been in banking for 15 years, but wasn't that excited about it. I was a big admirer of Dick's pottery, but he was relatively unknown. I kept giving him advice on how to better market himself, and finally he said "Ann, I just want to make pots." So I decided if I had so much passion for it, maybe this is what I was meant to do.

Ruhr Pifer used her business and marketing experience to create a sales outlet in the cities for artisans from around the state. And her experience has paid off; since its opening in 2004, Ruhr Pifer has expanded Grand Hand twice. While the recession has forced many galleries to shut their doors, and others are reporting losses of 30-60% , she says her gallery has only seen "slowed growth."

Grand Hand owner, Ann Ruhr Pifer

While Ruhr Pifer doesn't like to distinguish between "fine art" and "craft," she admits that selling wood carvings, pottery and weavings comes with its own particular challenges.

High art galleries get a lot more media coverage. I think that's in part due to the term "craft," because I think it makes some people think of macramé plant hangers. So I think for some journalists it seems like a risky topic to take on. And in general I think it's just an under-appreciated sector of the art world

Items for sale at the Grand Hand are typically much less expensive than those in a fine art gallery. As a result, Ruhr Pifer says her business is "halfway between a fine art gallery and a Target;" she sells one-of-a-kind items, but she has to do so at a very high volume in order to break even.

Warren MacKenzie, Nancy Gipple and Kinji Akagawa at champagne brunch for American Craft Council conference attendees, October, 2009
In addition to its main room, the Grand Hand Gallery also features a gallery space dedicated to highlighting the work of particular artists, and providing a more in-depth look at their particular craft. Ruhr Pifer says it's just another means of promoting the artists.

We wouldn't be in this business if we didn't want to help our artists succeed.

Ruhr Pifer keeps busy getting national attention for her artists, either through advertising or by bringing Smithsonian "craft study" tour groups to town. When the American Craft Council held its annual conference in the Twin Cities, she helped organize a tour of local art centers and studios.

In conjunction with the conference, Ruhr Pifer organized a particularly high profile exhibition, featuring the work of potter Warren MacKenzie and sculptor Kinji Akagawa, along with their wives, who are both prominent fiber artists.

Ruhr Pifer says she couldn't be happier that the ACC has since moved its offices from Manhattan to Minneapolis.

It's great for Minnesota and great for the council, too. I would say the Twin Cities is the leading center for craft in the country. There's no other concentration of working artists and organizations like the one we have here. We have Northern Clay Center, Textile Center, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Those are all places where people can go to learn a skill. They are incubators for working artists.

Ruhr Pifer is also helping organize "American Craft Week" set for October, which is meant to serve as a tribute to the American craftsman.

We have wonderful things that are still being made by hand in the United States. Metal work, ceramics, - and there's a lot of national, cultural history going into them. So I hope that we can serve to raise the appreciation and awareness of these artists.

Grand Hand Gallery is located at 619 Grand Avenue in St. Paul.

McKnight shows, part 1: Northern Clay Center

Posted at 1:00 PM on July 14, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Funding, Galleries, Media, Sculpture

Ursula Hargens, Wallflower, 2010, earthenware, gold luster, 62" x 26" x 1". Photo by Peter Lee.

If you've been paying attention to local arts calendars in the past few weeks, you may have noticed a certain name popping up time and time again: "McKnight."

As most artists will tell you, the McKnight Foundation is one of the pillars in Minnesota for funding the arts, and each year it offers over a million dollars to Minnesota artists in fellowships that cover a wide range of disciplines: theater, dance, choreography, photography, visual arts, ceramics.

Right now, McKnight's partner institutions are displaying the results of the past years fellowships. A few weeks back I looked at the work of McKnight's photography fellows, on display at Frankling Art Works, and last weekend McKnight dancers performed new solo works they commissioned at the Southern Theater.

Today I'm looking at two different McKnight funded exhibitions , starting with ceramic artists at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis(check back later for a profile of visual artists on display at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design).

Maren Kloppmann, Stacked Pillows III/09 (8 Elements), 2009

Northern Clay Center's fellowship program differs a bit from other McKnight programs. In addition to providing fellowships to two Minnesota ceramicists, the center also brings in four artists from outside Minnesota for three month residencies. The idea is to provide artists around the country with time and professional studio space in which to develop their work, while also giving local artists the opportunity to learn new techniques in workshops with these visiting fellows.

Exhibitions Director and Curator Jamie Lang says what always surprises him is how, although their styles are techniques are quite different, these artists' create bodies of work which actually pair together quite well.

What always surprises me is that there is a cohesiveness to the exhibition even though when they're here you don't think they'll work together, or you even worry that they'll compete with one another.

This year's Minnesota fellows are Ursula Hargens and Maren Kloppman (first and second images, respectively). While Hargen's is richly decorated and colored, Kloppman's is sparse and minimalist. Yet both show an expertise with architectural lines and spiritual overtones.

Yoko Sekino-Bové, Noblesse Oblige, 2005
Photo by Jamie Lang

While Kloppman and Hargens created more contemplative bodies of work, the pots and tiles of Yoko Sekino-Bove and Ilena Finocchi reach out and grab you with their biting commentary. Sekino-Bove riffs on the typically precious vases of China and Japan -depicting pandas munching on bamboo and flying cranes - and inserts modern, disillusioned dialogue that burns away at the zen-like veneer.

For her part, Ilena Finocchi casts her eye on modern politics, and finds it lacking. She created tiles that resemble posters for freak shows depicting such familiar faces as Sarah Palin and George Bush. She also sculpted a couple of three dimensional pieces which reveal, quite plainly, her disenchantment with the U.S. government as a whole

Ilena Finocchi, National Frivolity, 2009
Photo by artist.

Finally ceramic artists Elizabeth Smith and Cary Esser are dealing more purely with pattern. Esser creates two dimensional piece with geometric shapes which feel as they could have been removed from a garden wall. Smith used her fellowship to create one very large installation piece called "The Garden;" its four panels reflect the season, affixing ceramic structures to a wall that's been painted with repeating patterns of stencils.

Elizabeth Smith, The Garden (detail), 2009-2010
Photo by Jamie Lang

Lang says the show reflects some of the latest trends in ceramic art.

Decorated surface is a hot trend now. You can see even more of it in our sales gallery. There's more decoration or imagery on the ceramic pieces, such as Yoko's animals and text, more of an exploration within decorations and graphics. I don't think that's unique to ceramics - I'm seeing it on the street with stenciled graffiti, and in graphic novels, too.

Lang says this particular group of fellows stands out for two reasons; they're all women (a first in the fellowship's 13 year history), and almost all of them created work designed to be hung on walls, not just set on tables. Lang notes how both Kloppman and Smith incorporated the walls into their artwork, using paint and shellac to extend the artwork beyond the clay and porcelain objects.

"Northern Clay Center: Six McKnight Artists" runs through August 23 in Minneapolis.

When bigger isn't necessarily better

Posted at 5:07 PM on July 9, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Artist Ute Bertog checks out her colleagues' work at Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis.

Usually when I attend a "re-opening" of a gallery or museum or theater, it's because the business has expanded. But in the case of Soo Visual Arts Center's new gallery space, it's actually shrunk.

This weekend SooVAC is celebrating the completion of a remodeling of its building, which actually cuts the gallery space in half, from 3500 to 1600 square feet. Artistic Director Suzy Greenberg says it's part of a plan to make the gallery more sustainable in the long term.

The space has always been a little too big - it felt overwhelming, especially if you wanted to do a solo show. We actually got turned down by artists because of that. It was 100 feet deep so you couldn't have just one staff person manage it. It felt like a great event space, but not necessarily a great gallery space.

Greenberg bought the building that houses Soo gallery ten years ago. She divided the building in two, renting out the rest of it to Highpoint Center for Printmaking. When Highpoint decided to finally move into its own home this past year, Greenberg took the opportunity to reconfigure the building, and she kept the reality of today's economy in mind.

From my perspective the economy since we opened is the problem - we opened in June of 2001 - we missed the boat in terms of the economy. We get really very little grant money.

Greenberg's new tenant - an ad agency - will now get the larger portion of the building, which will help to keep the gallery costs low.

