State of the Arts Category Archive: Painting
Art Hounds: Spring Awakening, VocalPoint, and a gender mash-up in Bloomington
Posted at 7:30 AM on February 9, 2012
by Chris Roberts
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Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Music, Painting, Theater
Paintings by Nicholas Harper (left) and Tina Blondell (right), part of the "Lace and Gunpowder" exhibition at the Bloomington Art Center
The hounds lead us to the premiere of an alt-musical in Duluth, a charitable community choir in St. Paul, and an exhibition that pairs up male and female artists.
"Spring Awakening succeeds as musical theater, by breaking the rules of musical theater." That's according to Rebecca Katz Harwood, who's heralding the premiere of the broadway sensation Spring Awakening at Renegade Theater in Duluth. Rebecca, who teaches theater and dance at the University of Minnesota Duluth and is a dancer and choreographer, says the musical is about German teenagers in the late 19th century trying to emerge from an oppressive childhood. It's not suitable material for children, though. On stage at Renegade Feb. 9 - 25.
Anne-Marie Wagener paid her first visit to Bloomington Art Center and was wowed by its current exhibition "Lace and Gunpowder." The show puts the work of male and female painters, sculptors and illustrators side by side to demonstrate unlikely contrasts and similarities. Anne-Marie, who directs public relations at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, wasn't drawn so much to the gender divisions as the sheer power and beauty of the art. You can see the show through Feb. 17.
VocalPointhas a dual purpose, to create the most compelling choral music it can while raising money for humanitarian causes. St. Paul choral singer Shahbaz Shah says the choir has one of the most dynamic directors in the Twin Cities in Jennifer Anderson. VocalPoint is singing this weekend (2/11 & 2/12 at 3pm) at its home base of Central Presbyterian Church in St. Paul. Maria Jette is the guest soloist.
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Artist Dougie Padilla creates loud pieces through meditation
Posted at 2:13 PM on January 17, 2012
by Marianne Combs
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Filed under: Minnesota Mix, Painting, Sculpture
Editor's Note: This piece by Nikki Tundel is part of a series called Minnesota Mix. Minnesota Mix is a project Minnesota Public Radio News that examines the way youth and ethnic diversity are influencing Minnesota arts. Enjoy...
Iowa native Dougie Padilla scrutinizes an angel figurine and ponders whether he should attach it to a sculpture he's making on January 12, 2012, in his Minneapolis, Minn., art studio. MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel
St. Paul, Minn. -- Artist Dougie Padilla is known for his loud and raucous paintings. He's exhibited his work at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and in museums from Fargo, North Dakota, to Paris, France.
But Padilla himself is attracted to the calm and quiet.
The Minneapolis painter is as passionate about meditation as he is about art. A visit to his studio shows what happens when these two disciplines collide.
Artist Dougie Padilla's studio showcases a number of alters. The one is titled "Ofrenda for the Neglected Goddess." MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel
Beef bones hang from the ceiling like beaded curtains and plastic dolls' heads peek out from a potted plant. There's a faded picture of Jesus on the table and a mound of seashells on the floor. In the middle of it all is artist Dougie Padilla. He's meditating, but in his own special way. When Padilla quiets his mind, it can get pretty noisy. Today he's pounding nails into a four-foot-long section of a downed pine tree.
"Every time I pound a nail, I say a mantra," he explains. "I'll do it for like 40 minutes, however long my arm can handle, and try to get into a place where there is nothing happening except for the pounding of the nails and prayer."
Eventually, all that meditating will produce a sculpture called a Prayer Tree. Thousands of nails will sprout from its trunk like metal fungi.
"I've been meditating for 45 years and these sculptures are my attempt to overtly combine my spiritual discipline and my art practice," he said.
Dougie Padilla works on a painting entitled "63 Self-portrait at 63.75: Luminosity Anfractuosity Squad." The Minneapolis artist has a Christian cross tattoo on one hand and an Om tattoo on the other. MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel
To Padilla, meditation is the experience you have after your conscious thoughts stop and before they begin again. It's not a time to think; it's a time to be. And it's not much different from the way he approaches painting.
"Thinking is vastly overrated," he said. "Most art does not come from thinking. I do things that I have no idea why I do them. I'm working from a place of intuition. What I'm interested in is, 'Does that color orange feel correct?' When I was younger, I was trying to arrange things so I could get good art, now I just do art."
The studio, or Dougieland as it's better known, echoes with music sung in Spanish. The room explodes with color - bright yellows, metallic purples and blues that can't possibly exist anywhere but here.
While Padilla's process may be shaped by Buddhist teachings, his style screams "south of the border." This self-taught artist is part Norwegian, part Mexican. But it's clearly his Latino side that comes out on the canvas.
"When I go to Mexico and come back to Minneapolis, I paint with pinks and turquoises and lime greens for like six, eight months because the colors in Mexico make me go nuts," he said.
Artist Dougie Padilla's take on this well-known religious painting hangs in his studio in Minneapolis, Minn. MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel
That mixing of Minnesotan and Mexico can produce some startling pieces. He points to a piece on the studio wall.
"Everybody loves that painting" he said." It's the classic Lutheran church basement reproduction of the old man with the white hair praying over his food and I've got this sort of Day of the Dead, bright colored fish with huge teeth coming out of the painting about to eat him."
Padilla begins working on a new piece. Across from a collection of clay skulls and next to some rice cakes he's covered with day-glow paint, Padilla's creating a sculpture from wooden saltshakers and angel figurines. He doesn't have a plan for the piece. He'll just go where the art takes him.
"It's more like sailing and trying to catch a certain wind, to get some good wind in your sails and head off over there," he said with a grin.
And in Dougieland, an artistic journey can lead just about anywhere.
Art Hounds: Theatre Smackdown, Ruben Nusz, and young virtuosos
Posted at 7:00 AM on January 12, 2012
by Chris Roberts
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Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Music, Painting, Theater
"Paint Stone (3)" and "Untitled (green frame, diamond exceeding the frame)" by Ruben Nusz
This week's hounds are endorsing art that's abstract and illusionary at the same time, classical music that's being performed by some of the region's finest young adult soloists, and a 24 hour theater festival with all the energy of the WWE.
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Scott Pakudaitus will almost always say yes to chaotic, frenetic, seat-of-your-pants theater. Scott, a theater director himself and Bedlam Theatre's board president, says Theatre Unbound's "24:00:00 Xtreme Theatre Smackdown" is right in his wheelhouse. Over 40 playwrights, directors and actors have 24 hours to craft six 10-minute plays that can be about anything they want, provided they meet certain stipulations. The madness culminates with a performance of all six plays on Saturday, January 14 at Hamline University's Anne Simley Theatre at 8pm.
For a glimpse of the next generation of top-shelf professional musicians, flute instructor and musician Tina Persson says get thee down to Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis on Sunday, January 15 from 1-4pm, for the annual Young Artists Competition. It's sponsored by WAMSO, the Minnesota Orchestra Volunteer Association. Tina says the finest young adult classical musicians in the Upper Midwest and parts of Canada are competing for thousands of dollars in prizes and a chance to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra.
MCAD and CVA instructor and artist Pam Valfer raves about fellow Art Hound and painter Ruben Nusz's exhibition at Thomas Barry Fine Arts in Minneapolis entitled "Sticks/Stones." Pam says Ruben takes his ongoing interest in abstract yet illusionary images in a new direction in the show, which is on view by appointment through Feb. 9.
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.
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Art Hounds: Dear Data, St. Cloud aesthetic, and Rebel Pleasure
Posted at 7:00 AM on November 23, 2011
by Molly Bloom
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Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Music, Painting, Printmaking
This week, three Scotts and a Carol show us what it means to be a St. Cloud artist, introduce to us a new band with a warm sound perfect for winter, and a performance series that pushes all sorts of boundaries.
Scott Stulen may be the Project Director for mnartists.org as well as a visual artist, but his true love is DJing, which he does under the name Black Lacquer. He's always on the hunt for new music and he can't get enough of the newly-formed Dear Data. The Minneapolis band, made up of members of I, Colussus and Al Church and State, pairs a warm electro-pop sound with soulful vocals. If you want to catch this band before they hit it big, you can see them Monday, Nov. 28 at Red Stag Supperclub and Wednesday, Nov. 30 at Cause Spirits and Soundbar.
Carol Weiler is a photographer and designer in St. Cloud. She wants you to head to the 912 Art Gallery to see the work of a man who helped shape the aesthetic of the St. Cloud art scene. Bill Ellingson's watercolors and prints particularly struck a chord in the '70s and '80s, especially his work featuring images of protests from the era of the Vietnam War. The show will be up through Nov. 30 and there will also be a discussion at the gallery on Monday, Nov. 28 about the collective memory of the St. Cloud arts culture.
Scotty Reynolds and Scotty Hall share a name, artistic endeavors (Picnic Operetta and Interact Center) and a love for the queer performance series Pleasure Rebel. Wednesday, Nov. 30 at the Bryant Lake Bowl you can see artists pushing themselves and the boundaries of what queer performance can be. They're particularly excited to the see the intimate performance of Melissa Birch and the visceral work of Tim Carroll, who goes beyond normal human limits.
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.
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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?
A closer look at Pawlenty's portrait
Posted at 11:22 AM on October 11, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(7 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, People
So former Governor Tim Pawlenty's portrait was unveiled last night in a private ceremony, and starting today the portrait is available for public viewing at the Minnesota State Capitol. Let's take a look, shall we?
Portrait of former Governor Tim Pawlenty, painted by Rossin
Image courtesy Minnesota Historical Society
You've got to admit, it's a lovely portrait in the realist style, with clean crisp lines, a dignified pose, and a nice rendering of the state capitol in the background. There's not much symbolism going on here, just a straightforward and confident "this is me" feel.
Pawlenty chose the painter Rossin to complete his portrait. Rossin is a Bulgarian-born painter based in Atlanta, Georgia and was the portrait artist of both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush. At the time, Pawlenty was gearing up to run for president himself, and the selection of Rossin underscores Pawlenty's desire to look like real presidential material.
Frankly I think Pawlenty's portrait is actually more captivating than that of the Presidents Bush.
I'm a little confused by the lighting. If you look at the top of the capitol, it appears as though the sun is off to the right. However if you look at Pawlenty's face, and the shadow it casts, it appears as though the light is coming from the above left (a traditional technique in still lifes). Still, a really lovely painting.
(And is it just me, or does Pawlenty have a little bit of a Martin Landau thing going on?)
Now, for context, let's take a look at a couple of Pawlenty's predecessors. First, former Governor Jesse Ventura:
Former Governor Jesse Ventura
painting by Stephen Cepello
Image courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society
This is, at first glance, a very different painting. First off, it's much darker, even stormy. Ventura's time in office saw the terrorist attacks of 9-11, so the darkness could be a reflection of that. Ventura also is looking off into the distance, leaning on a sculpture of Rodin's "The Thinker" - implying he's a deeply thoughtful, even philosophical person (Ventura often complained of being misunderstood, even hounded by what he called the "media jackals").
