Topics

Visual Arts

  • Art that's stuffed and mounted
    A gallery exhibit in Minneapolis is giving new life to the lifeless. The Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists uses dead animals and stuffed toys to create wild displays of impossible beasts. The work is imaginative, but not for the faint-hearted.October 22, 2004
  • Fired up inside
    Artists who make things from clay face a very practical limitation -- the size of their kiln. If something doesn't fit, it's not going to get fired. Now a Danish artist, Nina Hole, has developed a way to make large clay sculptures that act as their own kiln. For the past two weeks she's been working with a group of volunteers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to build and fire a huge piece. She promises a spectacular display when the red-hot sculpture is unveiled.October 7, 2004
  • The art of photography
    Native Minnesotan and National Geographic photographer William Allard talks about his craft, combining art and journalism.October 4, 2004
  • Spreading politics across the walls.
    The work of artist Mike Alewitz is currently on display in an unusual place: an art gallery. His wall sized murals are intended for more public, and often more dangerous, spaces. He's painted murals on buildings along the Israeli Palestinian border and on the bombed streets of Baghdad. And here in Minnesota, one of his murals provided a backdrop to the Hormel strike in 1986. A show of Alewitz's work at St. Cloud State's Kiehle gallery gives an overview of the career of one of the country's most prolific political muralists.October 1, 2004
  • State of the Arts
    St. Paul Pioneer Press book critic Mary Ann Grossman will be in the studio to talk about the new books this fall season. Plus, we'll discuss the art of photography and talk to Minnesota poet Steve Healey about his new collection Earthling.September 17, 2004
  • One stroke, one vote
    Politics and the Minnesota State Fair go back a long way. One local artist is using that tradition to create an interactive art display. Robert Delutri is making a painting by asking fairgoers to indicate their choice for president with one blue, red, white or black stroke of paint on a large canvas.September 3, 2004
  • Art in the abstract creates some 'Heavy Weather'
    "Heavy Weather" is the latest exhibition at Rosalux Gallery, an artists' cooperative in Minneapolis. It features two veteran abstract artists who use entirely different means to create their work. One is a painter, the other, a photographer. The show explores the nature of abstract art.August 16, 2004
  • Cameras made from cardboard
    Derrick Burbul is a high-tech guy. He's a photographer, and he has digital cameras. He does design work on his computer, and he makes DVDs. But he also loves pinhole cameras, and they're about as low-tech as you can get. Lately he's been sending pinhole cameras around the world in the mail and asking people to take pictures for him. The results are on display at the Duluth Art Institute's gallery in the old train depot in Duluth.August 16, 2004
  • Downtown Sioux Falls becomes art gallery
    Visitors to downtown Sioux Falls can take in an art show without leaving their car or going into a gallery. A new program called "Sculpturewalk," turned downtown sidewalks and trees into an art gallery. These pieces of fine art are done by regional artists. The pieces are outside for people to contemplate, critique, or maybe even to buy.August 2, 2004
  • A Walk with the Rock Doc
    Some people call Joel Carter the "Rock Doc." He's an emergency room doctor in Duluth, and now he's a sculptor, too. But you won't find any of his works in a gallery. He builds them outside, from stones he finds in the woods. Some people love the rock sculptures. But at least one person doesn't, and Joel Carter thinks he knows who that is.July 23, 2004
  • Photographer Alec Soth is coping with fame
    Alec Soth is drawing worldwide attention. The Minneapolis-based photographer exploded onto the international art scene at the Whitney Biennial this year. Since then his fame has continued to spread. But Soth is finding his newfound popularity has its advantages, and its disadvantages.July 13, 2004
  • Is it art? A new platform for discussion
    A Minneapolis artist digs in his heels after a Hiawatha Light Rail manager dismisses his work. Sculptor Aldo Moroni says his painted steel abstract of the Minneapolis skyline is the result of more than two years of design and discussion. As Moroni was installing the piece a Hiawatha project official told him it wasn't up to snuff and he had to take it down.July 2, 2004
  • Currents of Change: art and the Mississippi in the 1850s
    Just as the celebration of the Grand Excursion drew huge commercial and journalistic interest 150 years ago, it also helped spawn an artistic interest in life along the Mississippi. Some of the results are now on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The exhibit shows how the artistic exploration of the Mississippi River Valley influenced American culture.June 29, 2004
  • Robert Polidori shoots 'habitat'
    Robert Polidori's pictures appear in Vanity Fair, Fortune, and the New Yorker where he's a staff photographer. His images are smart, sumptuous and sexy, and his subjects are almost exclusively buildings.June 4, 2004
  • Artist chronicles the Hmong migration
    Five thousand years of Hmong history unfold in an exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "The Hmong Migration" is a series of 50 oil paintings by St. Paul artist Cy Thao. Thao is also a DFL state representative, and only the second Hmong state legislator in the country. Thao says he hopes his exhibit helps people understand the story of the Hmong people.May 21, 2004

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