SooVAC staff enjoy their new, smaller digs

Greenberg says the change in space is also part of a larger move to change SooVAC from being known as "Suzy's art gallery" but instead "Soo Visual Arts Center."

My goal is for this to be something - an organization that goes on beyond me. That's why I made the investment of buying a building in the first place; I didn't even own a home when I bought this.

"The Laundry" by Areca Roe, 2009

SooVAC is celebrating the opening of its new space with Untitled 7, its seventh annual juried exhibition. The main gallery room is now much more intimate, allowing visitors to take in the entire room as they walk in. Greenberg says she was happy to finally have the classic "white box" to present work in.

"Untitled" by Madison Van Holmes, made with toothbrushes, packing paper, duct tape and wood.

In addition, the gallery boasts a small front room dedicated to presenting the work of teenage artists (including the dress made of toothbrushes, pictured above). Greenberg says the goal of the space is to give young artists the opportunity to show their work, and mingle with established artists in the community.

SooVAC's re-opening takes place tomorrow night at 6pm, featuring Untitled 7 in the main gallery and SooFUZE: SooVAC's first Minnesota Teen Arts Juried Exhibition. Both exhibitions run through September 5.

Four photographers, four worlds

Posted at 4:00 PM on June 4, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, Photography

In Franklin Art Works' main gallery, the bright colors of a glitzy billboard in China face off with almost claustrophobic black and white shots of salt pouring onto a table. The bare minimalist whites and grays of a Canadian blizzard stand in opposition to a blistering hot day in Cairo, Egypt as viewed from its rooftops.

Most exhibitions of artwork have a theme or uniting element that binds them together, even if it's only a word like "landscape" or "poverty." In the case of Franklin Art Works' latest show, which opens tonight, that word is "McKnight." All four photographers in this group show received a grant of $40,000 from the McKnight Foundation back in 2008. And that's pretty much where their similarities end.

"It's like herding kittens in a way," laughs Franklin Art Works director Tim Peterson. "Or, shall we say, a bit of a shotgun marriage, but a wonderful one, because it's about exploration."

Osama Esid
"Market City," 2007

Osama Esid's sepia-toned photographs capture with a nostalgic eye the strange architectural mish-mash of present day Cairo, where freeways bisect neighborhoods littered with ancient ruins. Esid (who has a solo show coming up next week at Gallery 13) uses a 1920s vintage camera to shoot photographs called "sun prints." It's a fitting method for an artist who occupies himself primarily with documenting life in the Middle East. Esid was born and schooled in Damascus and worked in Paris and Madrid before moving to the U.S. He lives and works in Minneapolis, and maintains a studio in Cairo.

Priscilla Briggs
"Opening Soon" (Grand Gateway Mall, Shanghai), 2008

McKnight fellow Priscilla Briggs teaches art and art history at Gustavus Adolphus, but keeps finding herself back in China, documenting the surge in capitalism that's gripping its cities. Tim Peterson says Brigg's work focuses particularly on advertising:

And the advertising is on a massive scale. Here we take it for granted, but there it's startling. It's really about the intersection of western capitalism and eastern communism. Her work feels like an immersive 360° view into a changing culture, and its changing desires.

Briggs' "Fortune" series juxtaposes the legacy of communism and the bright shiny lure of capitalism as represented by the massive shopping malls appearing all over the country.

Justin Newhall
Cold War Era Radar, Fort Churchill, MB, 2008

While Briggs images capture the rich opulence of a country in the midst of a consumer revolution, Justin Newhall occupies himself with the detritus left behind in the desolate Canadian town of Churchill, Manitoba. Newhall was inspired by Glenn Gould's 1967 radio documentary "The Idea of North" to travel the western shore of Hudson Bay for four years. There he wandered through abandoned science stations and dislocated settlements, tracked polar bears and took pictures in which the landscape is barely visible through blinding snow.

David Goldes
smoke ring, 2009

Perhaps the most stark images of all in this exhibition are those of David Goldes. His dark, laboratory set-ups attempt to document the physical actions and reactions that we often take for granted: adding salt to our meal, blowing a smoke ring from a cigarette, or a plastic bag swept up by the air. Goldes' images strip these actions down to their barest form, in what feels - to this viewer - like an almost obsessive desire to understand the nature of things.

While these artists share little more than a camera and a grant, they each afford the viewer a journey into another world. Whether it's the heights of Chinese consumerism, or rooftop views of an ancient city under transformation or the sad relics of an attempt make a life in a harsh northern climate. In the case of Goldes "experiments," he takes us on a journey into the interior of a photographer's mind.

"2008 McKnight Artist Fellowhips for Photographers" opens tonight at Franklin Art Works with a reception from 7 to 9pm. In conjunction with the exhibition Franklin Art Works has organized a series of photography workshops for area high school students, taught by past McKnight fellows.

The Smell of God

Posted at 8:26 AM on June 4, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Bone Sphere by Max Hoagland and Nathan Meagher
Photo by Sean Smuda

Curator Roderic Southall likes to challenge artists to think in new ways. And so for his latest exhibition at Obsidian Arts in Minneapolis, he asked a group of visual artists to think about a sense they don't normally work with: smell.

Smell has an incredible power to transport you back to an experience. We take smell for granted, but it's often used to manipulate us. We started talking about smell, the smell of god, and what that smells like. And once you've smelled it, once you've been in the presence of God, what's the after effect? What came of it?

Southall brought in West African artist Bathelemy Toguo to work with a group of artists over a period of time as they reflected on the "smell of God." At first what they created took Southall completely by surprise; Max Hoagland and Nathan Meagher created a delicate sphere made from the bones of mice extracted from owl droppings. But upon reflection, Southall thinks the sphere makes perfect sense:

It made me think of aftermath. OK, so this rat met God in the form of an owl. The owl devoured the rat, and out of that soil came this sphere - a wonderful delicate and spiritual piece, that also looks like a molecule in your body.

In other words, says Southall, even at our most base, there is something holy and beautiful to be found.

Still from Amanda Lovelee's "Bee"

For her piece Amanda Lovelee filmed a beautiful and eery video of a bee slowing writhing in its last moments of life. Southall said at first he was skeptical, because he sees animals die all the time on nature shows. But this was different:

It's very stark. God's will is happening in a really clinical setting to this seemingly helpless creature. It's very delicate and elegant. I only had to watch it to love it.

A series of photographs, also by Amanda Lovelee, depicts a massive landscape of ice, changing with the seasons. Southall says the images speak to our own frozen conception of God:

For me it's about your inability to let your god change. There are seasons, and things change, but we don't let our gods change. It reflects our inability to let go.

A group of portraits by David Rich depict women of all sorts, as though combined, they represent something powerful and divine.

Installation piece by Barthelemy Toguo
Photo by Sean Smuda

Barthelemy Toguo is the only non-Minnesotan in the show, and his work serves as the focal point which draws it all together. It consists of two pieces, a long table surrounded by chairs as in "The Last Supper," but in this instance each plate is covered in colorful candles, and on the seats are crosses. Behind this sits a taller table upon which stands a cross made of two loaves of bread, surrounded by cotton clouds.

Perhaps it's worth noting here that Obsidian Arts' "gallery space" is in fact the lobby of Pillsbury House in Minneapolis. So while some people may be coming to see the art, most people in the lobby are there to drop off their kids, waiting for a medical appointment, or are coming to see a play at Pillsbury House Theatre. And in the center of the lobby now sits two tables and eleven chairs which people are expected to not sit in. Instead they are left to contemplate a meal in which the attendees dined on light and color.

Southall says he hopes people in the lobby will be inspired to think about different ways people interact with God or their Higher Power.

I hope also that for people who think that painting and film - the flat arts - are the limits of art - I'm excited about them interacting with these more three dimensional, engaging works of art.

Still from Nathan Young's video installation.

One of the most provocative works in the show is Nathan Young's video installation. Young took "the smell of God" and translated it into the experience some people have when they worship cultural icons. Young created portraits of Tupac and Kanye West using chocolate as his medium. Then he videotaped himself licking the portraits with his mouth full of Hershey's syrup. The video is simultaneously sexual, submissive, sickeningly sweet and somber.