Oh and then there's the tie and the medals. Ventura is showing his deep-felt patriotism, his Navy Seal training, as well as his sometimes unorthodox fashion choices.
Now, let's take a look at former Governor Arne Carlson:
Former Governor Arne Carlson
Painted by Stephen Gjertson
Image courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society
What does this portrait say to me? This guy is not planning on running for president, and he's not feeling misunderstood, either. He's relaxed, comfortable, and sporting his U of M letter jacket (he was a grad student there and is a huge fan of their sports teams).
Carlson chose Minneapolis native Stephen Gjertson to paint his portrait. Gjertson compensated for all the gray stone in the picture by adding a couple of colorful butterflies (who knows, maybe they were actually there?) which lend an even more care-free and friendly atmosphere to the portrait.
So what do you think of Pawlenty's portrait? Or governor portraits in general? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Capturing Countryside and Communities
Posted at 9:00 AM on September 19, 2011
by Luke Taylor
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Filed under: Painting, People, Public Art
Perhaps it's fitting that painter Kevin W. Kluever lives in a former schoolhouse. "I'm completely self-taught," he says. "It took a lot of practice, and the learning part of painting came from copying painters and paintings that I liked."
Kluever (pronounced "cleaver") counts Regionalist Grant Wood, Tonalist George Inness and Impressionists Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley among his influences. "I would try to figure out not so much how they did things but why they did things as far as colors and texture and placement and balance," Kluever says. "My own style came out of combining those influences and my ability."
The 1893 converted schoolhouse that Kluever lives in with his family -- and in which he has his studio -- is nestled in the Minnetrista countryside. Having grown up on an Iowa dairy farm, Kluever finds the rural Midwestern landscape inspiring. "It's in my blood," he says. "The color draws me, the plays of light and shadow -- and I love the sky, the way it looks late in the day."
"Autumn Landscape" by Kevin Kluever. (image courtesy the artist)
In 2003, Kluever began showing his original artwork, winning awards for excellence at the Hopkins Center for the Arts and in Maple Grove. But a turning point in his career came in 2007, when Thom Flug, the director of Mound's Threshold Arts Center, asked Kluever to paint a mural for him. Kluever's workload snowballed from there; murals in Excelsior and Long Lake followed. "And Maple Plain has been quite fruitful for me," Kluever says.
Maple Plain, a town of 2,000 people, is situated on a curvy rise of Highway 12 where the marshy western edge of Hennepin County begins its gentle cross-dissolve into the rolling hills of central Minnesota. "It has one foot in the rural and one foot in the suburban," says Melanie DeLuca. "People who live in Maple Plain love that."
DeLuca is director of community education for the Orono School District (of which Maple Plain is part) and a member of the Maple Plain Design Team, which exists to beautify the community. The team pursued a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council public-art grant program called Creative Intersections. "We put a call out to artists to submit a mini-grant proposal for public art that would enhance the city of Maple Plain," DeLuca recalls. "That's how we first met Kevin."
Kluever's first project was a mural on a side wall of the Maple Plain City Hall. Later projects followed in subsequent rounds, including a gymnasium mural, a double-sided "welcome" sign along Highway 12, a wraparound mural on a pumphouse in the city's Northside Park, and murals on the park's baseball dugouts.
Mural by Kevin Kluever on the Maple Plain City Hall. (image courtesy the artist).
When he has a commission for a mural, Kluever begins by taking a photo of the space to be painted, then creates a small-scale prototype. He counts rows of bricks or uses features such as windows to determine placement. When his prototype is approved, Kluever gets his paint at the local hardware store. "It's house paint," he says. "Just latex exterior paint. I simply match my colors with the swatches, and obviously there's some mixing involved as I'm doing the project."
Pumphouse in Maple Plain's Northside Park, with mural by Kluever.
"His work has really captured the feelings and the emotion that the community wanted to capture," DeLuca says. "With public art, I think you need a much different sensitivity than someone who does their art and then you either like it or you don't. Kevin really was a good listener. He understood the feel and the atmosphere and the look that would be portrayed through the public art and then was able to capture that. It's a special kind of artist who can really adapt his or her work to this very particular kind of setting."
Chad Edworthy has lived in Maple Plain for 20 years and is the bartender at McGarry's Pub on Main Street. He's also president of the men's softball league and coach of the town baseball team. Asked about Kluever's work, Edworthy replies with admiration. "It's very good -- I think the pumphouse portrays what the ballpark is meant to be," he says. "And the city hall one shows the old-town feeling, and that makes people feel comfortable."
Kluever's objective in creating public art is similar. "What I like most is when people look at what I've done and smile and basically say, 'That's someplace I want to be, I'm drawn to that'," he says. "I am, too, so that's what I'm trying to get out of it."
This welcome sign along Highway 12 in Maple Plain features Kluever's depiction of the town's Main Street.
Art Hounds: Hamlet, Latino artists, and a neighborhood art crawl
Posted at 7:00 AM on August 25, 2011
by Chris Roberts
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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.
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.
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Why we appreciate an original painting more than a fake
Posted at 11:56 AM on August 12, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Museums, Painting
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.."
-- John Milton (Paradise Lost)
Paul Bloom likes to talk about pleasure... and pain. As a psychologist, he's had plenty of experience looking at both.
In this TED talk, Bloom argues that the pleasure we receive from seeing a painting or drinking a glass of wine will vary drastically based on what we know, or think we know. For instance, if we believe the painting is an original, we will enjoy seeing it, and appreciate it more, than if we're told it is a fake. We will enjoy a glass of wine that comes out of an expensive bottle far more than a glass filled from a cardboard box with a spigot.
Conversely, he says we are likely to feel more pain if we believe the harm was inflicted on us intentionally as opposed to accidentally.
Bloom says to a certain extent we are creating our own reality, and that we will always place more value on the original creative act than on a finely detailed reproduction.
Space to Transform
Posted at 2:22 PM on July 20, 2011
by Luke Taylor
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Filed under: Craft, Painting, People
"My true love," says Minneapolis painter Jane Elias, "is community art." Flip through Elias's portfolios of photos and newspaper cuttings that highlight her work, and that much is clear.
Elias has been a muralist for 25 years, bringing color and life to previously unremarkable spaces: Hospitals, daycare centers, public areas and private businesses throughout Minnesota (and even as far as California and Florida) bear the hallmarks of her work. On her own time, Elias has created community art gardens in Powderhorn and in North Minneapolis. Her latest project is unfolding in Tangletown, in the city's southwest quadrant.
Samples of Jane Elias's murals from a daycare center (bear, deer, bunnies) and an area business (dog under hairdryer).
Earlier in her career, Elias had a studio in Northeast Minneapolis, but after marrying and starting a family, she says Northeast wasn't the easiest place to get to from her home in Tangletown. "There's a lot of really great artists over here, too," she observes.
Elias was inspired to open a studio in her own neighborhood. "I always envisaged having a lot of artists use the space with me and having a drop-in studio where people could come in and we could teach," Elias says.
That was the basis for Simply Jane Studio and Alleyway Arts. Located near 54th and Nicollet Avenue South in Minneapolis, it's a studio where Elias and her colleagues pursue their various art forms -- including painting, illustration, ceramics, mosaics and papermaking -- and they also teach classes. By autumn, Elias and her studio partners plan to establish the studio as a full artists' co-op.
Although southwest Minneapolis is not known for loft space, Elias credits a supportive landlord for encouraging her vision for the ground-floor lease. Elias removed a retail-esque drop ceiling to expose wooden beams and a large skylight; a steel-plated, early 20th-century fire door lends the space additional industrial cred. In pastoral counterpoint to those elements, Elias painted a garden path through the center of the studio. In the alley out back, Elias plans to build an art garden and herbaceous border with a shaded deck area for extra space in summer.
The interior of Simply Jane Studio comprises industrial and idyllic elements.
"I think that sometimes studios and artists can be intimidating to the general public," Elias says. "I've always felt like I'm between an artist and a designer, so I design these spaces and these environments that the general community at large feels comfortable in."
Creating an unintimidating space was vital to Elias, especially since she and her colleagues offer classes and host open studio time for art-curious people. "I tell everybody, 'We're all artists, we're all creative'," she says. "The adults think I'm just saying that, but it's true."
Architect Jerome Ryan of Uptown likes to attend open studio with his kids.
The work at Simply Jane doesn't mean Elias has no time for the broader community. She's recently received three grants from the Tangletown Business Association to finance new murals in the neighborhood; assisting Elias will be high school-age artists who apply for mentorships with her. "I'm not an artist who has some deep, inner thing that I need to express, to communicate to the world," Elias says. "I just like making pretty things."
Why is her studio is called Simply Jane? "I have eight siblings and they all have middle names and I'm the only one who doesn't have one," Elias laughs. "I guess I still haven't got over it!"
Bon Iver's new album cover by local artist Gregory Euclide
Posted at 9:19 AM on June 22, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Music, Painting
If you're a new music fan, you couldn't help but be bombarded by images of Bon Iver's latest album in the days and weeks leading up to yesterday's release.
The cover of Bon Iver's latest album, by Gregory Euclide.
And when I did see it, I thought - "hey, that looks really familiar."
That's because the cover was created by Minnesota artist Gregory Euclide, who was the subject of a feature story a while back by colleague Euan Kerr.
Euclide, who has shown his work locally at SOO Visual Arts and Groveland Gallery, creates rich layers of landscapes, sometimes even crumpling the paper to create whole new dimensions.
Gregory Euclide with one of his "crumpled" landscapes
MPR Photo/Euan Kerr
What I love most about Euclide's work is his attention to detail - if you look closely at the Bon Iver album cover, you can see the amazing amount of work that went into creating this three dimensional piece. Here's just one detail:
Euclide is also the subject of a nice profile by Jessica Armbruster over at City Pages.
Art Hounds: American Indian festival, Paper Toys, and pioneering painting
Posted at 7:00 AM on June 9, 2011
by Chris Roberts
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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.
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 is powered by the Public Insight Network.
Simple, beautiful and so easy to make fun of
Posted at 2:52 PM on June 2, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Criticism, Painting
Every once in a while I click through Stumble Upon to see where it takes me, with a particular focus on arts-related destinations. Today, it wasn't so much the video I found, but the comments that caught my eye.
After watching the video above, I scrolled down to take a look at what other people thought of the idea. While some were quite appreciative, others had more fun with it. To wit:
landoncalling 18 hours ago
This piece really harkens back to early Chevalier de Parapluie. Really really powerful moving stuff guys.landoncalling 18 hours ago
Oh my god, what a chilling interpretation of the plight of the American Indian. Absolutely brilliant. Every layer of color representing a hardship they've had to overcome. And at the center, a towering monolith representing their resilience whilst the war-paint drips down, leaving a trail of proverbial tears.xlittlemermaidx 18 hours ago
@landoncalling I disagree, friend. To me, it speaks of the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti War activities of the 60s. I have to say that the colors coming together, yet separate in nature speaks volumes of the racism and social problems we still have today. We've come together, yet we're so far apart. It's modern, yet it takes us back to a different time. Brilliant, this artist has moved us all.DebGhi 1 day ago
I can now say that I have enjoyed the pleasure of watching paint dry.
