The University of St. Thomas O'Shaughnessy Educational Center Gallery

A Season of Joy:
The Nativity in Global Perspective

This week, I decided to get in the spirit of the season and go to the gallery located at St. Thomas O'Shaughnessy Educational Center.
The exhibition on display is "A Season of Joy" The Nativity in Global Perspective." This exhibition features Christmas card designs by Timothy Trent Blade, in the woodcut and linocut styles, and countless créches from the Westminster Collection.
These are nativity scenes from around the world, made from every type of material imaginable.
Every set has a unique style of handcrafted artistry. The most wonderful part was how every different scene depicted the characters in the ethnicity of the people who created it.
Every different set was influenced by the culture, and often these cultures shined through in the details of the nativity scene.
A scene from Bolivia featured wise men riding llamas, and a scene from Haiti was set in front of a wood hut with a thatched roof. Some were minuscule, and others quite large. A nativity from Peru was made of a large piece of intricately embroidered cloth. One of the most astounding ones was from Cameroon, and was not like a traditional nativity scene, but rather a single large piece of hand-carved ebony in the shape of the Madonna holding her baby.
Many places around the world were represented, including India, Kenya, the Czech Republic, Germany, Peru, Haiti, El Salvador, Panama, Thailand, Columbia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and many others.
A vast array of materials were used, including straw, wool, hand carved wood, bent or hammered mental, clay, fabric, and more.
They were all very beautiful in their own way, and it was fantastic to see how every culture expresses the nativity scene differently.

Happy Holidays!

The Walker Art Center

As no foray into the art scene of the Twin Cities would be complete without a visit to the Walker, we did just that this week.

The Walker Art Center is heralded as the leading place for modern art in the Twin Cities, and ranks quite highly internationally as well.

The Walker has an endless amount of exhibitions and collections, so we're going to concentrate on a few, and you'll have to go explore the rest on your own!

One of the current exhibitions that has been generating a lot of interest lately is Benches & Binoculars. This exhibition centers around a different way of experiencing art. Rather than the traditional gallery setting, the galley of Benches & Binoculars is comprised of two main walls, that go up very high, and that are filled with paintings. All kinds and sizes of painting are jammed in, covering the walls, some huge and some tiny, some abstract and some landscapes. The effect is very powerful, as it is hard to take in such a riot of visual stimulation. In the center area of the gallery are benches positioned to look at the walls of art, with binoculars attached for everyone to use. It is a novel way of looking at art, as you can explore the detail of minuscule paintings located high up on the walls by viewing through the binoculars. The effect can be overwhelming at times, but I also felt that one could gain a new sense of paintings by seeing them in context among so many disparate types. I thought it was fascinating - even after spending a long time in the gallery, I was still coming upon pieces that I hadn't noticed previously.

Moving on to the gallery next to Benches & Binoculars, we came upon the exhibition Elemental, a study in Minimalism of art. From the information in the gallery, I learned that minimalism "sought to eliminate traditional notions of originality and create an abstract vision....minimalism centers on elemental forms...of paramount importance were the psychological impact of scale, materials, symmetry, repetition, and placement."
The Minimalist exhibition had some boxes and cubes of different colors and slightly reflective material, a large panel of evenly shredded canvas, and simple squares of thick wire mounted in the corners of the gallery. The artist Andre is quoted saying that "art excludes the unnecessary" in reference to Minimalism, but it honestly wasn't for me. I think it is a form that is very limiting, and in taking art down to the "bare essentials," one can end up losing many different forms of creativity and beauty. Essentially, I found it to be cold and flat, but you may have a different opinion.

A large exhibition found in the gallery tower is Event Horizon, taking up three connected gallery spaces. Event Horizon is a multi-disciplinary exhibition, featuring paintings, sculpture, video, photography, and performance. The result is fantastically eclectic. Basically, Event Horizon is said to feature "postwar art in the context of the events that produced them." It is a very broad theme that seems to be focused more on inclusion than exclusion. There is an immense amount of pieces featured in this exhibition, so we'll go over some highlights.
White Field is a piece by Günther Uecker. It consists of a large square piece of wood, into which are hammered countless nails, covering the surface and evenly spaced. The whole piece is painted white. The nails are not hammered straight down, but rather are angled and pitched in waves, curves, hills and valleys. It gives a sense of making something from hard and cold materials into something soft and organic. I really liked that sense.
Untitled by Raymond Hains is a very interesting piece, and part of a larger ouvre of Hains' method. He was known for going out on the streets of Paris and collecting old propaganda and advertising posters, pasted on walls and weathered by the city. His piece on display here is comprised of rusted metal panels that were salvaged from the streets of Paris, and covered with torn posters. I found the weathered look to be beautiful, and interesting in how different materials have different patterns of weathering. I also really liked the philosphy of Hains regarding his work, "as if in collaboration with the countless people from a vast array of backgrounds who had pasted, touched, or torn at the posters on the street."
Empty Room is a fun little gem by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It is located underneath a short set of steps between galleries 2 and 3, and depicts a scene as if people working on painting and construction had left on a break and everything around them was frozen in time. The artists recreated countless items from polyurethane and paint, and created a vignette of paint brushes, buckets, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, boards, boxes, and vending coffee cups. The result is a lifelike snapshot of a place and time and situation. The artists created this piece around the French concept of "Trompe L'oeil," to decieve the eye.
In the final gallery was a piece by Olafur Eliasson, Konvex/Konkav (Convex/Concave). It consisted of a circular mirror surface, below which was a pneumatic pump system in a clear box, so all the workings of it can be seen. The system emits loud hisses and noises of pumping air, and the whole pump works to change the surface of the mirror. The circular mirror surface is large, and with the aid of the pump, slowly changes its curvature from convex to concave and back. Standing in front of the mirror, it had a disconcerting effect of you and your surroundings rushing towards the mirror, or shrinking away from it. It is a very involved way of impacting your viewpoints.