Still from Nathan Young's video installation.

Southall says Young puts into question notions of both idolatry and masculinity. Is a tough guy who dresses and acts just like Tupac really that tough? Or is he just fawning over his hero? FInally Young turns the idolatry on himself, creating his own portrait and repeating the process with the Hershey's syrup. He seems to ask "Is it possible to worship ourselves the way we worship others? Can I love myself as much as I love these music icons?"

In fact, not one of these pieces actually deals literally with our sense of smell, but they do deal with something intangible, powerful and evocative. And many of the images in this show linger with you after you've left. In that sense, the artists responded perfectly to the theme of the show.

"The Smell of God" runs through July 31 in the Pillsbury House lobby in Minneapolis. On the last day of the exhibition the artists will gather to talk about how they came to creating their works in a discussion from 1 - 2:30pm.

Remembering Gordon Parks

Posted at 12:06 PM on May 21, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries, People

Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks was by all means a Renaissance man, and a trailblazer. Over the course of his career he was a photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist and film director (popular culture will remember him best for directing the movie "Shaft").

This afternoon Metropolitan State University is honoring Parks, a St. Paul native, by renaming its gallery "The Gordon Parks Gallery." Starting at 4pm there will be a ribbon cutting, jazz, a program with photographer Wing Young Huie, and screenings of Parks' films.

Fittingly, the first exhibition in the newly named gallery is a retrospective of Parks' own work. In addition to working both in the Office of War Information and for Vogue, Parks spent two decades snapping photo essays for Life magazine. One of his most famous portraits was actually an early work, "American Gothic, Washington D.C."

American Gothic, Washington D.C.

A true photojournalist, Parks covered everything from fashion to sports, from Broadway to poverty, as well as racial segregation.

Similar journeys, on different paths

Posted at 3:20 PM on May 19, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

The College of St. Benedict and St. John's University in Collegeville present "Trails and Parallels", twenty-eight works by artist Dean Ebben. Ebben (a Minnesota native who now lives in New York) creates fragmented visual narratives that offer various paths for the viewer to explore, whether it's through video, prints, or sculpture. Ebben says he's attempting to put the audience in his own footsteps and then have them make parallels to their own lives.

Trails tend to wind through a place, some over grown and dangerous, some manicured and well traveled. Trails often disappear and reappear over time. Parallels run in straight or curved lines. They travel in unison, always the same, along the equator or in our cities and maps. I find that my ideas and experiences have this duality.

"Trails and Parallels" brings together a series of works that span six years, constructed through whatever means possible to convey a particular ideas. The most ethereal of those works might be the blue and white cyanotypes.

Cyanotype is a non-silver photo process and is one of the first forms of photography. I use the sun to expose the image on sensitized paper or fabric. I use objects to create a resist to light. Cyanotype is great because it is recording the rotation of the earth through the shadows of the objects that are being used as a resist to light. The object leaves an ambiguous image, which I have juxtaposed with text or video.

For me art making and life seem to go hand-in-hand; there is less definition between making things and going about my daily life. Similar to the cyanotype that is recording the day in which it was made, much of what I make has an imprint of what was going on at the time.

Brooklyn Bridge, 2006

In the 15-minute video "Brooklyn Bridge" a simple walk becomes an almost Herculean task. The subject of the video is wearing shoes that are affixed to large buckets, forcing him to take arduous steps as he traverses the bridge. Ebben says he imagines the "bucket walker" to be not unlike the Greek character Sisyphus who is eternally pushing a boulder uphill. The bucket walker makes his way south through Queens and Brooklyn until he reaches the Brooklyn Bridge to begin his walk again, forever creating this pattern.

Ebben says his performance and video work tend to put the performer in a compromised situation. Performers in his videos are often times asked to complete a task that was awkward and imposed. Ebben says while the performers may feel uncomfortable in the situation, they often make some personal discoveries in the process.

They are put in a situation they normally don't find themselves; yet they often adapt to the situation. Walking with the buckets becomes easier, maybe less or more painful. People reflect on their own abilities. It changes peoples perspectives and how they perceive themselves.

Often times Ebben's imagery involves binding his feet or his hands. Other pieces in the exhibition include a woven tapestry, a ladder made from canes and a series of guache paintings. The exhibition runs May 27 - July 22 in the Alice R. Rogers and Target Galleries on the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University campus.

Teapots worthy of the Mad Hatter

Posted at 3:00 PM on May 18, 2010 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Craft, Galleries

"Lip Service" by Dixie Biggs, 2009
Made with cherry, acrylic paint and a Krylon finish
Photo by Tib Shaw

The Gallery of Wood Art is filled with teapots, but gallery coordinator Tib Shaw says these pots are for admiring, not pouring.

Not a one of these teapots is usable for tea. I was a bit surprised by this, as it is certainly possible. In this case the artists, because they were working in wood, had quite a few technical hurdles to overcome already.

What the teapots are able to do is seduce the eye and inspire the imagination.

This is the gallery's fourth in a series of invitational spring exhibits centered around very specific themes. Past invitational challenges included "the sphere" and in one case, presented each of the participating artists with identical rough-turned bowls to finish in their own style.

When the artists have such strong limits it makes their process more visible: it creates a window into the mind. Because my role is to expand the public's understanding of wood art and woodturning beyond spindles and baseball bats, I love this kind of exhibit because it makes visible the vast range of approaches and techniques possible while using wood as a form of expression.

"They Came for Tea" by Darrell Copeland, 2009
Made with maple and acrylic paint
Photo by Tib Shaw

One trait the woodturners seem to have in common is a sense of humor, particularly when it comes to naming their teapots. Darrell Copeland's "They Came for Tea" evokes a distinctly "alien" feel.

Shaw says woodturning is a highly technical craft, and so there are many hallmarks of quality that you look for: the smoothness of the surface, the clarity of the transitions between design elements, the thinness of the wall in a vessel, the quality of the wood.

With wood art, I look to see how well the artists works with what nature has provided. Wood is not a very forgiving medium: each type of wood has its own properties and needs to be worked with respect, using knowledge that has been accumulating for hundreds of years. If a piece looks like it has been forced it is rarely successful.

"Having Tea With My Good Friend Wiley-O" by Cindy Drozda, 2009
Sputnik sea urchin shell gilded with varigated metal leaf, African Blackwood, garnet in 14k gold, catnip
Photo by Tib Shaw

While this is the Gallery of Wood Art, many artists did also incorporated metal, pearls, gold and even sea shells into thier work. And while traditional standards of woodturning emphasized seemless design, Shaw says those standards are changing.

In some pieces tool marks really do scream sloppy, while in others they reflect the creative process and provide almost a micro-history of the creation of the piece, of the relationship between the maker and the object. Some have wandered away from the woodpile altogether and are turning things like cardboard and laminated paper.

This isn't to say that technique is being thrown out the window - the artists in this exhibit are all technically as well as visually gifted; several are masters in the field. If you see a tool mark, they wanted you to!

"Sinus Amoris" by Binh Pho, 2009
Maple, acrylic paint, glass beads, cultured pearls, 14k gold
Photo by Tib Shaw

So why challenge a bunch of woodturners to make teapots, if they can't actually be used for making tea? Shaw says teapots have a been a 'design canvas' for centuries.

Maybe because there is something oddly anthropomorphic about the form. Just think of "I'm a Little Teapot."

David McFadden, curator at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, said "Outside of the chair, the teapot is the most ubiquitous and important design element in the domestic environment and almost everyone who has tackled the world of design has ended up designing one."

Boxwood spoon by Gerrit Van Ness
Photo by Tib Shaw

In conjunction with the teapot exhibition, the Gallery of Wood Art is also showing a wide array of carved spoons belonging to collector Norman D. Stevens. The show runs through May 30.

The gallery is sponsored in part by the American Association of Woodturners. The teapots will be auctioned off at the AAW's annual symposium in June. This year's symposium is taking place in Hartford, Connecticut, but next year it will be coming to St. Paul, just as it celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Honey locust spoon with gold leaf by Jacques Vesery
Photo by Tib Shaw

The Gallery of Wood Art is located on the 2nd floor of the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul.