Gotta love those art critics...
New book looks at women who helped establish Minnesota art scene
Posted at 2:31 PM on May 20, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Books, Museums, Painting
"Pioneer Modernists: Minnesota's First Generation of Women Artists" was published last month by Afton Press
Tomorrow afternoon Julie L'Enfant will be speaking at Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul, and signing copies of her new book "Pioneer Modernists." The book depicts Minnesota's first generation of women artists, and was inspired by an exhibition by the Minnesota Museum of American Art back in 2007. You can read reviews of the book here and here.
1. Why did you want to write this book?
I was deeply impressed by "In Her Own Right: Minnesota's First Generation of Women Artists," an exhibition curated by Brian Szott of the Minnesota Historical Society and shown at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in fall 2007.The paintings in this show, many of which are in private collections, gave me an exhilarating sense of discovery, for these artists are relatively unknown today--in contrast to their contemporary, Wanda Gág, who left Minnesota in 1917 and made a lasting reputation in New York.
They weren't members of an organized group, and they were recognizably "modern" without being abstract. They were independent women and thoroughly engaging characters, often outspoken and irreverent. They went their own way, yet were deeply engaged with the community.
I eagerly accepted the invitation of Patricia McDonald, publisher of Afton Press, to write a book. We decided to add Elsa Laubach Jemne and Evelyn Raymond - equally accomplished artists of the same era who mastered media traditionally associated with men (murals and architectural sculpture).
Elsa Jemne, The Chinese Screen, ca. 1924.
Courtesy of Kurt and Nancy Hammond, Baltimore, Maryland
2. Are these women artists really that extraordinary compared to pioneering women in other states? How so? In other words, what makes their stories worth telling?
They are extraordinary for a number of reasons. One is the high quality of their work. They were well-trained and sophisticated. Art schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul were remarkably good. And, with one exception, they went on to major art centers - New York, Philadelphia, Paris - for further study with some of the best teachers of the day. Each made art her profession - no hobby painters here - and produced work in a variety of media comparable to that of better-known artists such as Peggy Bacon or Isabel Bishop.These artists also have compelling personal stories. All had connections with pioneers on the American frontier - Minnesota was still referred to as the "Northwest" in the early years of the 20th century. Most grew up in humble circumstances and had to work very hard to establish careers and support themselves. Wanda Gág's story is well known in Minnesota, but these seven artists are similarly inspiring.
It's remarkable that all but one earned her living as an artist, and taken together they show the variety of ways this could be done. Many worked for the WPA. They founded and ran art colonies, societies, and galleries, thus were at the forefront of organizations that have made the Twin Cities a major center for the arts. Their work was exhibited not only in Minnesota but also in larger cities in the United States and abroad. Almost all were also respected and influential teachers, and one (Greenman) was a perceptive and entertaining writer as well.
While some of these women did marry and have children, none was unduly circumscribed by marriage and family, nor was any the protégé of a dominant male artist in the way of Gabrielle Műnter or Frida Kahlo. Clara Mairs, who had a long partnership with Clement Haupers, is a case in point.
Evelyn Raymond, sculptor, with many of her works
Image courtesy Minnesota Historical Society
3. Are there any favorite stories you learned in the process of putting this book together?
I loved reading about how Clara Mairs and Clem Haupers lived in the Montparnasse area of Paris in the 1920s, taking printmaking and sculpture classes and frequenting Sylvia Beach's famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Company.I also think of the young Evelyn Raymond, working on a dairy farm in Duluth for eight years while her mother was ill, reading art books by flashlight all night. Each of these artists' lives was intriguing, and I found myself wishing I could go on to write a book about each.
It is hard to select a favorite from among the works of art we've found and photographed for the book. But I have to say I have a special fondness for the paintings of Ada Augusta Wolfe. In many ways she had the hardest professional life - I was surprised and dismayed when I found out how she made a living [as an employee in her brother's punchboard business]. Her beautiful paintings - many of which have turned up in garage or estate sales - have the fine touch of the French Nabis.
Wanda Gág, Fireplace, 1930
Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society
4. What do you hope readers take away from this book?
I hope the book will help revive the reputations of these successful women and establish their significance in the development of art and culture in the Midwest - and the nation as a whole. There has been a lot of art historical scholarship in the last forty years devoted to rediscovering women artists, also to re-examining the idea that "modernism" means only the new, and particularly abstraction, but there is still a lot of work to be done. I hope this book will make a contribution to this effort. But mainly I hope that readers will enjoy discovering or re-discovering these accomplished artists as they read this beautifully produced book. And I hope it will inspire young women artists to work hard and achieve great things.
Art Hounds: Jack Klatt, Rogue Valley, and a painter's impressions of Minnesota
Posted at 7:00 AM on March 31, 2011
by Chris Roberts
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Music, Painting
Members of Rogue Valley at their "spring" show at the Fitzgerald Theater last April.
The hounds are following a "feel-good" musician whose style touches Tin Pan Alley, a prolific indie pop/folk band whose songs are tied to the cycle of the seasons, and a mildly impressionistic octogenarian painter who captures the subtle majesty of the land of 10,000 landscapes.
(Want to be an art hound? Sign up!)
As a blogger and booker for Merlin's Rest Pub in Minneapolis, Todd Ojala has a feel for crowd pleasing music, which is why he's high on Jack Klatt and the Cat Swingers. Todd says Klatt melds burlesque, blues and gypsy jazz in a way that inspires good vibes no matter what's being sung about. Jack Klatt and the Cat Swingers are at the Driftwood Char Bar on Thursday, March 31. They'll also be playing at Lee's Liquor Lounge on Tuesday, April 5.
Over the last year, Minneapolis playwright and Fringe Festival communications director Matthew Foster has enjoyed the changing seasons maybe more than ever because each one has been accompanied by a new batch of songs from Rogue Valley. Matthew has been entranced by the indie folk band's "album for every season" project, which culminates Friday, April 1, at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, with the release of the group's "winter" record, "False Floors."
St. Paul woodworker Fred Livesay has known Faith Lowell's gentle, delicately muted Minnesota landscape paintings since he was a kid. For Fred, they conjure the beautifully familiar, still mysterious feeling of being outdoors in the bluffs of the southern part of the state, or the pine forests of the north. Faith Lowell's landscapes are on display at the Sivertson Gallery in Grand Marais.
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Video break: Improv Everywhere at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Posted at 3:20 PM on March 10, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Painting, Video
Yes, he does look in good shape for being 400 years old, doesn't he?
Art up close: Bassano's "Adoration of the Magi"
Posted at 5:08 PM on February 14, 2011
by Marianne Combs
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Filed under: Museums, Painting
The Adoration of the Magi, by Jacopo Bassano, 1542, now on exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
One of the true joys and privileges of my job is that I often get to see artwork in either the presence of the artist who created it or accompanied by an expert curator. They're able to share with me information that gives me a whole new understanding of a work. In turn, I get to share what I learn with you.
And in the case of "The Adoration of the Magi" by Jacopo Bassano, I've got lots to tell you.
I recently sat down with MIA curator Patrick Noon on a bench in front of this rich and glorious Venetian painting (which is visiting Minneapolis from Scotland's National Gallery as part of the Titian exhibition) and talked for a full hour about the images within it and the stories behind it. Here's what I found out:
Painted in 1542 by Jacopo Bassano, "The Adoration of the Magi" is also known as "The Adoration of the Kings" and is a depiction of the three kings paying their respects to the newborn babe Jesus Christ. It's a scene that's been caught countless times on canvas, and each telling serves to reveal as much about a particular period in art history as it does about the biblical event.
Gesturing to the left-hand side of the painting, Noon points out how Bassano uses religious symbology found in many works in the mid-16th century.
"The architecture is an allusion to the decline of the pagan world as a result of Christ being born, and the light comes through the architecture, hitting Christ's head - that's God the father making his appearance," explains Noon. "I believe the flowers [in front of the donkey] are columbine, thought to resemble winged birds, representing the Holy Spirit. The ox represents Christianity while the donkey represents Judaism, So the ox is recognizing Christ, while the donkey is not. The tree stump refers to the wood used for the true cross - that's why it's sticking in front."
Noon says while the painting depicts the celebration of the arrival of Christ, the tree stump serves as a foreshadowing of Christ's fate - death on the cross in sacrifice for humanity's sins.
Noon adds that by bringing together the Christ child, the beam of light (representing God) and the columbine (representing the Holy Spirit), Bassano in essence presents us with the Holy Trinity, while Joseph and Mary's status as saints is indicated by the halos surrounding their heads.
Compared to the space and order of the left third of "The Adoration of the Kings," the right hand side feels crowded and jumbled. People press in, trying to get a look at baby Jesus, but are blocked by servants and horses.
Noon explains that this scene is a variation on the theme of the sacra conversazione or "sacred conversation."
"The composition [on the right] is kind of a foil for the space he's giving the other people," says Noon. "Those with more space are the people with privilege. People on the other side of the horse are not privileged, they're being crowded out. Those facing in are those who have access, who are in conversation with the Virgin and Child. 'Sacred conversations' usually take place between the Virgin, Child and saints, and usually in a cloistered setting. It was the Italian painter Giovanni Bellini who first introduced the conversation into a landscape setting, and Bassano's doing the same here."
On the far lower right-hand side of the painting Noon points out damage the piece has suffered, muddling the images of both a dog and a man's face. Noon estimates there was originally two to four more inches of canvas to this work, but that it had to be removed after it was damaged. The reframing of the image serves to crowd in the people on the right even more. Still, considering the work is 468 years old, it's held up incredibly well.
It's the very center of the painting however which surprised and intrigued me most. For if the Holy Family are relegated to the side of the painting, who is this royal figure who gets to stand front and center, wearing the gold and green striped doublet?
I should have known; it's the guy who commissioned the painting.
Jacopo Gisi, Bassano's patron, wanted a painting for his estate - it probably would have hung in some large front entryway. The two youth behind him in red and blue are believed to be portraits of his sons. And notice that it's his gift that has the attention of both the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus.
But get this: Gisi never claimed the painting, and according to Patrick Noon it's even believed that he was refunded his money for the work. Why? No idea (I asked Noon if he thought it might have anything to do with the prominent horse's rear end, or the other derrières front and center in this work - he didn't think so).
Bassano also uses a few tricks and devices in putting together this scene. Many of the details are drawn from previous compositions and studies. The architecture is almost an exact copy - brick for brick - of a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer. According to the painting's didactic, Bassano lived in a provincial town 40 miles outside of Venice, so he kept up with artistic trends by studying prints like Dürer's.
Albrecht Dürer, Sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt, c. 1501-2, woodcut, from Life of the Virgin, 1511, now on view in the "Venice on Paper" exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Also, in the center of the painting, just to the right of the column - do you see the villager gathering sticks off in the distance? Patrick Noon says that figure plays two roles; first, he helps set this "sacred conversation" solidly in a rural landscape - something Venetian artists didn't do until they felt the influence of painters further to the North.