Many flights up in the Medtronic Gallery is the exhibit Haegue Yang" Integrity of the Insider. The center piece is an abstract installation work, made up of partitions of venetian blinds, heaters, fans, moving spotlights, and a drum kit. The effect is somewhat interesting and has some intriguing visual imagery, but I didn't appreciate it like I have other pieces of installation and conceptual art. In a large way, it feels overly pedantic and pretentious, as if so much effort went into concieving of an incredibly complex abstract idea that it is hard to translate or communicate to anyone else. Reading interviews with the artist compounds this feeling - if one puts so much effort into creating complex ideas around which to fashion their art, it becomes impossible to understand without an explanation, and farther away from the grasp of any but the artist.

The Walker has many other interesting things. In between the galleries of Benches & Binoculars and Elemental is Dolphin Oracle II, an interactive computer dolphin that generated a fair amount of press when it first came to the Walker a number of years ago, so I couldn't help but stop and converse with it for a bit, before relinquishing the keyboard to some children who were much more enthused than I. The Sculpture Garden has always been a favorite, and though the weather outside was frightful, I popped over there and explored for a little while. One of my favorite areas in the Sculpture Garden has many stone benches arranged in a square, with quotes about elements of life carved into the stone.

The Sculpture Garden is always fun, and as my friend Dan used to say, "the best free date in the cities!" A good tip to remember.

Dashing through the snow,
Catherine

The Goldstein Museum of Design

This week, we kept it on the right side of the river and explored a galley on the Saint Paul campus of University of Minnesota, the Goldstein Museum of Design.

The exhibition currently showing at the Goldstein is "Good Design: Stories From Herman Miller". Herman Miller is a renowned furniture company, specializing in ergonomic office furniture with style! Herman Miller was home to some of the greatest furniture designers of the 20th century.

One of Herman Miller's most prominent designers was the design team of Charles and Ray Eames. (I learned that Ray was a woman, and that they were married.) Their modern designs featured clean, smooth lines, minimal mass, and molded construction. One of their pieces that I really liked was a chair and footstool set of bent or molded wood. They also used their bent wood techniques to create splints for injured soldiers during WWII.

George Nelson was Herman Miller's Director of Design for a long time, in addition to being a top designer. One of the examples of his design was the Marshmallow Sofa, a sofa with a simple metal frame and a multitude of small circular cushions for the back and seat areas. Another example that I really liked was a modern design Roll top Desk. It was flat and slightly slanted down, with a wooden roll top that rolled 3 inches over the work area, with the idea being that work could be preserved just as it had been left, but the desk had a clean and tidy feeling with the rollers up. It also had a section for hanging files located at the far back of the desk, with the idea that there they could be out of the sight line, but easily accessible. I thought the desk, and the philosophy behind it, embodied a wonderful combination of functionality and incorporated design.

Herman Miller has an overall message of fantastic stylish modern design incorporated with human need. They place themselves as the source of authentic modern design, and make it clear that such design is relevant, stylish, cutting-edge, and hip as it was 50 years ago. Their ideas about "Good Design" circulate around meshing human needs and human tenancies (mental and physiological) into every step of the design process, from conception to packaging. A number of displays showed examples of this. One showcased how they repackaged individually sold chairs for a retail environment, reaching out to people outside of the office world who were not familiar with the brand. Another showed their efforts to change the public perception of their modern design furniture from something that is to be displayed rather than used, to pieces that incorporate fully into the everyday lives of hip young adults today. Yet another instance of their "Good Design" centered around "Place Expectations," how the ambiance of a room or building or surroundings can greatly influence one's emotions, behaviors, and actions, and how Herman Miller takes consideration of problems of place into their deliberations with architects, designers, and customers.

Some parts of the exhibition were great. One area showed an office setup from the 50s or 60s, and the considerations that went into its creation, and then showed a modern office setup, with the same information. It was interesting to compare the two, and also really fun to see retro office equipment. Another area focused on the design steps for current office chairs - complete with the chairs to sit in and test drive! I thought it was wonderful to have the ideas and science and information, and then to see and feel how it worked personally. Another section was about the creation of office spaces, especially the cubicle. Herman Miller basically invented the cubicle, which I did not know. It showed the psychological and productive considerations that went into designing such spaces for office workers. "A person in a totally open office plan tends to feel unprotected and insecure. Total enclosure, though, makes it hard to communicate and participate. One wall provides some psychological comfort; a second wall begins to offer some privacy. Three walls with a widened opening were recommended as the best solution, providing good definitions of territory, acceptable privacy, and constant access to and involvement in collective activity."

As for the exhibit itself, I thought it contained a lot of pieces, examples, information, and interaction, and that it did a good job at covering many decades of design. However, there was an overpowering sense of everything being too cramped together, that they tried to fit too much into the space. Some of the information and displays were hard to read because there wasn't enough space to comfortably stand in front of them. One section of displays ran facing the back wall of the space, with only about two feet of space to walk past and read it! At times the layout was just uncomfortable, as so much is crammed in to every part of a small space that it is hard to take it all in in a meaningful way. Somewhat ironic, considering Herman Miller's dedication to space ambiance.

The Bell Museum of Natural History

This week, we returned to the University of Minnesota to explore a wonderful but often overlooked place, the Bell Museum of Natural History.

The Bell Museum is mainly focused on taxidermy and fantastic dioramas, both centering on the native plants and wildlife of the Minnesota area. The dioramas are fantastic replications of the native plants, animals, and landscape. Habitat dioramas came about in the late 1800s, fueled by concerns that are even more pressing today - ongoing development resulting in the eradication of the plants and animals that are native to the land. Dioramas came about as a way to preserve and display these vanishing habitats. Dioramas are even more important today, as the endless march of development has led to the disappearance of native plants and animals, and has drastically changed the landscape on which they thrived. I learned about animals I never knew had ever existed in Minnesota before! For some of the dioramas, the Bell also had a picture of the very place depicted, as it is today. It was stunning to see how drastically some had changed. Dioramas also display the myriad of environments that were once found in Minnesota, from prairies to forests, from wetlands to rocky bluffs.