Love Never Dies

Posted at 1:30 PM on May 20, 2010 by Marianne Combs (6 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Still from "New Beijing, New Marriage," 2009
by Fan Popo and David Cheng

Gay marriage is a hotly debated topic with people both passionately for and against legally recognizing the union of gay and lesbian couples.

But for all the debate around marriage, there isn't much discussion of gay relationships.

Form and Content and Traffic Zone galleries in Minneapolis are co-presenting an exhibition titled "Love Never Dies." It's curated by Jim Dryden and Howard Oransky with the support of the Walker Art Center, and is a sequel to a group show they organized in 2007 about GLBT identity, called "Modes of Disclosure." Oransky says they wanted to open up a dialogue about aspects of gay relationships that don't often get discussed.

The reality is that people are loving each other and committing themselves to each other and hoping for the approval of the broader community, but regardless of whether they get it or not, these things are happening.

At the entrance to the Form and Content gallery is a video piece about a lesbian couple's wedding celebration, as documented by their teenage daughters. Next to it stands and art book featuring portraits of GLBT families taken at Sears. Oransky says this celebration of GLBT families serves as a centerpiece to the exhibition; the other works in the gallery reflect the commentary swirling around gay relationships.

Hey Hetero! 2001 (one of a six part series)
Deborah Kelly and Tina Fiveash

"Love Never Dies" brings together work from around the United States (California, Hawaii, Minnesota) and around the world (Norway, China, Italy, Australia, Canada). And in many instances the videos, prints, photographs and sculpture use humor to disarm the viewer.

Deborah Kelly and Tina Fiveash created a series of posters that have been posted on billboards and in magazines all over their native Australia. Oransky says the posters are so slickly designed that they draw in the viewers before they've figured out what the message is.

In the simplest of terms it puts reality in front of you in a way it hasn't before. Like "Hey Hetero! Have a baby - No National Debate:" why do we have to have a debate over having children? Yet gay couples do.

Plush Pony, 1992 by Laura Aguilar
Silver gelatin print

The exhibition includes three photographs by Laura Aguilar taken in 1992 in Rosemead California, at the dyke bar "Plush Pony." Oransky particularly loves the photo shown above.

It conveys a whole mixture of emotions, love, mischief, sexuality, adoration, and self awareness that "we're different and we're proud."

Oransky and Dryden are both in their 50s, and Oransky says the exhibition was in part inspired by seeing a younger generation of committed GLBT couples emerging in the gay marriage debate. Oransky says he also wanted to explore how an individual's perspective on their sexuality and their body changes over time.

Gender and sexuality are fluid ideas that exist in the mind and are expressed through our bodies. These things are interpreted and reinterpreted by individuals in different ways at different points in their lives. Even a heterosexual is going to go through transformations in relation to his/her sexuality through the course of a lifetime. The same man at age 13 and age 83 will define and express himself sexually in very different ways.

Protester at Gay Marriage Rights Rally, 2006 by Terry Gydesen

Local photographer Terry Gydessen went to a debate at the Capitol Building in St. Paul in 2006, and documented the ant-gay marriage sentiment she found there.

Oransky says while the focus of the exhibition is gay relationships, it couldn't ignore the debate on gay marriage.

You very quickly pick up on the fact that the exhibition has a lot of humor and playfulness, but we can't ignore that there's a lot of serious politics going on around this issue, not just here in the Twin Cities but all around the world.

Other works in the exhibition explore what it means to be a "bride?" What is a bride? Who is a bride? Must they be married to men? Can a lesbian be a bride?

Frank A. GåRDSø and Eirik Tyrihjel
Still from "Love Never Dies," 2003
16 mm film transferred to DVD, 2 minutes, 56 seconds

The exhibition takes its name from a short film projected on the back wall of the Form and Content Gallery. "Love Never Dies" is three minute piece from Olso, Norway, and it starts out with an elderly man sitting in his room (perhaps in an assisted living residence), fiddling with his wedding ring and adjusting his tie while looking out the window. A taxi comes up, someone gets out and comes to the door. It's then you realize that it's another elderly man. They embrace and walk down the hall together.

Oransky says one thing all human beings share is the absolute need for affection, and to be connected to another person.

There'are some things that all human beings have in common, and some things that make us different. What we all share is the need to love and be loved, and there so many ways in which that can happen. That diversity of expression is part of what makes us human.

"Love Never Dies" open May 20 at Form and Content and Traffic Zone Galleries in downtown Minneapolis, with an opening reception on Saturday, June 5 from 7 - 10pm. This exhibition is being presented in cooperation with Walker Art Center, in conjunction with its film festival Queer Takes.

Mapping Community

Posted at 2:03 PM on May 17, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Photo credit: Bill Kelley

Lately the College of Visual Arts has been focusing on what is on the outside of its gallery as much as what is on the walls inside.

The "Portals on Western" exhibition program uses large box windows and glass doorways as a sort of miniature exhibition space, on display for anyone who happens to walk by the corner of Selby and Western ave in St. Paul.

Rachel Breen is the latest artist to create work specifically for the Portals on Western space, and she took her assignment to heart. For several weeks Breen invited people from the neighborhood to sit for her in front of a light, while she traced their silhouettes. She then ran those drawings through an unthreaded sewing machine. The resulting patterns of holes became stencils, through which Breen sifted powdered charcoal onto the windows and walls. The images she created, (which she calls collectively "Local Topography") appears to be a map of sorts, a terrain both strange and vaguely familiar.

What I ultimately want to do with the work is raise questions about community, how people intersect and communicate with one another. What would a map of a community look like? A map made up of people who live and work and pass through this area? That was my idea, that it would not really be a geographical map, but a map of how we understand community.

Photo credit: Bill Kelley

While the pieces in the main windows are white with black markings, Breen chose to play with light on the CVA doors, putting up black paper that had been through her sewing machine. At night the doors glimmers with the ghosts of young and old who share this space.

The sewing machine is a really important part of my work. The stitch is very symbolic; it speaks to connection, quilting, to fixing something or make something new. I'm using it in a new way, to describe people and human forms. Because I'm not using thread there's more ambiguity, a yearning for cohesion and connection. Because we really want to be connected to the people around us, but it doesn't just happen on its own. It takes effort and contact.

Photo credit: Bill Kelley

Breen's work actually brought people into the gallery who might not otherwise have felt comfortable doing so. She invited the Pakistani owner of a nearby convenience store to come and sit for a silhouette. While he had worked just around the corner from the gallery for years, he'd never come in. And he was astonished to recognize some of the staff as his regular customers. The next day he brought his children, dressed in their finest, to sit for silhouettes as well.

Breen says she hopes the exhibition inspires connections not just among those who participated in the "Local Topography" project, but also in passers-by:

I hope that the imagery engages people enough that they keep thinking about it after they've left the area, that they ask questions about these faces and intersecting lines. Why are they here on the street corner to begin with? I really appreciate this corner of St. Paul, with its art gallery and coffee shop as well as the YWCA and the urban league. Race, class, culture, age... everything is right here.

Breen says the Portals on Western project challenged her to think about her work in the context of a public art format, and pushed her in new directions as a result. Now she wonders what she might be able to create on an even larger scale, and whether she could do similar work using materials that would hold up to being in the outdoors.

The College of Visual Arts has recognized the value of the series, and the opportunity it presents local arts to stretch out and experiment. As a result it's expanding its exhibitions from two months to three months. Know of an artist you think might enjoy the challenge? The CVA is accepting proposals this month for the coming year, and there's an information session tomorrow night.

Cutting away at our nature

Posted at 9:36 AM on May 14, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Reinvention, Sonja Peterson, 2010, 54"x54", graphite, aluminum leaf, newsprint & paper

When Sonja Peterson reads the economic news, she's reminded of the explorers of the romantic age, and their frenzied quests to conquer the wild unknown.

In the Wall Street shake-down we saw this drive for profit through creating more and more complex stocks and bonds that get us lost. In the age of romanticism, nature was once wild and endless. Now it's contained, whereas Wall street is the wild frontier that can't be reigned in.