"Domesticizing was the movement of the moment," explains Noon, "to make the saints more approachable and real. It's the movement that eventually leads to the inquisition, the counter reformation and the idea that mannerism is not acceptable in religious painting. Simple people need to be able to understand it; exotica and exaggerated mannerisms are not allowed."
Secondly, Noon adds, the figure draws our eye out and up, providing visual relief from the dense scene below.
"He doesn't want this to be just confined to the front planes - it would be too shallow. The background provides a release, getting you out of the foreground, and provides a sense of scale."
So does every image have some hidden meaning behind it? According to Noon, no. When I asked him about the pink banner that dominates the upper right-hand corner, Noon replied "oh, he's just filling in space and balancing out the crowd below." Sometimes a flag is just a flag, evidently.
Above all, Bassano's "Adoration of the Magi" serves as a testament to the painter's skill. Throughout the scene Bassano revels in what he does best; his clothing, from leather to fine silk, invites you to reach out and caress it (but, for the sake of the museum, please don't). Each animal's coat is clearly identifiable as horse, oxe, donkey and dog. While the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus both have alabaster skin, their companions vary by degree, based on their class and profession.
"It's one of his best works, one of his most spectacular paintings really" says Noon. "You would think it was made for a church, but it wasn't."
You can see "The Adoration of the Magi" by Jacopo Bassano for yourself at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It's on view through May 1 as part of the "Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting" exhibition.
Arts 101: Museum Lingo -- Paintings
Posted at 11:38 AM on February 15, 2011
by Luke Taylor
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Arts 101, Museums, Painting
Here's a quick quiz: When a curator at an art museum talks about a scumble, is he or she describing:
A) a museum patron who's behaving boorishly?
B) bits of debris that flake off when a painting is dropped?
C) a brawl in the gallery?
D) the use of light paint over darker paint?
Today we continue our series explaining unusual words and phrases in the arts by looking at the language used by those who curate paintings at museums. Read on to find out the true answer to the question above.
Erika Holmquist-Wall is a curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). Incidentally, she says the word "curator" comes from a Latin term meaning "to care for," which accurately describes what she and her colleagues do for the MIA's collection of paintings. "You see our work when you go through the galleries in how works are installed, how they're described and how they're arranged," she says. "We're also responsible for the conservation of the paintings."
Holmquist-Wall recently explained some of the lesser-known words she and her colleagues use in their work.
Scumble
A scumble is a thin, lighter-color paint that's applied over darker underpaint. "If you look at the clouds in the sky in a painting and see the way the brush dances across to make the clouds or tinges of white, that would be a good example of a scumble," Holmquist-Wall says.
The sky in Paul Huet's Caretaker's Cottage in the Forest of Compiegne (1826) provides a good example of scumbles.
Impasto
The term that describes the texture created by an artist's brushwork is impasto. Vincent Van Gogh, for example, daubed thick, rich impasto. Compare that to Georges-Pierre Seurat, who created crisp, delicate impasto.
Pentimento
Taken from Italian where it means "change of mind," a pentimento is an artist's alteration to a painting. A famous example in the MIA's collection is Rembrandt's Lucretia. "If you stand back and look at it in the right light," Holmquist-Wall suggests, 'you're able to see where Rembrandt had originally drawn her shoulder slightly higher."
Rembrandt's Lucretia contains a pentimento.
Craquelure
As a painting ages, a craquelure -- or pattern of cracks -- develops on its surface. Craquelure doesn't diminish the value of the work. "It offers clues to environmental conditions, if it was rolled up, if it was struck by an object, what kind of support was used on it," Holmquist-Wall says. "The craquelure in the paint tells us basically what's happened over the years to the work."
You can see the craquelure in this close-up of Silenus by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Fugitive
This isn't an art thief. Fugitive is a term that's used when describing pigment. Over time, the pigments used in certain oil paints tend to fade. An example Holmquist-Wall gives involves a pigment called yellow lake; Dutch painters of the 17th century mixed yellow lake with blue paint to make green. In the course of a few centuries, however, yellow lake has faded, so certain features, such as leaves in trees, have lost their yellow tint and now appear bluish. The yellow is therefore deemed "fugitive" because it flees the light.
Recto-verso
The recto is the front of a painting, the verso is the back. The verso is particularly important in determining ...
Provenance
... which is the history of an artwork's ownership. The verso of a painting can give clues to the work's provenance, as it often bears collector's stamps. The stamps can be anything from the seal of a royal family to what's called an atelier stamp, the mark of a particular artist's workshop. Holmquist-Wall says a large part of her work as a curator is tracing the provenance of new works that enter the museum's collection.
These three images are assembled from Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's Penitent Magdelene , shown in its entirety at left. The middle and right images are details from the lower corners of the painting where visible markings provide hints to the painting's provenance. Before coming to the MIA, this piece was once item #629 in the collection of Queen Isabella Farnese of Spain (1692 - 1766).
Didactic
Finally, a didactic is the placard next to a work of art that contains information about it. The word "didactic" is an adjective that means "intending to explain or instruct." As such, the didactics in a museum can tell us about: what's depicted in a painting, who the artist was and what he or she was like, what social or political factors may have been influences, where the painting has "lived" during its lifetime--i.e., its provenance and any other details that help give context to a work.
This didactic tells us that the painting next to it once belonged to Minnesota's most famous railway businessman.
Next Tuesday, visit State of the Arts for some slang used by classical music performers.
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.
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.
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.
Julian Schnabel is next subject of Walker Regis Dialog
Posted at 5:43 PM on January 24, 2011
by Euan Kerr
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Filed under: Film, Painting
Painter and film director Julian Schnabel will visit the Twin Cities in mid-March for a Regis Dialog at the Walker Art Center. The event will be the culmination of three weeks of a retrospective of his acclaimed film work.
While he prefers to see himself as a painter, Schnabel is now better recognized for his film-making. The Walker retrospective will include all five of his features so far, including his latest "Miral" which tells a very personal history of Middle Eastern conflict through the eyes of four female characters.
Schnabel's best known film is the multiple-Oscar nominated "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (2007) which tells the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a high-flying magazine editor almost completely paralyzed by a massive stroke. The film is based on Bauby's memoir, which he dictated by blinking to an assistant.
The Walker retrospective will open with his first film "Basquiat," (1996) followed by "Before Night Falls" (2000) which drew Javier Bardem's first Oscar nomination. It's followed "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and then a free screening of "Berlin" (2007) which captured Lou Reed's first live performance of his famous album in 30 years.
The final weekend of the Schnabel event includes a screening of "Miral" on March 18th, and then the Dialog between Schnabel and Walker curator Darsie Alexander on March 19th.
Night Swimming
Posted at 2:49 PM on January 20, 2011
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
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.
A Minnesota artist for a Minnesota governor?
Posted at 12:38 PM on December 22, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(5 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, People
Minnesota artist Carl Bohnen painting a portrait of Governor Theodore Christianson
Image courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society
As soon as I posted the news late yesterday that Governor Pawlenty had chosen Rossin to paint his official gubernatorial portrait, I started getting comments - via Facebook, MPR e-mail, and in person - questioning the decision. There are plenty of Minnesota artists who do portraits - so why not keep the tax dollars funding the painting (which is costing $25-30,000) in the state by hiring a Minnesotan?
Now I knew that Governor Ventura had also gone beyond the state borders to find the artist who painted his portrait (Arizona native and California resident Stephen Cepello), but I wondered, how many other governors had made this same choice?
Not many, according to the Minnesota Historical Society's art curator Brian Szott. Szott did me the favor of digging into the MHS archives, and found that only one other governor - Orville Freeman - was painted by a non-Minnesotan (Hungarian born portrait artist Elisabeth Mihalyi). In one other instance, for Governor Luther Youngdahl's portrait, it is unclear if the artist Louis A. Grendahl was ever a Minnesota resident.
So out of 39 governors, three (possibly four) chose to go outside the state of Minnesota to find a portrait artist. Why? Is it because we're now living in a more globalized society? (not likely - Orville Freeman served in 1955) Is it a political thing? (also unlikely, since those who chose non-Minnesotans were a democrat, an independent and a republican, respectively). Or were they concerned about their image at the national level? Hmm....
I've put a query into the Governor's Office to ask for Pawlenty's reasoning, and I'll post it here as soon as I get a response.
Governor Pawlenty chooses the painter of his portrait
Posted at 5:52 PM on December 21, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, People
Governor Tim Pawlenty, like other governors before him, will have a painting of his likeness hanging in the state capitol.
While Minnesota has plenty of great artistic talent to choose from, Pawlenty has chosen Rossin (a.k.a. Ross R. Rossin - he likes to simply go by his last name), a Bulgarian-born painter based in Atlanta, Georgia. Rossin was the portrait artist of both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush. Rossin and his family moved to the United States in 2001, and he became an American citizen earlier this year.
A portrait of the two Presidents Bush, painted by Rossin
Rossin is also known for his incredibly lifelike portraits of American icons such as Jackie Kennedy and Britney Spears.
Governor Pawlenty's official portrait will be unveiled in 2011 in conjunction with the Minnesota Historical Society. The cost of the portrait - between $25,000 and $30,000 - will be paid with funds from the Governor's Office budget.
For reference, Governor Jesse Ventura's portrait was painted by Stephen Cepello, who works in California.
So if you were going to have someone paint your portrait, who would it be?
Rethinking the Frame
Posted at 1:30 PM on December 8, 2010
by Luke Taylor
(4 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, People
On a Saturday visit to Minnesota artist Ken Moylan's studio, I felt as if I were overlooking a garden in Kyoto, Japan, even though my feet were planted in St Louis Park.
Moylan (no relation to MPR reporter Martin Moylan) creates three-dimensional artwork that gives the viewer the sense of standing in a space, looking through a window and onto a view. His artwork typically consists of an intricately detailed window frame surrounding an oil painting that contains the realism and plays of light similar to the work of American landscape painters such as Thomas Moran or Albert Bierstadt.
Much of Moylan's work depicts places he's actually visited. Kyoto's Ginkaku-ji Temple, for example. "It's communicating the way I see things, trying to give as much of an experience of that," Moylan says. "I communicate through my work."
Ken Moylan's Ginkaku-ji (2006)
Moylan's art combines what he calls "the big three": painting, sculpture and architecture. "Those are the three widely accepted strong categories of fine art, historically," he says. "I thought the combination was a great idea for making grounded, strong work and for having a fertile ground of ideas, references and inspirations."
A recent work is Moylan's Great Buddha of Bamiyan, which portrays a view of a massive stone carving in Afghanistan. The actual Great Buddha was created circa 300 CE but was destroyed by the Taliban in 1999.
Great Buddha of Bamiyan (2010)
"I was inspired to preserve the memory apart from what the fanatics did to it," Moylan explains. "It's like when someone close to you dies, you don't necessarily want to have their death mask around. You'd rather remember the good memories, so maybe it's similar to that."
A full-time artist since 1981, Moylan grew up in Eveleth, Minn., and attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he studied printmaking, painting and drawing. Moylan's unique artwork evolved from a vision he had that riffed on Marcel Duchamp's 1924 sculpture Fresh Widow. He's been expanding on that vision ever since.