There is also an interesting section, titled "Behind the Diorama", that centers on the artists that created the habitats and taxidermied animals. The displays showed all the steps involved in taxidermy and the work that goes into creating lifelike replicas of the animals. The techniques are extensive and involve creating several different frames and molds to get to the one that serves as the base for the animal. The section also included information about the diorama artists that went to the natural locations to paint backdrops and to perfectly replicate them.

On the upper level there was a display of nature paintings, most of which were for sale as a fundraiser. Many different artists, mostly from Minnesota, contributed their work to be displayed. A wealth of scenes from all around Minnesota were found, some paintings of larger habitats, and some that focused on individual birds or animals. The skill of the artists was evident, as many of the painings seemed more lifelike than representational.

Overall, the displays at the Bell Museum were breathtaking in their detail, their extensiveness, and the wonderful artistry that catches the animals and their surroundings in a snapshot of life. The displays are well organized and thorough, including almost every fish, bird, or mammal that was once in Minnesota, and documenting all of the plant and land that surrounded them.
The Bell Museum is often overlooked, but is striking in its relevance today, when animal and habitats are being distroyed and disappearing at an increasing rate. It is imperitive to have such realistic documentation of how the places and creatures were before the destructive hand of humans, to be able to see the glory of nature that was once here.

The Augsburg College Art Galleries

This week, we found ourselves at Augsburg College, exploring the art galleries to be found there. We were treated to two very different exhibitions.

First was the exhibition at the Christensen Center Gallery, titled "Pixel & Pen" and explaining itself as "an exhibit of digital art and process". This exhibit has a broad theme in that all the pieces were created by using digital elements. The featured works are a very eclectic collection and showcased the vastly different ways that digital and traditional artistry can blend together.

One work that I found in the exhibit at first did not appear to be digital art in any way. It is "Herbarium (Maidenhair Fern)" by Linda Gammell. It centered on what looked like a pressing or exceptional rendering of a flattened fern frond, and around the stem and behind the leaves were drawn circular designs, like mandalas. It reminded me of ancient scientific compendiums of plant life. Upon reading her artist statement, I learned that she had created this work while staying in the North Woods with a group of scientists and accompanying them on their excursions. The amazing detail is because the main image is from scanning a fern frond with a color scanner, and the results are amazing.

Another work that I really liked was "Portrait of Kitty" by Q. Cassetti. It is a very simple, yet very striking and poignant portrait. On a matte black background is layered a white silhouette of her hair and shirt, and the only color used is on her arms, casually crossed, and on her face, which stands out as simply but perfectly detailed with only the use of skin color, shadows, and eye color. Her gaze is direct and arresting, holding you softly. The farther away things are from her eyes, the less detail is involved; though the arms have color, they are also one-tonal silhouette images. The artist statement had some interesting anecdotes on the process in finding a individual "voice" or style in digital media, and how the person in the portrain was the artist's teenage daughter.

For more information about "Pixel & Pen", click here.


A little further down the street, we found the Gage Family Art Gallery, which is currently housing an installation, "Lucia Hwang: What's Up?". The exhibition is a four-part installation, including a chalk outline of a body, cordoned off by cones and police tape, that is clutching a purse and filled in with a designer motif; a wall of egg crates filled with eggs and outlined by moss, the egg crates featuring the same designer motif, and in front of it all, a rooster with sunglasses and a tiny designer purse slung around its body; a sparkling white toilet, behind which there is a pegboard with rolls of toilet paper attached, and on the floor, piled up and surrounding the toilet, are countless more rolls of toilet paper, and all the rolls are covered in the designer motif; and then a large plastic trash can, knocked over on its side with debris spilling out, the entire can covered in the same designer motif.

Lucia Hwang's message pertains to the relationship between the inner personal world and the outer, mass produced, materialistic world. She explores the conflict between one's inner emotions and individuality, and the material world, constantly assaulting what we hold inside. She terms the conflict in phrases of acceptance and rejection - how we accept that which comforts us and is in tune with our inner selves, and we reject the harsh material things that are forced upon us. Her installations probe the line between the two, and ideas about what happens when the line is blurred, when the two are melded and one cannot accept or reject.

I found the exhibition to be quite interesting. It was interesting to see how she illustrated her point with the objects she chose, and the installation fit in with the gallery space quite nicely. I would have personally used different objects to represent comfort and the inner world, but that really is one thing that changes from person to person.

To find out more about "What's Up?", click here.

Thank you for being my dear readers,
Catherine

Cargill Hall at the Minneapolis Public Library

This week, we explored the sparkly modern Minneapolis Central Library in downtown Minneapolis. The Library itself is something to behold, we'll get to that later. On the second level is the Cargill Gallery, which currently houses an interesting little exhibition called The Precious Object.

The Precious Object focuses on the handmade, the DIY crafting, the painstakingly slow and tedious processes of creating something strong and lasting using your hands and some materials. The materials used here vary greatly - from paint and canvas, paper, metal, to snake carcasses, band-aids, and tiny figurines. The overarching theme is the connection between people and objects. These artists use objects to communicate a feeling, tell the story of an experience, replicate a special place. In one way, these become precious objects because of what they represent. In a different way, they are inherently precious objects because of their intimate relationship with their person. The Precious Object is an artistic reflection behind the DIY movement - reconnecting people with the objects in their lives; removing the mass produced and creating the individual and handmade; bringing together the material, production, and product into one person; using one's hands to express creativity and artistry in the everyday objects.