Reinvention, detail

Peterson's current exhbition, which opens tomorrow at the Burnet Gallery at Le Meridien Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis, explores this connection between untamed nature and the wilds of Wall Street. In her intensely detailed paper cuts, exotic trees stand next to skyscrapers, while businessmen with briefcases navigate the vines alongside monkeys and cranes. In the shadows of the jungle lie stock reports and Dow Jones averages.

Mungo's Query 2

It might seem irrationally romantic to equate today's financial wheelers and dealers with the great thinkers of the romantic age, but in reading about the lives of people like Joseph Banks and Mungo Park, Peterson sees a similar madness in their passion for discovery.

It was a time when explorers, scientists and poets worked together, excited about studying and unlocking the secrets of nature. They were very excited about "the world beyond." Nature was endless and wild to them. Yet they were all drawn into these perilous journeys, looking out and beyond, and they were obsessed, they had this insane drive.

Shadow of the Pleasuredome

Peterson uses etched glass to convey the confusing layers in today's untamed forest of of speculations and investments. Lights shining on the glass reveal shadows which make it difficult to determine what is real, and what is just a trick of the eye. So it is when we try to shine a light on the truth behind collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps.

Systems have grown so complex in our technological world that its hard to understand them. That's why I'm interested in light and shadows. Because something may be presented in a way that seems clear and simple, but the truth behind it is much darker and more complex. And it's hard to understand the truth when you see all the layers underneath.

While the beauty and intricacy of Peterson's work draws in the viewer's eyes, upon closer inspection it reveals an unsettling relationship between man and nature. Peterson says she's always looking at the ever-shifting boundaries between nature and technology.

We're heading toward a "post-natural" world. We are managers of nature now, containing nature in parks, giving nature boundaries, ordering nature to do what we want or need.

Peterson's observations make me wonder, will we ever have such control over our economy?

Sonja Peterson's group of works, "Second Nature," is on display at the Burnet Gallery in the Le Meridien Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis starting tomorrow (May 15) through July 11, with an opening reception from 6-9pm Saturday night.

Interested in learning more about the inspiration for Peterson's work? One of her primary sources was Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder.

Make Something Cool Every Day

Posted at 11:45 AM on April 27, 2010 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries, People

6/14/09: suburban life

Brock Davis is a very creative guy. He works in advertising as a designer, is an artist and photographer, and also makes music in the band Work Of Saws.

But Davis decided he needed something more. He needed to challenge himself to be creative every single day. So at the prompting of a friend, he took on a challenge to Make Something Cool Every Day in the year 2009. Here's how he describes it:

It was excruciating, exciting, nerve-wracking, fun, difficult; it was all these things. I'm definitely glad that I did it, but now that it's over, I don't think I'd do it again anytime soon.

Davis is married with a couple of kids, so he often didn't even get started on his daily project until 10pm. If he missed a day, he'd make up for it by doing two images the next day. In the entire year, there is only one day missing an image.

1/03/09: Rules - blank paper + thread + tape + exacto

Davis says his strengths are in drawing and photography, but with an entire year of "cool stuff" to make, he was pushed to try everything from sculpture, to telling stories using M&M's as characters, to creating a self-portrait using his own shavings in the bathroom sink.

5/30/09: stubble self portrait (drawn with toothpick)

The need to create something no matter what meant that, inevitably, some days were better than others. But they still went up on the web. Davis says the experience was both humbling and liberating:

I think the interesting thing is that with this project people can see all of your sides. You can't really hide from anything. So you pretty much have to be prepared for letting people see everything. Seeing your successes, seeing your failures - so I pretty much accepted the fact that I would be showing people everything. If it's cool, that's great, if it's not, that's fine too. It helped me relax a little bit.

In some ways, Davis felt the project took him back to his childhood:

When you're a kid you have this free imagination, there are no clients, no real deadlines, you just look at everything around you, you're inspired by it, you create - it really taught me to pay more attention to everything around me. Objects that are seemingly uninteresting at first glance can be really interesting if you know how to extract that from them.

Over the course of the year, Davis found inspiration in things like bananas, milk cartons, a fly stuck in a cobweb, and a glass table-top. And his eye become drawn to simple actions, like cutting vegetables, or fabric.

10/4/09: shark

While Davis' project was born - and lives - on the web, it is now moving from the digital world into a physical show, opening Saturday at Creative Electric Studios in Minneapolis. Director David Salmela is also Davis' bandmate in Work of Saws, and says while he's always interested in Davis' work, this project particularly struck him.

This project has already been lifted up on the web all over the world. At Creative Electric we're just really interested in the idea of making work,and so what we like about this is... I hope it will inspire people to want to make things, explore their own creativity, and see what's possible.

Salmela says the exhibition will feature all the images from the year, in chronological order, organized similarly to a calendar. Because Davis is an experienced photographer, Salmela says printing the images has revealed a whole new layer of artistry.

7/16/09: fencing

So, if Davis is so happy the project is over, does he recommend anyone else take it on?
You bet he does.

There are other folks out there doing similar projects - photo a day, song a day - I think that structure keeps you motivated and inspired, and for me it definitely kept my brain sharp. This process can't help but improve what I do in my work, too.

Brock Davis' series "Make Something Cool Every" will be on display at Creative Electric Studios starting May 1, with a reception from 6:30 - 11pm.

Looking for a lost land

Posted at 4:15 PM on April 15, 2010 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Stilts, Sulfur Mine Island, Daniel Kariko

Take a look at a group of paintings by Van Gogh, and when you come across his still life of sunflowers you're likely to think "aah, sunflowers." But take a look at twenty different paintings of sunflowers first, and upon seeing this same painting you're more likely to think "aah, Van Gogh."

So it is when two different artists approach the same topic, you learn as much about the artists as you do the subject.

It's this juxtaposition that drew Karen and Stephen Sugarman of Gallery 13 to assemble the exhibition "Terra Absentis," featuring the artwork of Daniel Kariko and Michael Eble.

Both artists are captivated by and concerned with the destruction of natural wetlands in Louisiana.

Kariko approaches his subject on foot, with a camera; Eble comes at the wetlands with a paintbrush, from the air.

Frontland, Michael Eble

Reflection, Trinity
Daniel Kariko

Stephen Sugarman says pairing the two artists work gives us a double-perspective. He akins it to looking at a beautiful color map, with photographs taking us to places on the map

Eble gives you this expansive view while, Koriko gives you a close-up of what's on the ground. I like the contrast between black-and-white polaroids and these paintings. Painting and photography have an interesting relationship to one another that doesn't get highlighted very often. Photography is seen now as more technical, more real, while painting is considered more of an abstraction. But that's not true. They're both abstractions, both artists choose how much to show you, and how they frame the image

Sugarman says the two artists' work have more in common than just their subject. Eble starts with a digital camera when he's flying over the wetlands. And Koriko, Sugarman insists, is "painting with light" when he uses his barebones pinhole camera.

Kariko creates a nostalgic feel with his raw polaroid framing and stark lighting. If one didn't know better they might think his photos were from the WPA project in the 1930s, documenting the depression. But no, this is today. In an artist statement, Kariko writes:

These pinhole photographs were taken ...in the aftermath of recent hurricanes. Louisiana is experiencing the highest rate of coastal erosion in America, losing about one hundred yards of land every thirty minutes. That is a size of a football field every half-hour.

The barrier islands of Southeast Louisiana are some of the youngest and most unstable landforms on earth. These Islands represent the "First Line of Defense" against such hurricanes. Our, often adversarial relationship with the world outside ultimately reveals our inability to adapt to the natural process. We stop the flooding of rivers by building levees, yet that destroys the wetlands that protect us from storm surges. These photographs set out to illustrate the results of such failed relations.

Parallel Passage, Michael Eble

Eble's images also draw in the viewer, but his paintings do it with lush colors rather than nostalgic black and white. From a distance the paintings look like they could be photographs, but upon closer inspection they reveal rough, jagged strokes that speak to the violence with which the land has been broken up by man-made waterways. He writes:

I found that the images taken from the air to be the most compelling. From the air, I could fully comprehend the vast scale of the problem and see the delicate relationship between land and water.