"I have an order in which I do things, and it's totally opposite of the order that any other artist works in," Moylan says of his process. "Most artists make a painting and then they'll frame it or get it framed. Mine physically starts with the frame."
When he begins a new work, Moylan makes a scale drawing and determines time of day, direction of light, materials and composition. He then builds the wooden frame, using inlay techniques such as intarsia and marquetry to develop the architectural space. From there, he'll do any stonework or carving. The final steps involve applying gesso to the surface that will be painted, then using oil paints to create the view outside the window. "I go through rolls and rolls of masking tape," Moylan chuckles. "All the detail work I do at the end is done with really small brushes, and I burn through them at a ridiculous rate."
Paintbrushes in Ken Moylan's studio
Japanese landscapes are close to Moylan's heart. His wife is originally from Japan and after spending much time there, Moylan was inspired to do a series of Japanese places. He's currently working on a piece called Hiroshima Hypocenter, which depicts a view from a shattered casement after the 1945 atomic blast. "Since that moment 65 years ago, the whole world just shifted, just changed, and it affected everything about everything from that moment on," Moylan says.
Hiroshima Hypocenter (2010)
He's also delving into the world of imagination by bringing to life the fantastical works of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an 18th-century engraver who etched a series of imagined views. True to form, Moylan is creating an architectural space the viewer can inhabit.
Moylan poses with his Piranesi-inspired work, still in progress.
Although he has made many standalone paintings, Moylan thinks his works that integrate the frame communicate more powerfully. "If they were just paintings, I don't think that they would be really anything all that special," he says. "To me, it's not enough. I have something else to contribute. ... I think having that added illusion and that added sense of point-of-view creates a much more engaging work to experience."
More of Moylan's work as well as a list of his exhibitions, commissions and the collections in which his work appears are on his website, kenmoylan.com.
Art Hounds: blue paint, Black Dub and acting prowess
Posted at 7:00 AM on November 18, 2010
by Chris Roberts
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Music, Painting, Theater
Yves Klein, People Begin to Fly, 1961
Oil on paper on canvas 98-1/2 x 156-1/2 in.
Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston © 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris
This week's hounds treat us to a sparse production with powerful performances, drench us in brilliant guitar licks, and then roll us around in some blue paint for good measure.
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Mike Croswell, a St. Paul composer and sound designer, cannot wait to see his personal guitar hero when he comes to Minneapolis this week. Daniel Lanois gained fame as a producer for acts like U2, Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno, but he's a brilliant, thrilling performer in his own right. You can see him with his band Black Dub at the Cedar Cultural Center on Wednesday, Nov. 24.
Rachael Davies is an actor and administrator at Open Eye Figure Theatre. She plans on taking advantage of the opportunity to see Ten Thousand Things' latest production, "Life's a Dream" at Open Book. This theater company usually performs at jails, homeless shelters and other places where they can reach those who may not have access to the arts. She loves how their minimalistic productions showcase the acting prowess of the company.
Kaywin Feldman, director and president of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, has a big crush on Yves Klein (yes, she's holding a container of the hue of blue paint that he developed). She fell in love with him all over again at the Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers exhibition at the Walker Art Center. It includes over 200 of his pieces that feature drawing, sculpture, film and naked bodies in blue paint. The show will be up through Feb. 13.
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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.
Artists in full "flourish"
Posted at 4:22 PM on November 5, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Drawing, Museums, Painting
Terrence Payne, Not So Much Lost As Less
oil pastel on paper, 60" x 48", 2010
Walk into the galleries of the Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and you walk into a richly colored, carefully detailed multiverse of the imagination.
Titled "Flourish," the show is filled with images that draw you in and hold you, some with the lure of comfort and safety, others with the promise of a fairy tale, minus the fairy tale ending.
Artist Terrance Payne says the group chose the name "Flourish" for their exhibition because they're not scared of being "pretty."
We draw the viewer in and tempt them to spend time contemplating the layers of meaning they can find once they get beyond the surface. To different degrees we are all using color, pattern, texture and line within our work to this end, creating narrative, commentaries and other worldly experiences to get our points of view across.
For MAEP Coordinator Christopher Atkins, "flourish" holds other meanings:
It's a short and picturesque word that highlights the colorful and organic nature that's in their work. I also think that this show is a big step for all of them so it's a moment of intense creative growth for their careers.
Erika Olson Gross, Lake North Star, 2010
graphite, gouache, and watercolor on paper
In the first room hangs the work of Erika Olson Gross. Olson Gross's work reflects her dual careers of art and motherhood. Her detailed graphite landscapes create a sense of both depth of field and the fragility of life, while flat colored designs evoke family tradition, and seemingly capture the moment in time. In one image a blanket of colored triangles is pulled over the detailed rendering of her two sons sleeping; in another, the pattern from a swedish bridal pillow appears to bless the lake and woods below.
Joe Sinness, Something Special, 2010
colored pencil on paper
On the opposite wall from Olson Gross can be found the equally comforting and richly detailed still-lifes of Joe Sinness. But in this case, much of his work also evokes an ironic smile. Sinness excels at botanical art, capturing the rich color and fragility of morning glories, fringe tulips and dahlias. It would be enough for some artists to stop there, but Sinness adds layers of art history and cultural commentary, incorporating images of Barbara Streisand, pink flamingos and Italian baroque paintings. He further challenges himself by placing images in curved glass or reflected in mirror tiles, creating mind-bending moments that recall M.C. Escher.
Jennifer Davis, Curious, 2010
acrylic, graphite,and charcoal on panel
Walk into the next room, and things start to get a little menacing. Jennifer Davis is well known in the Twin Cities for her playful yet haunting characters. Part human, part animal, the figures in her work go on picnics or ride their bikes, and yet the viewer is left unsettled. Christopher Atkins says it's as though the rouge on their cheeks was smeared on.
I think it's a combination of her mythology, anthropomorphic figures, and this easter egg palate, along with very soft features, and sense of textile and pattern that makes her work so distinctive and recognizable.
Dominating the room are a series of oil pastel portraits by Terrance Payne (see the top image in this post). The characters - women - are posed in classic portrait style, but the classicism stops there. Payne's fascination with pattern and form are evident in how he plays with both his backdrop as well as his subject, draping one women in fabric, and binding another in belts. Yet he also lets us see the circles he used to create the foundations for each face and limb - "showing his hand" as it were.
MAEP Coordinator Christopher Atkins says the "hand" of the artist is dominant in all of the artists' work. Whereas much modern tries to eliminate the sense of its being "handmade," these works revel in it.
Atkins notes this is the first completely two-dimensional show the MAEP has presented in a longtime, but it reflects a community of Minnesota artists working with pencils and pastels who are flourishing quite nicely.
Paintings seeking to be something more
Posted at 3:02 PM on November 5, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
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.
Art Hounds: Accordion-O-Rama, Flyway Film Fest, and a master abstract painter
Posted at 7:00 AM on October 21, 2010
by Chris Roberts
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Film, Music, Painting
This week's hounds look beyond the Twin Cities for art, including a film fest on the shores of Lake Pepin, four accordionists on one stage in Zumbrota and an experimental painter in west central Minnesota.
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For local jazz writer Pamela Espeland, there can never be too many accordionists, even if it's on a small stage. Which is why she's plugging "Accordion-O-Rama," this Saturday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 at Crossings at Carnegie. Crossings at Carnegie is a refurbished former Carnegie Library in Zumbrota. "Accordion-O-Rama" will showcase the squeeze-box skills of Dan Newton, Simone Perrin, Patrick Harision, and Denny Malmberg.
Documentarian and 2010 McKnight Fellow for Filmmaking Dawn Mikkelson says you probably won't find the Hollywood star-making machinery at the Flyway Film Festival in Pepin and Stockholm, Wisconsin this weekend. But there will be a plethora of indie filmmakers and film enthusiasts from across the country to take in a festival that's generating a national buzz. The Flyway Film Festival contains 35 feature films and shorts from seven different countries and runs Oct. 21 - 24 in Pepin and Stockholm.
Artist Andrew Nordin, owner and operator of the New London residential gallery ARThouse (featured on Art Hounds just a few weeks ago), has more good news to report from west central Minnesota. A new gallery called ARTmeyerson is opening up in Atwater. Andrew's also thrilled with ARTmeyerson's inaugural exhibition, "Avant Garage, Four Decades of Art." It's a retrospective of noted regional painter Robert Mattson. The opening is Saturday, Oct. 23 from 7 - 10pm, with entertainment provided by Minneapolis blues legend Willie Murphy.
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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.
The beauty is in the detail
Posted at 10:26 AM on October 5, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Technology
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus is one of several paintings you can now explore in hyper-detail on an Italian website.
I love the difference in looking at a painting from a distance of ten feet or so, and then getting up close to look at the brush strokes. Of course, museum guards get a little nervous when you start getting really close to a painting, and sometimes there's even a cord in place to keep you from doing just that.
Thanks to an Italian website, you can now explore some of the great Italian masterworks in amazing detail, all from the comfort of your home computer. For fun I took a virtual tour of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" (or "Venus on the half shell" as we know it in my family). I was able to zoom in on her eyes and see the cracks in the paint. The clarity was stunning, and made me see Botticelli's work with even greater appreciation.
Other paintings available for perusal include da Vinci's The Last Supper and Annunciation, Caravaggio's Bacchus and Agnolo Bronzino's stunning Portrait of Eleonor of Toledo.
via Open Culture
Art Hounds: Julie Buffalohead, Lazerbeak, and the world's oldest story
Posted at 7:00 AM on September 30, 2010
by Chris Roberts
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Events, Music, Painting, Theater
This week's hounds look at unsettling art about childhood nostalgia, listen to new beats and rhymes from a Doomtree DJ, and soak up the oldest story in the world at the Southern.
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University of Minnesota theater and video professor Megan Lewis took her theater class to see Theatre Novi Most's "The Oldest Story in the World" at the Southern Theater, and they were enthralled. Megan calls this re-telling of the ancient epic of Gilgamesh, one of the hottest, sexiest productions she's experienced in a while. You have until this Sunday, October 3, to see it.
Will Lager says Julie Buffalohead's latest paintings at the Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis put him back in touch with his formative years in a somewhat unnerving way. Will, who serves as information and membership manager for High Point Center for Printmaking, says Buffalohead's use of iconic childhood images, such as Snoopy and a Tonka Truck, alongside fantastical forest creatures is funny and slightly dark at the same time. Buffalohead's work hangs on the Bockley walls through Oct. 16.
Egypto Knuckles, aka Ali Elabbady, has high praise for the latest record from the Doomtree Crew. "Legend Recognize Legend" is the debut release from behind the scenes player and Doomtree producer Laserbeak. Egypto says Lazerbeak, who's actually Aaron Mader, former guitarist for the now defunct Minneapolis indie band "The Plastic Constellations," combines rock melodies and sensibilities with hip hop beats to create a fresh sound.
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.