One of the works that really struck me was by Ginny Maki, and created mostly out of felt and thread. From far away, the work looked like a tangled jumble hanging in the air, but on closer inspection, one was able to make out three groupings of buildings, their architectural details embroidered on the felt constructions by dark thread, with tangles and jumbles of thread erupting from various points, all suspended in midair by the same thread. This work is part of Maki's "Small Towns Project." The description at the gallery explained that Maki asked different people from the same small town to draw maps of the town and include and buildings that they have a personal connection with. Maki then translates those maps into the felt-and thread representations. I really liked the idea behind the work, creating a representation of a place based on personal connections and experiences, and setting them up together makes for an interesting comparison. I was able to find certain buildings that were in common in all the different maps, and it was interesting to compare how people were connected to those and the buildings around them. To see some pictures of the Small Towns Project, click here. To read more about Ginny Maki's work in general, click here.

Nearby was another work that I thought was great - the work of Alison Hiltner. Using giant fake flowers, clay, and other mediums, Hiltner gives us a glimpse of what it would be like if big flowers (and small) suddenly sprouted tentacle like legs, erupted from the earth, and started overrunning our world. The result is fantastical half plant, half boundless creature beings, spilling down a column and scurrying across the floor. Her work was impressive to the point that the flowerbeings felt lifelike and real, and I somewhat expected to feel one scuttling across my foot. They brought me joy and wonder. To see images of the work, click here, and to find out more about Alison Hiltner and her other work, click here or here.

The paintings by Margaret Wall-Romana astounded me. Her images depict a natural, botanical fantasy land in soft pastels, but with such amazing detail and lifelike replication that you almost feel a tactile sensation. The plants, flowers, and leaves in her paintings are so true to life, they seem like fresh pressings. Though painted in the soft, bright greens of life, the wilted, brown, withered and dead plants also have center stage. Her paintings have a fantastical side to them as well, the plant life in sharp focus is accented by monumental backgrounds, small pockets of waterfall scenes, and boats made of walnut shells and leaves, which in her statement at the gallery she states as connecting her back to her childhood, when she would race walnut boats with her siblings. To see the paintings, click here and here, and to find out more about her, click here.

Another work that I liked stretches from the gallery space and into the library itself, bounding through glass and above the stacks of books. It is the work of Liz Miller, who takes the spirit of the paper chains of our childhood and brings them to maturity in riots of color, massive spans of paper cut into intricate and overlapping designs, running through a space and doubling back. It is set up in such a way that you can stand somewhat in the work, in between layers of paper, so that your entire vision is filled with them. Doing so, I could see the designs cut into the paper distinctly, and how different colored paper is intwined to create layers of design. I was astounded when considering the amount of time and work it must take to create such massive installations, and what vision one must have to be able to translate a design idea to certain cuts in certain places and come up right. I had a hard enough time cutting snowflakes into folded-up coffee filters as a kid, so hats off to Liz Miller. To see pictures of her work, and for more from her, click here.

In all, The Precious Object is an eclectic and interesting exhibition showcasing the many different ways to express related concepts. There are many more artists in the exhibition, and ARTmn has been recording artist interviews and holding panel discussions, and for more info about all that having to do with The Precious Object, click here or here!

The exhibition itself is held in a small gallery (Cargill Hall) in the Minneapolis Central Library. The library itself is a modern wonder of glass and metal.

The open center area that goes then length of the building and reaches to the very top, combined with a very liberal use of glass, provides an open, flowing feeling.

The library is large, and feels like it is, but the materials used in the construction keep it from being overpowering, and let light shine in all corners. Gone are the days of dark and dusty research, in the Minneapolis Central Library, the sun shines in!


Til next week,
Catherine

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts

This was a monumental week here at Paint the Town(s), as we had a day-long excursion to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which could be called the greatest place for art in these fair Twin Cities.


I brought along none other than my wonderful Grandma, as we have a long history of mischief at the MIA, and it just wouldn't feel right without her.


The MIA is a gigantic museum, spanning an entire city block, with 3 levels, multiple wings, numerous galleries, and housing art that spans millenia.

To cover all of the wondrous art at the MIA in one day would be impossible, so we'll cover some highlights: selected pieces of art from five different periods/areas, the Dia de los Muertos ofrendas, the Michael Graves exhibit, and some other special exhibitions currently at the MIA.

The MIA is home to collections of art from a vast amount of different time periods and ethnicities, and attempting to cover an adquate cross section in a blog post is almost impossible, but we'll start with an artifact from the Asmat peoples of Papua, New Guinea, called a "Bis Pole".

I chose this piece for a couple of different reasons, the first being the beautiful wood it is constructed of, and the wonderful craftsmanship shown in the carving of the wood. The Bis Pole is tall, more than twice my height, and is carved to represent three human figures, standing on top of one another, with the topmost holding a section of wood carved into an intricate design.
The second reason why I chose this piece was the description. Bis Poles come from the Asmat tradition of needing to avenge the deaths of important members so that their spirits will rest. The Asmat then conduct a ceremony wherein they symbolically hunt down and kill a mangrove tree, which is then carved to represent the lost members, and another ceremony, this one of a battle, is performed to release the spirits. During our visit, we encountered multiple pieces of art that are created to address death among different cultures, and this one was definitely interesting. To see and read more about the Bis Pole, click here.

Moving on, we travel (in spirit) to West Africa, to the former Kingdom of Benin. In the African collection, we found an amazing carved ivory tusk, called "Tusk". The Tusk is fantastic - I don't think that I had ever seen a whole elephant tusk in person before. It is quite big, and covered in carvings, depicting a number of different characters. I liked it because of the size and carvings (I apparently liked carved things), but also because of the texture. I always imagine ivory as impeccably smooth and white, but the tusk is very old and weathered, the color is more of a grayish-beige, and the surface is covered in tiny cracks throughout, giving it a texture almost like weathered wood, and a very interesting depth. The carvings are also quite interesting. The entire surface is covered with figures of differing types, and I couldn't help but wonder at the time and skill it took to carve such figures into an entire tusk. The tusk itself is a relic from an ancestral shrine of an Oba, a ruler of Benin, or an Ezomo, a high-ranking noble in Benin. The different figures represent certain people or groups of people, and the entire carving depicts a historical event. It gives an interesting glance into a society from long ago. To see it, or read more about the carvings, click here.