Both artists are obviously inspired not just by their medium, but the message as well. Using different tools and different palettes, they call our attention to the same piece of land that's slowly slipping away.

Stephen Sugarman says it's the role of the artist to bring our focus in gentle ways to issues such as the environment.

People somehow think that the ecological movement is underway and we can all be optimistic about the future, but I think it's way too soon for that. I hope as a result of this exhibition they'll think more about another part of the country which has problems. Katrina was a wake-up call - but we fell back asleep a year later.

"Terra Absentis: Louisiana's Disappearing Landscape" opens tomorrow night and runs through May 9.

Art out of Apartheid

Posted at 4:52 PM on April 7, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

"Zeno at 4am" (9 prints on 1 sheet) by artist William Kentridge
Etching and sugarlift, 2000

What better way to deal with the legacy of Apartheid in South Africa than in black and white?

Each year Cole Rogers and Carla McGrath put on an international show of prints at Highpoint Center for Printmaking. The goal is to expose local printers and art lovers to the aesthetic of another culture, but always using the same medium. Past shows have featured works from Pakistan, Poland, Australia, Scotland, Mexico, and Japan. This spring, Highpoint's galleries are filled with the prints of a group of artists in South Africa, who all worked in the David Krut print workshop.

Master Printer Cole Rogers says these prints stand out from other shows:

For me a sense of narrative is very strong in these works. Quite a few of them were in a series. It is less colorful than many of the other shows, but the use of the human figure is a strong theme.

Artistic Director Carla McGrath is quick to continue:

And that's something that a lot of visitors have commented on. They enjoy seeing the human figure, and these days are surprised to see it as the subject of contemporary prints. And a lot of the imagery deals with Apartheid, either from a personal perspective, to a much broader social perspective.

"The Rape of Africa" by Diane Victor
Drypoint, 2009

While each of the artists have distinct styles, certain themes emerge quickly: images of being stifled, unable to communicate, or constricted, along with deep feelings of shame, loss and trauma. Combined, the images are a window on a society trying to pick up the pieces while it simultaneously looks to understand its past.

"The Resurrection Series 2/6" by Ryan Arenson
Linocut, 2008

One of the artists featured in the collection is renaissance man William Kentridge. His prints, filled with both movement and tragically absurd imagery hint at his other talents - film, theater and opera. Currently a retrospective of his artwork is up at the MOMA in New York. Included in the Highpoint exhibition are works Kentridge created for the staging and design of Dmitri Shostakovich's "The Nose" at New York's Metropolitan Opera this past March.

"L'inesorabile Avanzata: Massacre of the Innocents" (1 of 5 in a series)
by William Kentridge
Aquatint, drypoint and engraving, 2007

On April 16th, South African print master Jillian Ross will speak at Highpoint about the exhibition, and some of the cultural references in the imagery that might be lost on a local audience.

Aside from the black and white, there is one color that makes a stark appearance in this show: red. It's a disturbing reminder of the legacy of violence in South Africa, but also a splash of life and passion that hints at a return to a full sprectrum of color in the future.

Drawing from the past

Posted at 11:29 AM on March 12, 2010 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Artist Allen Brewer takes old pieces of paper he finds and uses them as a canvas for his drawings.

Where most people see trash, Allen Brewer sees treasure. While others around him dig recklessly through piles of notebooks at an estate sale, Brewer will handle faded pages gently, seeing in them both the mystery of a past life, and the potential for a bright future.

The appeal of the found objects comes from the uniqueness of each piece. I'm drawn to objects that are one of a kind, old looking, and contain a certain spiritual energy that is difficult to explain. I am a very sentimental person, and have been attracted to objects owned by others since a young age. To me, the energy bestowed upon the life of the papers or objects inspires me to make something powerful to honor that energy.

Artist Allen Brewer stands in front an installation of his work at the Burnett Gallery in Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis. All of the frames shown here were purchased second hand and repainted by the artist.

These found papers become the canvases for Brewer's drawings, which are selected from images in old magazines. Brewer says he chooses images based on his own memories of his youth.

The images usually come first, and then I spend a lot of time trying to find a tangential word or chopped up phrase that could describe the intangible feeling of the moment, while also offering an entry point for the viewer. If the paper I find already has text, then I must comb through pages of archived photos until I find the appropriate image that says exactly what i want it to say, regarding my memory. The memories themselves include topics like death, spiritual epiphanies, and self-realization.

Brewer says he's exploring not just his memories, but their fallability. He says he's interested in the indescribable moments of uncertainty when we try to find an association between a word or an image and a memory. Is there a connection, or do we just convince ourselves there is one? And while we each see the same image, our individual associations may be completely different.

In Brewer's show at Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis - which opens tonight - he's installed a school desk and bulletin board adorned in images, along with the originals he pulled from various magazines. Brewer draws over the images with a bamboo stick, imprinting their image onto the canvas beneath using carbon paper. The accuracy with which he transfers the image is startling.

Brewer creates rules for himself for each series of work he creates - in one series, he had to choose a word on the same page as the image he'd found. He says the rules come from his own competitive streak:

I like to challenge myself with everything I do. The restrictions with the colored pencil drawings force me to work with only the limited contents of each photograph. The word I appropriate to the image must exist somewhere near the photograph, in order to refer to it, while also providing new context for the viewer. I feel that my work gets more dangerous and interesting when I put limitations on how I draw.

Allen Brewer's "to have died"

Over 80 drawings by Allen Brewer are on display in the show "if not it, then what?" which opens tonight at Chambers Le Meridian Hotel with a reception from 6 to 9pm. The show runs through May 9.

If you are on Twitter you can follow Foot in the Door

Posted at 6:57 PM on February 11, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Galleries, Museums, People

A quick Foot in the Door Update: If you are wondering about what's happening with all those Foot in the Door artworks at the MIA you can follow the action on Twitter through the #fitd4 hashtag.

Reports from this afternoon suggest that after filling two galleries, there may be need for another. Originally there had been a plan just to spill out into the atrium.

You can also see pictures of the progress, such as this one which also gives you access to a plethora of images gathered during the submission process and during the hanging.

Weekend ahead: looking for love

Posted at 8:20 AM on February 11, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Galleries, Music, People, Poetry, Theater

It's Valentine's Day Sunday, for those of you who have somehow missed the onslaught of V-Day sales pitches coming from all directions. Here are a couple of possibilities of the arts lovin' kind which may help your weekend.

At the 318 Cafe in Excelsior poets Todd Boss and Terri Ford will join Mother Banjo and and Chad Elliot for an evening of words and music, accompanied by a three course Valentine's meal. Boss has become one of local poetry's most outspoken advocates, and has developed "Motionpoems," animated versions of the work of several renowned poets, (including the example of his own work above.) There are two shows at 6 and 8.15 pm. Reservations are strongly recommended as last years events sold out.

At the Guthrie in Minneapolis, you can catch the new theatrical adaptation of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter." The show, about the illicit affair is based on a one act play Coward wrote in the 1930s, and then adapted to an award winning movie in the waning days of World War II.

Director Emma Rice of the British Kneehigh Theatre company, says it's a show everyone can relate to, as she believes there's hardly anyone out there who hasn't fallen in love with someone they shouldn't, or been in love with someone who has fallen for someone else. She's also developed a huge appreciation for Coward and the depth of his work.

"This was a gay man in the 1930s," she says. "He knew what it was like to feel love that he wasn't allowed to feel. And yet the generosity of putting those words into two heterosexual people's mouths and genuinely charting the pain, the simple pain, of what was impossible. I mean, I've got goosebumps even thinking about it."

"Brief Encounter" is now in previews and opens Saturday.

And finally, you can't help but feel the love at the new retrospective of Wing Young Huie's work which is now open at the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Gallery at Macalester College. Huie has documented the people around him in the Twin Cities for three decades, creating an impressive body of work, usually displayed in series such as "Frogtown" and "Lake Street USA." The Mac show is a sampler, taking selections from Huie's work over the years, including the University Avenue Project which will be displayed along its namesake street later this summer.