From Canoe to Canvas: Minnesota Painter Captures Voyageurs' History
Posted at 3:25 PM on August 13, 2010
by Luke Taylor
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Painting
The voyageurs' canoe hangs precariously in the mist as the six-man crew brace with their paddles, ready for the bow's inevitable plunge. This dramatic scene is portrayed in Robert H. Perrizo's oil painting, Shooting the Rapids. "I wanted to capture the vitality of the crew, the movement of the canoe and the dangers that they faced every day," Perrizo says.
"Shooting the Rapids" by Robert Hughes Perrizo, one of several paintings on display at the Alliance Française until Aug. 30.
Since 2000, Perrizo has dedicated himself to painting the voyageurs--the French fur traders of the 17th and 18th centuries who explored Minnesota and much of Canada, conducting trade with the native people. "I thought that these voyageurs were much more colorful than the later cowboys," Perrizo muses. "They were travelling alone in these canoes, they were reckless and sang songs and enjoyed life so much, despite all the hardships they had. I thought, 'This is an interesting bunch of people.'"
Perrizo's fascination with the voyageurs is inspired by more than swashbuckling tales. It's in his blood.
His surname, Perrizo, is a sort-of-anglicized form of "Parisot"--the name of a village in the Midi-Pyrénées region in southwest France where Perrizo's forebear, Jean Dalpe de Parisot, left to become one of Canada's early settlers. One branch of descendants eventually settled in Clontarf, Minnesota, where Perrizo was born and raised.
"Cabin Fever" by Robert Hughes Perrizo.
In researching his family history, Perrizo learned that he is a cousin of former Quebec Premier (similar to a governor in the U.S.) Jacques Parizeau. The two cousins met ten years ago and have remained in touch ever since, bound by their family ties and their shared fascination with the voyageurs. "He is a very good inspiration for me and a lot of fun," Perrizo says.
Perrizo has a studio on Gull Lake, near Brainerd, Minn. ("It's in voyageur country," he says). His artistic influences include Frederic Remington, Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth. "They didn't consider themselves fine painters," Perrizo says, "but they were illustrators and they told stories."
Accordingly, Perrizo starts with pen or pencil drawings in sketchbooks. When he has a well-formed idea, he puts it to canvas. The result is 44 paintings (so far) depicting the voyageurs--and the First Nations peoples they encountered and traded with.
"The Mapmaker" depicts a Huron man advising two French voyageurs on navigable canoe routes.
Perrizo's studies have acquainted him with the Huron, the Cree, the Pottawatomie, the Mandan and many other indigenous peoples; several of Perrizo's paintings are historical depictions of these ethnic groups. "These are not the horse-riding Indians of the Plains that are popular in movies," Perrizo says. "They were the partners and close friends of the French. It was the only successful amalgamation of the Indians with the Europeans in the history of the New World."
Starting tomorrow, a selection of Perrizo's work will be on display at the Alliance Française in Minneapolis. Because the mission of the Alliance Française is to promote French language and French-speaking cultures around the world, Alliance Française Executive Director Christina Selander Bouzouina says it makes sense to welcome Perrizo and his artwork. "I was fortunate enough to have Bob find me," she says. "He asked if this is something in which the Alliance would be interested. I said of course, yes, definitely--oui, bien sûr, toute de suite!"
Alliance Française board member Steve LeBeau, artist Robert Perrizo, and Alliance Française Executive Director Christina Selander Bouzouina, posing with Perrizo's work "Out of the Mist," which the Alliance is presenting as a gift to the City of Minneapolis.
Bouzuina says Perrizo's work highlights Minnesota's often underappreciated French heritage. "Minnesota's always pegged as a Scandinavian state because of the large number of immigrants from those regions," she says. "But the French were here first, and they're still here today."
Bouzouina points out that the Minnesota state seal includes the phrase L'Etoile du Nord--Star of the North, and that the motto on the Minneapolis seal is En Avant--Forward. "People have just disconnected with that piece of our heritage," Bouzouina observes. "Marquette, Nicollet, Hennepin--those aren't just street names, those were people. They founded our city, our state."
Perrizo's portraits of historical figures who had a stake in the voyageurs' exploration and trade in North America.
Gazing at Perrizo's Shooting the Rapids, Bouzouina says the painting symbolizes the two cultures she knows and lives with every day. Bouzouina speaks French like someone born in France, but "I grew up here in the Twin Cities, I spent all my summer vacations between Duluth and Grand Marais," she says. "I know that area, I know the voyageurs and the tribes. You can just see Lake Superior [in this painting]. You can see the shores. Who wouldn't recognize that as Minnesota?"
"Les Voyageurs" opens Saturday, Aug. 14, with a reception from 7 - 10 p.m. at the Alliance Française in Minneapolis, 113 N. First Street. The free event is open to the public and features a presentation by Robert H. Perrizo and live music from Les Canadiens Errants. Perrizo's paintings will remain on display at the Alliance Française until Aug. 30. More information at afmsp.org.
Midwestern Zen: the art of Deborah Foutch
Posted at 10:55 AM on July 28, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Painting
Shore 2
Deborah Foutch loves that afternoon light that makes everything glow.
There's a certain time of day when you understand how the story Rumplestiltskin came about, because the grass really does look like it's been spun into gold.
Foutch's work is a tribute to those glowing afternoons and to the landscape she grew up with. She regularly creates landscapes with horizon lines you feel you could just fall into; she dubs her style "Midwestern Zen."
It's both simple enough and also complex enough. I use really simple lines, with occasional beautiful details. It's absolutely the landscape I grew up in. It's where I get everything I do, from what I've spent my life looking at.
4 O'Clock Trees
Foutch uses a very particular technique to create her landscapes, rivers and horizon lines. She paints onto canvas her sky, and then uses different pieces of fabric - silk, cotton, tulle, upholstery fabric - to create the land and the water. She stitches in her grass and trees with her Singer sewing machine. She says it's all about how the light hits each of the materials.
I like the raw canvas painted sky because it's a dull surface, so the light gets absorbed - it feels deeper. The sky feels distant, while the land feels close. The land is in sharper focus, more detailed, and catches sunlight more easily. The stitching is livelier; the up-and-down curve of the thread is caught by the light.
River Light
For some pieces, for instance when depicting a field of grass, Foutch will layer acrylic paint, oil pastels and water color pencils before she adds her stitch work, to give a sense of depth. The stitched grass forms the foreground, while the other layers blur into the distance.
In her rivers, Foutch uses the stitches to create disturbances in the surface of the water. And she plays with the paints and the fabric, soaking the cloth and moving it around so that the colors on the canvas undulate the way water undulates.
Release
Before coming to landscapes, Foutch made her living creating dolls. She crafted angels and fairies and goddesses. But after fifteen years, her hands started to ache, and she knew she had to do something different. She realized that many of her dolls were dressed in what was essentially a landscape, and so she took those same ideas and put them on a canvas. A new career was born.
Foutch says she's continually inspired by the beauty of the natural world, and if her art is successful, it's conveying that delight and awe to the viewer.
I want people to say "Look at That!" I want people to feel that sense of wonder when they look at my work, and for them to then connect it with the gorgeous natural world around them.
Deborah Foutch works out of a studio in the Casket Arts Carriage House in Northeast Minneapolis. You can find her work at Grand Hand Gallery in St. Paul and in the upcoming Powderhorn Art Fair.
Capturing the wild
Posted at 8:37 AM on June 15, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Painting, People
Egret in Florida Pond, by Francis Lee Jaques
Image courtesy of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History
It is the curious charge of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History (known to most people as simply "the Bell Museum") that it showcase both science and art as it pertains to the natural world. So while many associate the Bell Museum with the stuffed birds and animals that fill its glass display cases, Curator of Exhibitions Don Luce is particularly proud of the art on the walls behind those creatures - dioramas depicting different ecologies by the painter Francis Lee Jaques.
Part of our mission is to encourage people to study nature, and through Jaques' art you get an idea of how he did this, not as a scientist but as an artist. The foundation of science, and his art, is to observe carefully.
The Bell Museum owns approximately 20 dioramas by Jaques (pronounced "jay-kweez"), along with 100 paintings and scratchboard drawings, bequeathed by his wife Florence upon her death. His work is the core and foundation of the natural history museum's art collection, and is the subject of a new exhibition, "The Shape of Nature: The Art of Francis Lee Jaques," on display through September 5.
Lee and Florence Jaques, standing in the backyard of their North Oaks, Minnesota home in the 1960s. Photograph courtesy of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History
It's fitting the largest collection of Jaques' artwork resides in Minnesota, for his drawings and paintings played a large role in the conservation of Minnesota lands. Born in Illinois, and raised partly in Kansas, Jaques moved with his family to Aitkin, Minnesota as a teenager. He fell in love with the Boundary Waters in 1913 while working on a steam engine, bought himself a canoe and began exploring the wilderness. He and a friend made some of the earliest maps of the lakes.
Over the years Jaques worked as a lumberjack, a taxidermist, a railroad fireman and an electrical engineer at the Duluth power company. He served in the first World War, returned to work in the Duluth shipyards, but soon left them in favor of a job as a commercial artist. He continued to develop his artistic talents, but wasn't inspired much by the subject matter. It was the memory of a diorama of a mule deer in a snowy forest he saw at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco while serving in the army that finally inspired him to pursue a career as a wildlife artist.
Ironically he first applied for a job at the Bell Museum, and was turned down. But he persisted, and was taken on by the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The Road West, by Francis Lee Jaques
Image courtesy of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History
Don Luce says what sets Jaques' work apart from his peers is how he painted wildlife within the context of its environment.
Roger Tory Peterson said Jaques was the first bird artist NOT influenced by J.J. Audubon. Unlike most artists of the time, who were very interested in miniature anatomical detail of scales, feathers, etcetera, Jaques knew animals from experiencing the outdoors; he knew them in their environment, and in motion. He distilled the bird or animal down to its essential shape, and captured the experience of witnessing that animal in its environment.
Luce says Jaques is considered one of the top three diorama painters of all time. His job at the American Museum of Natural History took him all over the world. He sailed the South Pacific for months at a time, discovering new birds and painting them in their natural setting.
Mallards Dropping Fast, by Francis Lee Jaques
Image courtesy of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History
When Jacques married Florence in 1927, he took her back to the Boundary Waters for their honeymoon. She later wrote the first book on "recreating" in the northern lakes, "Canoe Country" which Lee illustrated. Over the course of their marriage they partnered this way on several books, including a sequel titled "Snowshoe Country." The Jaques used proceeds from the sales of the two books to help preserve Susie Island in Lake Superior. It's now known as the Francis Lee Jaques Memorial Preserve in his honor.
A few years after Jaques retired from the American Natural History Museum, he and Florence settled down in North Oaks, Minnesota, and he joined the staff of the Bell Museum. Jaques soon became good friends with environmentalist Sigurd Olsen, and illustrated several of his books, including "The Singing Wilderness."
Caribou on Ice, by Francis Lee Jaques
Image courtesy of the James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History
Curator Don Luce says Jaques' artwork - in more than 40 books and on the walls of several natural history museums - did more than just convey what it was like being in the great outdoors; it planted the seeds for the environmental movement.