One of my favorite pieces at the MIA is a piece of Tibetan art, a "Yamantaka Sand Mandala", by the Monks of the Gyuto Tantric University. I love Tibetan Sand Mandalas, they are powerful and delicate, full of vibrant color and elaborate designs, and pulsing with densely packed energy and meaning. The ceremony of construction - and subsequent destruction - of a sand mandala is incredibly moving. Tibetan sand mandalas are handmade by Tibetan Buddhist Monks over an intense period of prayer, meditation, and construction, and then are swept away, symbolizing the fleeting quality of life.
Anyways, this Mandala is fantastic. It is huge, spanning an entire wall, a riot of color and design. Due to the tradition of destroying sand mandalas after they have been created means that this is the first I have seen in person, and it certainly awe-inspiring. Thanks to the kindness of the Gyuto Monks and the science of 3M, we are able to experience this one. According to the MIA, "With the consent of the monks, who created the work onsite, 3M scientists formulated fade-resistant colored silicates and a special adhesive, thereby preserving the work for centuries to come." Every mandala signifies many things, this one included. To see a picture of the Yamantaka Sand Mandala, and to read all about all the symbols, click here.

Art takes many forms, and one of the greatest art forms to come out of the Islamic culture is incredibly beautiful calligraphy. For a large part of Islamic tradition, artistic representations of graven images, or anything created by God or Allah, were against religious guidelines, and so a wonderful cultural tradition of art in calligraphy and design was cultivated. This is especially true in the artistic calligraphy found in the Koran (Qur'an), and can be seen in the Islamic art collection, especially in the piece titled "Page from the Koran in Kufic Script", from Persia (now Iran), created during the 10th century Abbasid dynasty. I liked the style of the calligraphy. The Kufic script is more stiff and angular than other Islamic styles, and I really appreciate the asthetic of it. Also, it was impressive how different colors that edge the lines of the calligraphy are used to denote different linguistic and reading or verse meanings. Visually speaking, the piece showed exemplary craftmanship, and the accents of color and symbols highlighting the script were beautiful. To see the page, and to read about the meanings of the calligraphy, click here.

Another form art can take is one I really appreciate, that of functional art. We will cover more examples from the Michael Graves exhibit, but the MIA has a fantastic collection of Prairie School arts and design, and many pieces from the Prairie School combine both. I am personally a huge lover of the Prairie School (and prairies in general). It was borne from an idea of authentic and functional American design and architecture that incorporated both beauty and the needs of modern Americans. The MIA's Prairie School collection houses many examples of this style of design, including decorative panels, fireplaces, dining tables, chairs, windows and skylights, lights, even a section of a house and models of others. In fact, the MIA owns a Prairie School house in Minneapolis that is open for tours (If anyone wants to go check it out with me, I'm game!). I think everything there is great, but I focused on a Dining Chair, made by George Grant Elmslie for Purcell and Feick, Prairie School architects. The Prairie School placed great emphasis on natural products, and great design emphasis on organic-inspired abstract ornaments and motif. This chair (and the corrosponding dining set) combines these essentials, using a sawed-wood technique to display organic design, to stunning effect. It is a beautiful piece that combines both aesthetic and function. To see the set, and read more about the history behind it, click here.

Moving on, on the first level of the museum, past the cafe and down a hallway, lies the education corridor, which currently houses Dia de los Muertos ofrendas. I have to pause here, just to say that I love Dia de los Muertos, the celebration, the meaning, the decorations, everything about it. Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday to celebrate and revisit the dead. The main focal point in decorations are ofrendas, or offerings, usually in an altar, to the dead, and celebrating their life. These ofrendas are special, as they were created by students of El Colegio, in wooden crates, meant to represent the Latio immigrant lives. These ofrendas were handmade and personalized by the individual students and their experiences. They are a unique form of artistic expression, as one must use all their creative powers to represent the essence of a person and a life that once was. To find out more about the ofrendas, see videos of their creation, and pictures, click here.

Next, we trekked across the courtyard to the Target Wing to explore the Michael Graves exhibit, where I learned that the Target Wing itself was designed by Graves.

The exhibition is "From Towers to Teakettles: Michael Graves Architecture and Design", and showcases the all-encompassing works of Michael Graves. Graves is a reknowned designer, and his work has covered everything, well, as the exhibition says, from towers to teakettles. He is well-known for his partnership with Target stores, and some of his products, including kettles, toasters, and a chess set from his Target line are featured. In addition to household products, the exhibit also features jewelry and accessibility products for the disabled, and the products of his architectural design firm. Graves was born in 1934, and his career has covered more than 40 years. Most of the works featured here is from the last few decades. All of his work has a distinct look to it, a certain aura of whimsy, yet influenced by the German Bauhaus initiative, to improve design of everyday objects by way of simplification and abstraction. His household objects, while quite whimisical and abstract looking, have an uncomplicated design and straightforward operation. His buildings have the same look and feel, yet on a much larger scale. Graves has an understanding of architecture as a cultural continum, of not being buildings that are fixed in time and design, but something to be built onto and transformed over the years. His large-scale, corporate, governmental, and civic buildings can be found all across the world. In his home design, I think, is where it all comes together. Graves envisioned a complete and encompassing design, that not only shapes the house but the things inside it. His designs were based on domesticity, and encompassed planning, architecture, interior design, and product design all in one. To read more about his work and to see pictures, click here.

There are many exhibitions currently running at the MIA, and it's so difficult to fit them all in. Thanks to my Grandma, we did explore The Louvre and the Masterpiece exhibit, even with an audio tour! However, that's a whole other post. Ask me about it sometime.