What the cool kids do in the Twin Ports (surf and make art)

Posted at 12:16 PM on February 10, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Galleries, Photography

Remember that day earlier this week when it seemed like everyone was just shovelling out from the storm? Well, not everyone was digging.

"People are digging their cars out and we are strapping our boards on and heading to the lake," says Luke Kavajecz. Luke's a Superior surfer, one of a hardy breed who see the storms on the big lake as a classic chance to ride some waves.

"Nobody's staying that warm out there, but once you catch a couple of waves out there, you get warmed up, and we don't get waves all that often so you have to take advantage of it," he says.

Luke has also taken advantage of the unique views that he and his fellow surfers get of Lake Superior. They surf from Duluth north, up the north shore.

"The water perspective, not many people get to see that," he says. "It's really worth it to get out there and get those shots." (And yes, that is the Duluth lift bridge in that picture.)

Now Kavajecz is showing some of his work at the Red Mug Coffeehouse Gallery in Superior Wisconsin. There are 14 images in the exhibit, and he says it was hard to pare down the selection.

"I tried to get a mixture of actual surfing and then just what we actually see when we are riding up the coast and searching for waves," he says. "I'm trying to get the whole vibe. There's people standing in blizzards with surfboards, and the classic gray lake lighthouse scene with somebody paddling out. Just try to get the sense of the whole adventure that we go through."

The shots are dramatic, but Kavajecz admits he could have more great stuff, if only he'd take his camera out more.

"I'm too selfish to bring it out there. Surfing is a really selfish sport and you want to get all the really good waves and get them all to yourself. I have a hard time to pick my camera up when I could be getting waves. But there's some really neat angles and perspectives that nobody else has of Lake Superior and the north shore, and I am hoping to get out and get more of those water shots because they are really cool."

Huge response to call for entries for 'Foot in the Door'

Posted at 2:46 PM on February 8, 2010 by Euan Kerr
Filed under: Events, Galleries, Museums, People

The folks at the MIA anticipated they'd attract more entries for the 2010 Foot in the Door show than the 1,700 they received for the last Foot in the Door in 2000. However their guestimate of 3,000 was way low.

By the time the submission period ended at 4.30 on Sunday afternoon in excess of 4,500 artworks had survived the curatorial process (that is they had fit into the one foot cube 'Curator' box shown above,) and been accepted for the show. The on-line video submissions are not included in that number, so clearly the final number could be significantly higher.

The MIA's Ann-Marie Wagner tells me there was a huge press of people on Sunday afternoon, hoping to make the deadline. There were so many people in fact that the line went twice around the second floor rotunda in the MIA's Target wing, down the stairs, twice round the ground floor rotunda, then out the door, across the park, though the atrium of the Third Avenue, and out onto the sidewalk beyond.

The line was so long that at 3pm staff realized they wouldn't be able to fit in any more people by the 4.30 deadline, so they cut off the line.

Chris Atkins of the MAEP program which organizes "Foot in the Door" says by Sunday they were getting about 100 submissions every 45 minutes or so. He says most people had to wait about an hour or 90 minutes in line, and there were some cases of a two hour wait, but he says once people actually got to the head of the line they were usually processed in just a few moments.

When asked how many people were unable to get in, he says he doesn't really know.

Atkins says the job of hanging and displaying the work has already begun as they prepare for the opening of the show on Thursday February 18th.

"We've got them stacked 11 or 12 high on the wall," he says. It sounds as though visitors might want to take a leaf out of the Walker's "Benches and Binoculars" show and bring some opera glasses with them.

There are two galleries set aside for Foot in the Door 2010, but it looks as though it's going to have to spill out into the atrium, even with the plan to assign each piece just one square foot of space.

"I've got some geometry to do with the registration crew to actually see, gridding things out," he says. The pieces will be hung roughly in the order they came in. There will be a system which will allow people to quickly find specific pieces.

While the majority of the submissions came from the Twin Cities, Atkins saw work coming in from all over the state. He mentions pieces from Willmar, Albert Lea, and Grand Marais. "A lot of zip codes from all over the state," he laughs.

Several teachers from schools and colleges around the area brought in multiple works, sometimes 40 or 50 for students in their classes.

All of the entrants were also invited to the opening night party along with family and friends, so it's likely to be packed, and probably one of the biggest ever openings in MIA history.

"Yeah, it'll definitely be up there," says Atkins. "It's hard for us to anticipate exactly how many, but we'll do everything we can to make sure people can come in, they get into the galleries, and have a good time that night."

The show is scheduled to run through June 13th, a total of about 15 weeks. Atkins says he's excited about how it's all coming together.

"It's going to be a lot more work over the next 10 days," he says, "But it's going to be a great show on the 18th."

Drawings from another world

Posted at 2:23 PM on January 28, 2010 by Marianne Combs (2 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

"Surveil," graphite on paper, 52 x 69", 2010

In an era when artists are experimenting with video, computer graphics, and complex multi-media pieces, Megan Vossler contents herself with pencil and paper.

I've always loved the immediacy of graphite pencils. They are such simple, basic tools, but you can get a huge range of nuance with them. For this show I experimented with the powder and the liquid for the first time, and they make it much easier to get broad areas of tone to contrast with detailed parts. Graphite has a beautiful texture on paper, a slightly metallic, sandy shimmer that I really find really appealing.

Megan Vossler in front of her piece "Scavenging"

In the case of her latest show "Sound Signals," opening tomorrow night at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis, Vossler's drawings are displayed on very large pieces of paper. But for all their size, Vossler's images only take up a fraction of their canvasses.

For me the white space has a very strong presence, so it isn't meant to feel empty, or blank in that sense. But it is a kind of quiet field that surrounds everything. In these drawings, I was really trying to create a rhythm... a sense of an obscured, expansive landscape that is not visually described, but that is punctuated by moments of very concentrated, intense detail and activity. Kind of like how when you really look closely at one thing and scrutinize it, everything in the periphery is obscured. But you know it is still there. I was trying to work with the white of the paper in a sculptural way, as fullness.

"Canyon," graphite on paper, 168 x 52", 2010

One piece, "Canyon," dominates the room, becoming almost sculptural in the way it hangs from the wall and unfurls at the bottom, where Vosslers eraser trailings have collected. From a distance the viewer sees a dark void, but upon close inspection it reveals a tall mountainscape looming out of a canyon, with small climbers making their way out.


Detail from "Canyon"

Back in 2006, Vossler was part of a group show focussing on images of war. Vossler painstakingly recreated photos from Iraq of soldiers waiting behind boulders, or walking through a sheep field. Since then, Vossler's work has evolved those intense moments of waiting during wartime, to the sifting through rubble that happens in the wake of war, to what's left behind. Several of her images depict migration - of birds, caribou or people - while others portray a deep, penetrating stillness.

I love hearing the associations that people bring to the drawings that just come from their own reflections. But I suppose a common theme, and one that I did want to evoke, is a combination of stillness and movement as two simultaneous responses to a catastrophe. There are images in which the people are very still and listening or watching and waiting, and others where the landscape seems to be uprooting itself in order to walk away. I like the idea that both of those things can exist simultaneously.

Detail of Megan Vossler's "Herd"

Vossler says her latest body of work was inspired in part by a novella: "The Revisionist," by Miranda Mellis. It's a surreal story of a post-apocalyptic landscape, and a character whose job is to observe and 'revise' catastrophic events from a tower. Vossler says that image stuck with her. In conjunction with the exhibition, Miranda Mellis will actually join Vossler on March 3 at Franklin Art Works for a sort of book club discussion and conversation.

"Divining," graphite on paper, 52 x 69", 2010

Megan Vossler's Sound Signals opens at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis tomorrow night, with a reception from 7-9pm.

A society spinning its wheels

Posted at 1:05 PM on January 15, 2010 by Marianne Combs
Filed under: Galleries

Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted, 2009, 141"x95"x4" , glitter, polymer, vinyl

I always enjoy talking to Andrea Stanislav about her work, because we end up talking about much more than the art itself. I also generally end up leaving with more interesting questions than the ones I brought with me.