I think of Rachel Carson [author of "Silent Spring"]. Would she have been as effective if there hadn't already been this background of nature artists who helped people connect to the natural world? Jaques laid the foundation for a "wilderness ethic." By conveying their beauty, he convinced the public that these landscapes merited protection.
"The Shape of Nature: The Art of Francis Lee Jaques" is on display through September 5 at the James Ford Bell Museum on the University of Minnesota campus. If you're in Aitkin, you can see more of his artwork at the Jaques Art Center, located in the old Carnegie Library.
The image of a political movement?
Posted at 1:50 PM on May 28, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Policy
It's rare to find artists who openly allign their works with a conservative political stance, and so when one shows up, I take notice.
This morning I received in my inbox an email from "RPR News" stating artist Meg Michael of Princeton, New Jersey, is offering professional copies of one of her paintings at a "greatly reduced price" ($290) to "serve as an ideal symbol for the new movement dedicated to a reformed conservative government."
So what might this painting depict? My mind immediately conjured up images of protestors from the colonial days dumping crates of tea into the Boston harbor, or perhaps a large pig about to go under the butcher's knife (as in "we need to slash the pork from this bill"). But alas, nothing so bold. Take a look:
Meg Michael's "Tea Party"
The press release goes on to say that Michael's painting "is intended as an apt common focus for loyal tea party members who wish to emphasize their power of unity and to encourage active party participation."
I'm sorry, but I believe the last work of art that's going to inspire "active party participation" is a still-life.
Art Hounds: Art/Science, Sonnets, Stardust Cowboy
Posted at 8:25 AM on May 20, 2010
by Chris Roberts
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Music, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, Theater
Image from "The Life Story of Petroleum" by Susan Armington.
The hounds hunt down artists provoked by the mysteries of science, theater performers who transform Shakespeare's sonnets, and the rowdy, eccentric cowboy who inspired David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.
(Want to be an Art Hound? Sign up here!)
How do art and science relate to each other? Charlene Ellingson has spent many years as a science teacher in Minneapolis public schools pondering that question, and she's hoping a new exhibition at the Phipps Center For the Arts in Hudson will supply some answers. It's called "Shedding Light: Art Explores Science," and features paintings, drawings and mixed media installations that illuminate things normally left to scientists. Through June 6.
For many, Shakespeare's sonnets represent literary perfection, but they certainly weren't meant for the stage. Until now. Actor, director and playwright David Mann fills us in on the Classical Actors Ensemble's "Complete Sonnets Festival," at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis May 21-23.
Sometimes-painter and musician Amanda Gullixson of Eagle Lake complains about the dearth of interesting music in nearby Mankato. But Amanda will have her hands full with a double bill at the Red Sky Lounge that features the Legendary Stardust Cowboy alongside the Fleshtones. The Legendary Stardust Cowboy led David Bowie to invent his Ziggy Stardust character. The show is a free 'listener appreciation party' for supporters of local community radio station KMSU.
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: Thirst Theater, Michael Kareken, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Posted at 8:25 AM on March 25, 2010
by Chris Roberts
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Art Hounds, Music, Painting, Theater
Gus Lynch in Thirst Theater's "Tales from Beyond," by Joseph Scrimshaw. (Credit: Scott Pakudaitis)
The hounds lead us to a company that re-defines 'dinner theater,' a drawer/painter who delves into junkyard detritus, and some psychedelic blues-rock your parents may or may not approve of.
(Want to be an Art Hound? Sign up here!)
Mary Farrell is a wardrobe girl--ok, wardrobe technician--who's usually too busy to take in any theater other than what she's dressing up. But she has a dinner engagement Monday night, March 29 at Joe's Garage in Minneapolis to see Thirst Theater in action. Thirst Theater has been performing original playlets amongst the patrons at Joe's Garage for the last five years.
Jodie Ahern, senior editor at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, raves about the work of nationally known, multi-dimensional artist Michael Kareken. Kareken, who's made recyclable trash a main subject in his drawings and paintings, has a show, "Paper, Glass, Metal," at Groveland Gallery through April 10.
Music blogger and Perfect Porridge founder Greg Swan has watched Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's music change from Zeppelin-esque psychedelic blues rock into folksy Americana, and then back again to bluesy garage rock. BRMC's latest CD, "Beat the Devil's Tattoo," is an amalgamation of all those influences and more. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club takes the stage at First Avenue on Satuday, March 27th.
MIA scores a major coup and snags some Titians
Posted at 12:00 AM on February 26, 2010
by Euan Kerr
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Painting, People
"The Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and an Unidentified Saint" by Titian (All images courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts.)
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts' Patrick Noon is not one given to hyperbole, but it's clear he's very pleased by the exhibit he's bringing to Minneapolis
"This is a very special show," he told me. "Because of the quality of the pictures and the importance of these in the history of western art."
The show is called "Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Painting: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland" will be on view February 5, 2011, through May 1, 2011.
It contains paintings and drawings from several major major Renaissance painters, but Noon says Titian is the star. Tiziano Vecellio to give him is full name was highly sought by the crowned heads of Europe to paint work for their palaces. Two of the works in the show, scenes from the goddess Diana's life were commissioned by King Phillip II of Spain.
Diana and Callisto" by Titian
"They are simply astonishingly beautiful and well preserved," says Noon."His use of color is brilliant, stunning brushwork. These are the things artists look to emulate, especially the Romantic painters in the 19th century."
The pictures have an interesting history. After centuries in private hands, Diana and Callisto, painted in 1556 - 1559 and Diana and Actaeon painted around the same time were given as a long term loan to the National Galleries of Scotland in 1945.
Two years ago the NGS, together with the National Gallery of London, were offered the works. Together they raised the money to buy Diana and Actaeon over a period of five months. They are now raising the funds for Diana and Callisto.
Patrick Noon is blunt when he talks about their importance. "These are the finest works by Titian outside Italy and Spain."
The exhibit also includes works by Tintoretto, Veronese,Bassano, and Lotto.
"The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome, Peter, Francis and an Unidentified Female Saint," painted by Lorenzo Lotto about 1505
When asked if this is a big feather in the MIA's cap Noon admits a show like this doesn't come about without a lot of work. But he thinks it's worth it.
"I think people will really enjoy seeing them," he says. "These are really beautiful things."
Painting before an audience
Posted at 5:04 PM on January 29, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Theater
In 2006 Lee Zimmerman painted silk as part of a Silk Painters International Festival in Santa Fe
Duluth artist Lee Zimmerman paints on silk. But he didn't always:
I was an oil painter. Oil Painting is like painting with tooth paste - it stays where you put it and is opaque. I thought I wouldn't like silk painting because I was a poor watercolorist, but when I tried the media - something about it meshed with me. I love the intense colors and the way the dyes move through the fibers, and the sensuous way thet silk shimmers in the light.
Watching a painting being made is usually a long, arduous process. But not so with silk painting, says Zimmerman.
When ever I did paintings of people, they loved the fact that they see what I was doing. I already knew that the dyed paintings looked like stained glass with light coming through it. My technique in silk painting was different than most silk painters. I use what might be termed a wet on wet technique in watercolor. I was doing a lot of figure painting and painting onsite (Plein Air) and this pushed me to be very fast.Zimmerman decided to take his act on the road, as it were. He now will paint at events, sometimes to musical accompaniment. Tonight in Duluth, he'll paint as Kathy McTavish improvises on her cello, creating a sort of music/paint dialogue.
Can't make it to Duluth on such short notice? Not to worry, the performance is going to be streamed live at his website(currently you'll see the above video as a place holder - check back in a few hours).
Zimmerman says he really enjoys bringing the magic of creation to an audience:
I can't see the audience but I can hear - I love the moment when I start, and then they start to notice what's going on, and all of a sudden they get really quiet, and you can feel their eyes.
On February 18, Zimmerman's artwork will take a more theatrical turn in the Duluth Playhouse production of "The Secret Garden." In it, Zimmerman plays the garden.
There will be five 8' x 5' silk panels distributed across the stage. I will begin painting right when the music starts in the overture to establish my presence with the audience so they can forget about me as the real action starts. The first half of the show all the panels will be done in black and white. There will be specific images that will appear at the right time to tie into the action of the play. After intermission I will begin to hit all the panels with color. A little while into the second act, the actors sing a magnificent song about how the garden isn't dead, it is just waiting for Spring. When this happens I will begin to fill the panels with green. Leaves will start popping all over the place. This will accelerate until the finale when the Garden will be filled with the explosive colors of the flowers everywhere.
Zimmerman has a personal tie to the show; his 12-year-old daughter plays the part of Mary.
Brush strokes 50 feet high
Posted at 12:00 PM on January 13, 2010
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Film, Painting, People
Detail of self portrait by Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, Oil On Canvas
For 40 minutes this morning I was transported from the icy streets and gray skies of downtown St. Paul to the sun-drenched fields of wheat and sunflowers in southern France. And I was immersed in the colors and brush strokes of one of the most popular painters of all time.
I was attending a preview of "Van Gogh: Brush With Genius" at the Science Museum of Minnesota's Omnitheater. The film is one of five featured in this year's Omnifest, which begins January 29.
Detail of "Undergrowth with Two Figures" by Vincent van Gogh, oil on canvas
The film, created by French filmmakers Peter Knapp and François
Bertrand, takes viewers not just to southern France where Van Gogh painted some of his best work, but to Musée D'Orsay in Paris and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where many of his works hang today. We move from the actual fields in which he painted, to the paintings themselves. Often the shot of the painting is so close up that it stretches across the entire dome of the Omnitheater, giving viewers the sense that they are standing in a painted cornfield, or walking through a painted room. It's as though you're seeing the world through Van Gogh's eyes - an intimate perspective that simply isn't possible when you are in front of the original work.
Above, a shot of the Church at Auvers-sur-Oise... below, a detail from the painting it inspired
The film serves as a reminder of Van Gogh's amazing productivity; in just under ten years he painted more than 900 canvases. In the last months of his life he was finishing sometimes three works a day. The creative frenzy ceased abruptly when he shot himself in the chest. He was just 37.
A close up look at Van Gogh's letters
Perhaps the only flaw to be found in the film is the conceit on which it is made - as an "entertainment experience." Indeed, this is no documentary. The film features three characters - Ellen, a fictional museum researcher (portrayed by actress Hélène Seuzaret), Peter, a film director ("played" by Peter Knapp, the co-director of the film), and the narrator, supposedly Vincent van Gogh himself (the voice is that of 52 year-old Jacques Gamblin, making Van Gogh sound far older than he ever was). When Van Gogh admires Peter Knapp in the course of his narration, I personally was left skeptical. Really? Would Van Gogh have liked this director? Isn't that a bit vain?
While the debate around what exactly happened to Van Gogh's ear still continues, in this film "he" says he cut it off himself, and makes no allusion to the fact that some believe his friend and fellow painter Gaugin did it in a drunken fight (this may in part be due to the fact that this film came out last year, around the same time as the most recent academic arguments).
Regardless of its artistic license or the distraction of both fictional and factual characters, the film succeeds at doing something truly remarkable. That is to take the work of a painter, and turn it into a world unto itself for us to explore.