One exhibit that I was impressed by was the "iAfrica: Connecting with Sub-Saharan Art" exhibition in the Cargill Gallery. It featured an array of objects from many places in Africa, some decorative, some functional, some spiritual. I have to admit, I was first drawn to the exhibit by the impressive and extensive "Power Figure" (click here) displayed at the entrance. However, the exhibition was intriguing, as it is a different, more modern type of art experience. Instead of being a removed viewer, one is encouraged to become engaged with the objects from different perspectives, and is guided by questions: What makes it beautiful? How was it used? How does it feel, sound, smell? How old is it? How did it get here? In addition to all this, the exhibit also featured different types of interactive media. The pieces were fascinating, beautiful, interesting, and more, but the form of the exhibition took the experience to a much more engaged level. Seeing a handmade tribal instrument is interesting, but seeing it and then watching and listening to a video of it being played in a tribal celebration is an impressive way to engage with the art. To learn more about the iAfrica exhibition, and to see pictures, click here or here.

The MIA is an impressive work of art in itself. It is a traditional monumental art museum, filled with impressive soaring celings and open spaces, beautiful and stately. It is vast and unending, housing a collection it would take a week to view. This size and scope allows the museum to have works from cultures all around the world, and to range through time periods of thousands of years. I've always loved the MIA for many reasons, but it truly is amazing to have a place that holds such an extensive representation of the cultures and histories of the world. The monumental works fit into the monumental space perfectly, giving them room to be taken in without clutter or crowding, and the curation is so fantastic, every piece seems to be fit into the perfect space for it.

I also love the lions.

-Catherine

Como Park Conservatory

This week, we returned to the glory of Saint Paul, to the Como Park Conservatory, mere blocks from this blogger's home. It feels good to be on the right side of the cities again. The Conservatory has long been known in my world as a good way to beat the winter blues, but it also has a rich history and an important place in the civic world today.

One of the brochures I picked up tells me that "The Marjorie McNeely Conservatory is one of the last remaining historic glasshouses in the United States and is on the National Register of Historic Places." We here in the Twin Cities are truly blessed to have such an amazing place available to us.

The conservatory was built in the fashion of the "Crystal Palace" greenhouses that were popular from the early-mid-1800s onward, fueled by the Crystal Palace Conservatory that was the focal point of the Great Exhibition of London in 1851.

Conservatories started spreading across the US in the late 1800s, soon found in almost every major locale, and used as a sign that a city had moved from being a burgeoning settlement to being cosmopolitan. San Fransisco, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and New York were home to stunning glass conservatories, and Saint Paul followed suit in 1915.

The Conservatory building is a work of art in itself. Its glittering glass construction has a very delicate grace, yet the Ionic stone columns give it a stately aura. From the outside the conservatory appears expansive, the dome arching into the sky and the wings on either side stretching wide.

From the solidarity of the building materials, it could have been carved out of ice, and its beauty feels rather cold, that of a beautiful ice queen.

Inside, however, is a completely different matter. One step in and you are blanketed by the heavy warmth and humidity.

Every iota of space is packed with an endless variety of lush green vegetation, surrounding you on all sides and arcing over your head.

Palm trees reach up, their masses spreading into the very top of the dome.

The vegetation is thick and dense, the space inside feels smaller, packed, but deeper and with unending variety and character.

This feeling continues from the Palm Dome into the (also) tropical North Garden, but is quite different in the Sunken Garden, which showcases low flower displays surrounding a pool and walkway, with the curved glass of the conservatory arching over everything.

It feels lighter, brighter, more open and clear.


In addition to the plant displays, several sculptures are featured in the conservatory. In the center of the Palm Dome is "Crest of the Wave" by Harriet W. Frishmuth.

The statue depicts a young girl nymph, dancing, springing playfully, reaching up with and arm stretched over her head, a small wave cresting under her feet.

Placed under the very center of the Palm Dome, she gives a sense of leaping, reaching up, trying to spring as high as the palm trees that surround her and touch the top of the dome as they do.

The sculpture in the Sunken Garden is also by Frishmuth, titled "Play Days". It is featured in the center of the pool at the end of the Sunken Garden, and depicts another nymph, tentatively, hesitantly dipping her foot into the water. It is as if she is exploring the nature that surrounds her.

The third sculpture is a bit different, made out of stone instead of bronze, not an image of a playful nymph but a serene representation of St. Francis of Assisi, by Donald Shepard. Instead of being featured in the middle of a pool or fountain, he is somewhat eclipsed by surrounding lush vegetation, on the side of the pool in the North Garden.

Unlike the other two statues, he is not enraptured with his own recreation, but rather an observer of everything around him.

All of these sculptures do evoke similar themes, of human's place in nature, playing, exploring, observing the natural world. They all give a sense of being attuned with the natural world, of showing how humans and nature can go together happily. I think this is a very important theme in a botanical garden, to show that humans can not simply observe the natural world but also be one with it.

Flower and plant displays have always been the focal point for Como Park, in the past and in present day. In the beginning, displays were a great point of contention, as two different philosophies pertaining to flower and plant displays were at odds with one another. One side believed that Como Park should be completely naturalistic, void of statues or man-made designs in vegetation, along the lines of an English pleasure ground, not managed or guided by man. Opposite of this were those who believed in the value of art intertwined with parks; of managed and purposeful (sometimes exotic) garden arrangements; and of mosaiculture or carpet bedding, the art of constructing designs, motifs, and figures using flowers and plants. Though the naturalistic proponents insisted that such endeavors assaulted the lofty and poetic sensibilities of how parks should be, the pedestrian tastes of mosaiculture had the voice of the masses, as people came by the droves to revel in the man-made exotic garden habitats, and to be astounded by the figures and designs. However, this is still a philosophical argument that is alive and well today.

Saint Paul earned a place of recognition for the mosaiculture displays, and also for cultivating exotic plants successfully far away from their native climate. These plant and flower displays were important in positioning the Twin Cities as a scientifically and artistically advanced metropolis, on the level with other major cities in the US. These points are still important today, as the renowned flower displays in the conservatory are a point of local pride and pleasure.

The autumn floral display in the Sunken Garden features a colorful variety of chrysanthemums which will transition from bright pastels in early fall to deep autumn hues as the season progresses.