For instance - the dominant work in Stanislav's latest show at the Burnett Gallery in Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis (shown above) is a three-paneled piece covering most of one wall, stating in romantically futuresque typeface "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." In terms of logic, it's a type of mobius strip - if nothing is true, than this isn't true either, in which case everything is true. Or if nothing is true, than everything is NOT permitted.

The phrase is said to have first been uttered by a Persian missionary, but found new life on the lips of William S. Burroughs (and even more recently, in the video game "Assassin's Creed").

For Stanislav, the piece is inspired in part by the energy and questioning of the late 60s and early 70s. It was the height of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the era which brought us "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Stanislav says what stands out about that time is "the optimism and belief in the power of change. Social movements powered esthetic expression which broke new ground in form and content, and there was a belief that the confines of history could be escaped."

Stanislav says she looks at the four decades since, and sees nothing that really compares to the energy and spirit of that time.

Jupiter and Beyond, 2009, 46"x60"x2", glitter, polymer, vinyl

In "Jupiter and Beyond" Stanislav pays homage to the final scene of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the vision heStanley Kubrick layed out for human transformation and evolution. The main character, Dave Bowman, awaits death/rebirth. Here we are forty years later, still waiting.

Stanislav also has a great sense of humor and irony, which is probably most obvious in the piece "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly" - it's her sculptural rendering of the 2001 'monolith,' but in this case a black goat is breaking through it. Idealism collides with base realism.

Other works are literally so dark it would serve no purpose to post them here. Only by standing up close and approaching the work from different angles can you make out the words hidden in the glitter and vinyl: "You know the change would do you good" and "I need a bohemian atmosphere."

lightning Struck Itself, 2009, 88"x44"x2',glitter, polymer, vinyl

"Lightning Struck Itself," like "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted," speaks to another sort of mobius strip. Where is all this energy headed? Are we simply spinning around in circles, failing to make any progress? Stanislav says she's acutely aware of the lack of new ideas in the world. Her art itself is all about juxtaposing images and words from movies and songs to create new relationships. Todays movies retell old stories, our fashion rehashes old concepts... Stanislav says it's as though todays world is just a re-ordered collage of the past.

Certainly there can be new ideas, but equally a lot dialogues need to be refreshed. Painting, after all, isn't "dead". However, as genres become fully iterated formally they DO seem to tend toward stasis or sophism...Certainly classical music or opera, as they have disconnected from their publics and become enshrined as cultural "warhorses" seem to have become less vital. Visual art enjoys a huge public at present, and artists, in my estimation, are responsible for critiquing and and debunking any tendency toward enshrinement or stasis.

Zabriskie Point, 2009, 46"x60"x2", glitter, polymer, vinyl

In the end, the viewer is left to contemplate not just the failure of past promises (the space race has been grounded, the peace movement replaced with multiple wars), but what new utopian vision will capture our imagination next.

"lightning struck itself" opens tonight in the Burnett Gallery at Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis, with an opening reception from 7-9pm. The show runs through March 7.

Obsidian Arts takes on "sagging"

Posted at 1:23 PM on November 25, 2009 by Marianne Combs (6 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Fashion, Galleries

Image by Stephan Paley

Obsidian Arts Curator Roderic Southall believes a good art exhibition should help us to explore cultural questions as a community. And sometime those questions are staring us all in the face, but no one is talking about them.

The question that inspired his latest exhibition "Hang Time: The Enduring, Endearing Trend," is this: Why do we react so strongly to guys who let their jeans sag below their hips? Southall says he's constantly intrigued by the amount of anger and contempt he hears from people talking about "sagging."

These youth, like every other generation before them, are simply pressing for a separate range of identity markers other than those used by their parents and elders. And yet the blantant amount of shaming that the reactions carry... the tragedy of the kind of community dialogue that it has generated. If I were asked to boil down the messages that are sent to saggers by those adults who object to it I would suggest the phrase "you low down dirty dog homo boy who lacks any positive sense of who you are . . . listen to me as I tell you how to be". I think that accurately reflects how little I think the dialogue has been worth. Why we have such a violent community dialogue about clothing in the midst of all of the other social challenges is worthy of study and, in a way, celebration

There are a few theories as to how exactly sagging came into existence. First, it started in prison because guards take away belts so inmates can't hang themselves. Second, also based in prison, it's considered a code that a guy is "available" to other prisoners. Third, it's simply a fashion trend started by Calvin Klein and 'Marky Mark' (i.e. Mark Wahlberg).

Whatever initiated it, "sagging" has lasted close to 20 years. And Southall thinks that makes it even more interesting:

Clothing style-trends usually move onto and off the fashion stage in short order. Sagging has a staying power that has surpassed many trends that have swept through and, for a period, defined what black people thought about themselves. That fact is pretty significant because it indicates that sagging is a long term response and reflection of its adherents... and the adherents that follow them by almost a generation.

Recent attempts to ban sagging from the streets have sparked even more controversy and debate. Can you be arrested for your fashion? Does the fact that you look like you might have done prison time make you a criminal?

Obsidian Arts' exhibition looks at the controversy and animosity surrounding the fashion trend, and excerpts interviews with "saggers" about why they wear their jeans the way they do. Their general response?

A) it's comfortable
B) I like the way it looks
C) I can show off my collection of silk boxers

The exhibition also features music about the fashion, including Betty Wright's song "Pull your pants up!"

"Hang Time: The Enduring, Endearing Trend" is on display through January 30 in the lobby of Pillsbury House in Minneapolis.

Abandoned Shinders store inspires art exhibition

Posted at 1:19 PM on October 23, 2009 by Marianne Combs (1 Comments)
Filed under: Galleries

Shinders storefront
Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

Earlier this month I interviewed Matthew Bakkom about his installation "Strange Victory" at Chambers Hotel on Hennepin Avenue. While his own show was opening, Bakkom was simultaneously jumping through some bureaucratic hoops, getting permission to install a group show just two blocks down the street, at the old Shinders magazine store.

Bakkom pitched the group show as a companion piece to his exhibition at Chambers, and was able to garner the hotel's support for the project. Now, for a limited time, 36 artists are on display in the abandoned building. The artists range from MFA students to established national names (e.g. photographer Alec Soth). Some of the work they had on hand and thought fit nicely in the space, but many created original works inspired by the decaying interior.

Cameron Gainer, Cremation/Creation, Neon
Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

The unheated, musty, less-than-watertight building is a far cry from the pristine white walls that serve as backdrop in most galleries. But what the Shinders has that many galleries do not is a real presence. David Bartley took advantage of a cramped corner to create a clostrophobic piece featuring stuffed rubber gloves and eerie lighting that would make any man over 45 think twice about making his next doctor appointment.

David Bartley, The Yellow Light, mixed media installation
Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

Bakkom was inspired to use the space in part by his long-time love affair with Hennepin Avenue. He loves the idea of revitalizing the main drag and making it a mecca for the local art scene.

"Hennepin Avenue has such history," said Bakkom. " It's a landmark for the city that holds so many personal memories for me and public memories for all of us. Having a show here somehow connects you to all of that."

Bakkom says it's one thing to find an abandoned warehouse in an out-of-the-way neighborhood, but to have a two story building with large windows facing out onto a major city artery is another artistic opportunity entirely.

Alexa Horochowski, Ships, chromed
Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

The space allows for some lovely artistic surprises. Making their way to the second story, visitors first catch sight of Alexa Horochowski's chrome plated ships at eye level, halfway up the staircase. The effect is that of catching sight of ships on the distant horizon, even though these are placed simply on the cement floor (that floor, due to recent rains, has become a bit wet, further enhancing the illusion of ships at sea).

Across the room, the exposed wall seems the perfect frame to Syed Hosein's "Double Pope," an portrait that makes one's eyes water until you realize it is a double-image.


Syed Hosain, Double Pope, oil on canvas
Photograph by Matthew Bakkom

The Shinders' exhibition runs through October 30. Hours are Thursday 2-8pm, Friday 2-10pm and Saturday noon - 5pm, as well as by appointment. It's an ethereal exhibition inspired by a space equally ethereal.

Tomorrow people are welcome to participate in an afternoon "drawing party." If you go, dress warmly.