"Van Gogh: Brush with Genius" runs January 29 - March 11 as part of Omnifest 2010.
Fighting graffiti with murals
Posted at 3:33 PM on September 28, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(4 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Public Art
In a wide alley of the Powderhorn Park neighborhood, artist Richard Barlow is almost finished painting a mural. It's not your typical brightly colored neighborhood pride statement. This mural is silver and white, and depicts the negative - and positive - of a photograph of trees on water. Barlow says he's been fascinated with how early photographers sought to be "painterly" in their images. Now Barlow's creating paintings inspired by those photographs.
This is Barlow's first attempt at a mural, and he's learned about some of the unique challenges painting outside can present (such as ants and other insects getting caught in your paint while it's still wet, or the risk of going snowblind working on a white wall all day).
Richard Barlow's particular type of art wasn't as easy to convert to a mural as he had originally imagined. Due to the particular types of chemicals in the paints he used, he had to apply the silver to the wall first, and then add the white afterward. He ended up projecting his original onto the building at night, to guide him in his painting.
Photograph by Jenny Jenkins
Ted Spears is the owner of Acme Awning, the building whose back wall is serving as Barlow's canvas.
"If I could afford to do it, I'd do it to the whole building," says Spears. Spears says he's had a huge problem with graffiti for a long time now, and he's hopeful the mural will deter would-be taggers.
The mural was the idea of Jenny Jenkins, Spears' back alley neighbor, and, conveniently, Richard Barlow's girlfriend. She didn't like seeing graffiti out her back window, and thought a mural might help the neighborhood. She managed to cobble together some funding with the local neighborhood association and a Minneapolis graffiti abatement grant.
Kari Neathery, executive director of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association, says her neighborhood has installed a few of these murals over the past couple of years with great success. Sometimes the projects involve working with neighborhood kids, so that they take ownership of the mural and are less likely to deface it.
Ted Spears says what he likes about Barlow's work is it's not attempting to make a social statement - something he doesn't feel would be appropriate for his business. He says it's just good art, and he's pleased.
Embrace Failare! (sic)
Posted at 2:32 PM on August 26, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Video
Watching one of John Kilduff's episodes of "Let's Paint TV" is like trying to watch three different episodes of "24" at the same time. He manages to keep a frenetic pace going as he simultaneously runs on a treadmill, paints, and talks about the process of painting. In addition each episode throws in a bonus activity; cutting his hair, making bizarre mixed drinks, or as in the above clip, eating a watermelon while painting a watermelon.
At first Kilduff's clips are annoying - it's hard to follow him, and he himself is distracted by all he's trying to do. Then it just seems absurd, and the humor begins to seep in through the manic urgency. Watch even further, and what you have is pretty brilliant. Kilduff manages to strip away any pretension around art and reduce it to its most primal creative essence. Don't worry about what you're doing - just do it! Take your mind off the importance of the work at hand, and make it an almost subconscious process. Ridiculous as it may first appear, what he's doing is performance art.
Kilduff is actually a trained painter, and curators are dubbing his work "action painting," a sort of plein air painting on speed. You can see the results of his painting-while-jogging here.
Now Kilduff is taking his show on tour (he's dubbed it the "Embrace Failare" tour) and his next stop is - you guessed it - right here in the Twin Cities. Let's Paint TV will tape an episode tomorrow night at Northwestern College at 6:30pm in St. Paul. In addition an exhibition of his work will be on display through October 3.
Painting with sand
Posted at 4:01 PM on August 19, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Painting, People
Red Wing native Michael Augustin has been practicing the art of sand painting for nearly thirty years. While Augustin himself is not Native American he studied with Hopi and Navajo medicine men for five years.
"It was so fascinating to me and I saw a means of perhaps to dabble in it myself not as they do but as an expression of art. So I lifted it out of their tradition - any spiritual attachment I may make to it is my own. My purpose has never been to do an expose on sand painting and Native Americans. I look at the art as something that is mine."
Augustin grinds the sand himself, and uses very simple tools to execute his paintings. "Your hands are your paintbrush," he said in a recent phone conversation.
Augustin's usually asked to do a sand painting in conjunction with an event such as a seminar or conference. Once the work is done, he dismantles it. But in an unusual turn, Augustin has created a series of paintings which are on display at River Falls Public Library through September 4th.
While Augustin describes himself as a lover of computers and technology, you will have a hard time finding much information about him on the web. In fact, the images on this blog may be the only ones you find. He has purposely avoided creating a website, because, he says, his work is more about a certain time and place than about a lasting image.
In fact Augustin complains that people have become too dependent on technology as a sort of external memory storage, so that they don't take the time to truly study what's in front of them. He says if you find something beautiful, "Use your mind - hold it for a while."
Michael Augustin will give a free formal presentation, with a demonstration and talk on the spiritual significance of his paintings tomorrow (Thursday, August 20) at 7 p.m. in the River Falls Public Library's lower level community room.
Images courtesy of River Falls Public Library
Opening Tonight: The Beautifully Grotesque
Posted at 12:14 PM on August 14, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Painting
Sylvia Ortiz explores the strange duality that many women endure, which is to say feeling simultaneously beautiful and ugly.
Ortiz' women often have missing limbs, or their arms and legs are twisted and contorted in uncomfortable positions. And yet they have pretty faces, are delicate and feminine, and for all their distortion, are still quite alluring.
Usually in the art world the beautiful and the grotesque are juxtaposed against one another for effect (think "Beauty and the Beast," the "Hunchback of Notre Dame," etc). But Ortiz mixes the two inseperably in the same image.
The result is an image which at first draws us in with its bright colors and seductive eyes, only to then make us question why we'd be drawn to something so disturbing.
An exhibition of Sylvia Ortiz' work opens tonight at Rogue Buddha in Minneapolis.
Layers of meaning
Posted at 8:00 AM on August 14, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Painting, Public Art
Alexandre Farto paints on walls and then carves into them, turning them into three dimensional compositions. The exposed brickwork gives them an aged feeling. While watching the video of him working I found myself wincing as he chipped away at surfaces that he'd already beautifully painted. Why destroy something perfect? But what we might think of as finished is sometimes just a stopping point on a longer artistic journey.
For your viewing pleasure: Women in Art
Posted at 1:00 PM on July 14, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Animation, Painting
This is not a new upload to YouTube, but still one I find captivating. Take a tour through 500 years of portraits of women, and notice the themes that emerge. There's the importance of the gaze, the only ever-so-slight smile, and the tilting of the head. Looks like those painters liked their women as elusive as they were beautiful...
Celebrating Hmong artists
Posted at 8:41 AM on July 11, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Painting, Photography, Printmaking
Photographs by Pao Houa Her
Last night I attended the opening of a group show by Hmong artists at Homewood Gallery in North Minneapolis. The show has become an annual event, organized by the Hmong Arts Connection (HArc). It includes photographs, prints, paintings and drawings. Dyane Garvey is with HArc; she said HArc is trying to encourage artistic expression amongst Hmong people. In traditional Hmong culture art is incorporated into everday life, but is not necessarily respected as a career in its own right, she said.
Happy by Galea Vajxyooj
While at the opening I talked to John Kong, one of the artists. Kong is particularly skilled in animation, and used to dream of working for Disney. He said it took a long time to convince his parents that being an artist was worthwhile, but after he won several art competitions they changed their mind. Ultimately their support became extremely important in getting him through art school, Kong said.
Gao Zoua Pang by Kao Lee Thao
According to Dyane Garvey part of the goal of the HArc exhibition is to boost the work of Hmong artists within their own community. Last year she went door to door in the neighborhood, inviting families to attend the show. John Vang responded to the invite, and left a note saying how much the exhibition meant to him as an art student. This year, his work is on the walls.
White Trees in Autumn by Mai C. Vang
The exhibition also serves as a window into Hmong American culture and identity. In "White Trees in Autumn" by Mai C. Vang (seen above), Vang adds the following text to her painting:
Sometimes when snow covers everything in Minnesota I stare out my bedroom window and sigh. Childhood passes us so swiftly, fall becomes winter when we blink, oh I wish that I could always have white trees in autumn.
"New Directions in Hmong Art" will be on display at Homewood Gallery in North Minneapolis through July 31st.
Icons for the Modern Age
Posted at 2:15 PM on June 25, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(4 Comments)
Filed under: Painting
Painter Jessie DeCorsey has been fascinated with religious icons ever since she traveled to Greece and saw them everywhere, integrated into everday life. She says she wishes American culture had an equivalent source of inspiration that was as everpresent. So she created her own religious icons for today's youth. She says her goal is to make the actions of the saints seem more attainable by everyday people, no matter what their religion.
DeCorsey's paintings are currently on display at the Dunn Bros coffee shop next to Loring Park in Minneapolis.
Your personal tour of a Pre-Raphaelite painting
Posted at 10:37 AM on June 10, 2009
by Marianne Combs
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Museums, Painting
The Minneapolis Insitute of Arts new exhibition "Sin and Salvation: William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision" opens this Sunday. While many people are drawn to pre-raphaelite paintings for their fair skinned beauties and Shakespearean settings, at the heart of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood was a moral narrative. According to MIA curator Patrick Noon, who was kind enough to give me a sneak peek of the exhibition, it was William Holman Hunt who stayed true to that moral vision more than any other of his peers.
Let's take Holman Hunt's classic work "The Awakening Conscience" (shown above). What's your first impression? We see a woman who's stood up from the lap of her suitor, and is looking out an open window - we can see the window in the reflection of the mirror behind her. But what else can we figure out about this story by looking closely at the image?
The biggest clue comes from looking at her hands. You'll notice that the young lady has rings on all of her fingers except one - her RING finger. That's right - she's single, and sitting in the lap of a young gentleman! Not only that, but the garment she's wearing is a sleeping gown. So we now know that this young woman is actually the man's mistress, not a young maiden he's courting for marriage.
Secondly, we're given some symbolism in the painting as well. Note the cat that's toying with a little bird. The cat's been distracted by something (probably the young woman standing up so abruptly), and the bird has a chance to escape. The position of the bird and the cat mirrors the position of the young man and his mistress. In essence, he's a cat toying with his prey, but she may have some hope of escaping him.
Finally, what's at the center of this painting? It's not the young woman's face, it's the view out the window - a view of natural beauty that makes the small apartment feel claustrophobic in comparison. In Pre-Raphaelite paintings, nature was often seen as a symbol of morality and truth. The natural world, in all its splendor, is calling to the young woman with an offer of redemption. Thus, the title: The Awakening Conscience.
There are plenty more symbols throughout the piece underscoring the main theme. And just as interesting as what's on the canvas is the story behind the painting. The model for the image of the young lady was actually Holman Hunt's own mistress, Annie Miller. Holman Hunt was hoping to convince Miller to leave behind her life as a mistress, and reform herself into a good woman of society he could marry with dignity. She didn't take to his idea of a good wife however, and they eventually broke up.
Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
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Looking for ways to ensure your students are doing quality research from credible sources? Sound Learning is a launching point to Minnesota Public Radio's content on the Web. -
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Your daily note for good music, news and pop culture. With attempted jokes.
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