These are accented by the deep colors of Swiss Chard and ornamental peppers. The design was full of bright, uplifting colors. The mums are great bounding, eager masses of color and texture, and gave the whole garden space a sense of bright, light, clean loveliness.

All in all, the Como Park Conservatory is a fantastic place any time of year. It is a treasure for our Cities and a place that, without fail, lifts the spirits. It's also just really pretty.

You, dear reader, should go visit. Often.

-Catherine

A special treat:
From "Jewel of Como"
"The latest addition to the conservatory's art collection is a coin-operated animatronic figure created by Dean Lucker and donated in 2005 by Doe Hauser Stowell in memory of her husband, James Stowell. The statuette depicts a man leaning against a flowering tree while holding up a lighted carousel. With the deposit of a quarter, the carousel spins and the viewer receives a fortune. The whimsical statuette is the most recent expression of St. Paulites' strong connection to Como Park and its conservatory, and the desire to enhance it and to share with it their own favorite works of art."

Want to see it in action? And to know my fortune? Watch below...

Intermedia Arts and SOOVAC

Hello, dear readers!

Our excursion this week took us to the Lynlake neighborhood of Minneapolis, home to many trendy hipsters, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, "vintage" clothing stores, and art galleries. We will be ignoring all but the last.

The first of two galleries we visited was Intermedia Arts, which calls itself a "multidisciplinary, multicultural arts organization." It seems to focus a lot more on what I would term modern urban art.

The current exhibition is titled "Mama Said Knock U Out!" This show is comprised of female artists using Hip Hop culture to express themselves artistically through a variety of mediums. There were 28 different female artists that were featured, their work coming together to speak toward the female experience in Hip Hop culture and this world.

There were many different mediums of expression: drawings, paintings, sculpture, music and video installation, ect.

One of my favorite works was by Cateisha Pierson, titled "Sex Sells But We're Not Buying It".

It was an interesting mixed-media collage type work that spoke towards the experience of women in mass media as sex objects or commodities, and a rejection of those images. The colors and images were very bold, and the use of mixed media gave the work several dimensions.

Another piece I liked was a wood sculpture by Monica Kelly, titled "5 Steps Off The Wall". It depicted a tough female figure of Hip Hop culture in an action pose, with wings and extra sets of arms behind her, as if she were a modern cross between an angel and a Hindu goddess.

I really appreciated how the artist made such a modern, urban image out of natural wood, and really showcased the character of the wood grain in her sculpture, even using a cross cut section of a tree as a vinyl record. I really liked the combination of the materiel and the image, dichotomous in a way.

The outside of Intermedia Arts is an artistic showcase also, but for a very certain type of art: graffiti murals.

The front, side, and back of the building are covered in an array of graffiti murals, some of which match the female-oriented theme of the current exhibition. This spot can often be a showcase for some of the best graffiti muralists around, and are frequently changing.

For the arts organization, this is an excellent way to showcase the work of graffiti artists whose murals can be hard to find for the everyday observer, and also gives artists a safe, legal, eager canvas on which to do their work.

I also see this as a benefit to the larger community as well, for not only is there an ever-changing showcase of this type of art to freely view, but it also places graffiti art in a legitimate spot, and perhaps draws it away from being an unwanted nuisance in some areas, to being a wanted benefit here.


A few blocks down, we come upon SOOVAC (SOO Visual Arts Center), another arts organization that also shows more modern art. There are currently two exhibitions running: "Broken: New Works by Greg Gossel" and "Don't Worry, I Have A Map: New Works by Amy Rice".

The paintings of Greg Gossel all have a certain similar theme running through them. The images he uses are from old comic books and pulp novels, very retro pop culture.

He layers these images together in a dark conglomeration of emotion - mostly all of the women are distressed and crying, and a lot of the written conversation snippets included surround the breakdown of human relationships.

So much attention is paid to the tears of women that one can't help but wonder about his personal life.

The piece I liked from his show was titled "Runaway". Unlike most of the others, the featured female was not crying, but seemed to be fleeing (in that old fashioned, graceful way of flight), a suburban house in the background, fading behind her.

I liked the sense of a rejection of the proper life of domestication, of running into the unknown, but away from what would be a horrible and ill-fitting life with a pretty facade.

In the other gallery, the works of Amy Rice was a pleasant change from the other exhibitions of the day. Her work is simple and simply lovely, a slightly whimsical, innocent, and optimistic view of the world. She uses a variety of media, but all of her works were printed on beautifully cut pieces of wood, using the wood pieces as beautiful frames, and showcasing the natural woodgrain as background and feature. Her colors and images are light and airy, quiet yet truthful. They are very skillfully detailed, and hold a bit of childhood fantasy.

I loved them all. It's very hard to narrow it down to one, because I honestly thought they were all wonderful.

One of the other great things about the pieces was how the titles of the works were little stories or emotion or explanation of the scenes themselves, adding another dimension to the work. One that I really liked was a girl cuddling with her arms full of three geese, and it was called "You May Be Surprised At What You Grow To Love".

Between the image and the title, it expressed thoughts of things which could be viewed as everyday beings slowly becoming those dearest to your heart.


I must say, both of the galleries were nice, yet I appreciated SOOVAC a bit more. I felt that Intermedia had a lot of different styles and artists in a small space, which could be a bit overwhelming and distracting.
I liked that the exhibitions at SOOVAC focused on one artist/theme at a time, and were well spaced, giving you the ability to pay full attention to one piece at a time.

However, I think that both these spaces are important for showcasing modern and urban art that may not always get the full attention of other types of art.

Oh, and the Amy Rice works are incredibly reasonably priced. Seriously consider adding one of these to your home and also, y'know, helping local artists and all that.

Thank you, dear readers. I'll see you next week, same bat time, same bat channel!
-Catherine

The Museum of Russian Art

This week, we trekked to the far southernmost reaches of Minneapolis to visit a place a I've been meaning to check out for years, The Museum of Russian Art.
TMORA is an interesting museum - Russian art housed in a repurposed Spanish Colonial Revival church. It may seem like an odd combination, but it works well. More on that later.
There are two exhibits currently on display at TMORA, "Photographer to the Tsar: Revealing the Silk Road", and "Russkiy Salon: Select Favorites and Newly Revealed Works."
BUT WAIT! There is a twist in the plot this week! Upon walking into TMORA, it was discovered that there is NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED! OOOooooooOOOOOooooooOOOO! In keeping with the pattern of being a respectful and responsible adult, the only shots I took myself were of the exterior. This means....we shall have to rely mainly on the power of words for description(with a little help from other sources)! Hold on tight, my lovely readers...


"Photographer to the Tsar: Revealing the Silk Road" is an exhibition that features the works of Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii, a groundbreaking figure in the field of color photography. Prokudin-Gorskii developed a revolutionary way of producing color photographs at a time when photography itself was getting started. His plan, fully supported by Tsar Nicholas II, was to document the expanse of the Russian Empire using his photographic techniques. The images featured in this exhibition come from two trips he made along the ancient Silk Road, in 1906-1907, and 1911. He was able to capture images on big glass slides in his revolutionary color technique, and then presented them to the Tsar. I was told by the museum employee that the images were displayed by lighting the slides from behind, and the images in the exhibition were of the same format, allowing us to see them as the Tsar himself originally did.

The exhibition is being shown in the lower level of the museum, and the way the photographs were displayed allowed for a truly incredible experience. The room itself is dark grey and unlit, with the photographic slides displayed on the front of specially designed light boxes, illuminated from behind. This gives a glowing effect to the large images, as the only light in the room emanates from them, illuminating the rich colors in an incredible way. The beautiful presentation really brought the images to life, made them stand out in an exceptional way.

Fortunately for us, the surviving slides were purchased by the Library of Congress many years ago, making them freely accessible to all, though the reproduced images really don't have the same effect as the slides that were displayed at TMORA.
(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
The images are quite incredible, documentation of people, places, a way of life from long ago, yet the incredible fact that the images are in color brings the experience to a whole new level. Also, the photographic quality of the images is exceptional. The focus and detail is comparable to some of the best photographic methods we have today. That quality, combined with the vivid color, makes the images feel real and present, as if this excursion had been undertaken last year, not last century, more like a feature you'd find in National Geographic than a glimpse into a bygone era.
(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
It is hard to keep in mind that most of the images from this time are faded black and white, representations of a reality that seem disconnected and hard to place in proper context as they lack the colors and tones that make up this world. That the images are in color makes them a wonderful representation of a life and a time that feels much more real, like you can step into this place and connect with these people.
(Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
As the images feel much more present, it makes me wonder what has changed, or what is the same as it was 100 years ago.


Heading back upstairs, the main and mezzanine levels are displaying "Russkiy Salon: Select Favorites and Newly Revealed Works." These are all paintings, oil on canvas, and all pretty modern, in that the oldest work displayed was from 1884. The works covered the span from then to modern day. Unfortunately, we do not have other sources of images of these works, so you'll have to use your imagination, or go see for yourself!

There were a good number of pieces, though not a large variety. Most of the paintings were images representative of real life, perhaps "realism" would be the term, and only a handful of other styles like impressionist/expressionist, abstract, ect.

One of my favorites was "Ironworkers" by Olga Dmitrievna Yanovskaya (1930). It was a smaller piece, depicting the dark silhouettes of ironworkers in the foreground, captured in animated poses, their bodies strong and bent, hammering and working with iron, imposed in front of a fiery red background. Though the image was simple, one could almost hear the clang of metal, feel the intense heat of the fire, smell the sweat of the workers. It was a very powerful image.

Another was found up on the mezzanine level, and I have to say, I didn't realize it was a painting until I was standing right in front of it. The painting was so realistic that from a casual glance it looked like a display box that housed accouterments from a life in the Soviet Republic. It is called "Social", by Geli Mikhailovich Korzhev (1992). The background is a single sheet of Russian newspaper, hung flat, and set or hung in front of that are certain trappings of a certain life: an axe, sitting on its head, with its handle resting against the newspaper, casting a shadow towards a dirty and beat-up pair of old leather work boots, above which hangs a drab, olive green jacket, with a fur hat hanging beside it. It is a very realistic display, and evokes a sense of a lifetime of hard and unforgiving work.

Lastly, the is a painting whose image I have been unable to get out of my head. It is "Female Portrait" by Leonid Pavlovich Zusman (1930s). It is a simple image, but different than almost all the others here portraying people, which are all images of citizens engaging in activities of their everyday life, working or socializing, the things they are doing as much of a part of the image as they themselves are. This particular painting, however, was a portrait of a woman against a dark background, her head thrown back, looking directly at the viewer with slitted eyes, and pursed lips, evaluating the viewer with a slightly hostile tone, her dark hair unkempt. She has a sense of being totally self-possessed, the opposite of the female form reclining submissively for all to criticize. She looks down at the viewer with the tables turned, as you stand in judgement before her. She is very powerful.

(In Soviet Russia, paintings look at YOU!)

The TMORA building itself is interesting as well. What was once a church that was constructed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style was recreated into a museum for Russian art.
(my loyal steed Face Grater rests alone at the bike rack they thoughtfully provide)
Though it may seem an odd combination, it works well. The interior space is used well, with the center altar area used to display large works, and the smaller areas created by pillar along the sides of the nave work as smaller display areas. This allows for pieces to be paid individualized attention, as they are not all displayed in one open area, but rather given a special cove. The great height has been used to create another level (mezzanine) above the main area, with works hung all around the edges and accessed by a walkway that is open to the area below in the center, so as not to cut off the open space. even the separate rooms off the side of the altar have been repurposed into an educational area on the techniques of restoring paintings, complete with a short video that was quite interesting. Though the entire area is not that big, the space is used well.

One note I would like to make about TMORA is that I was surprised at the limited scope of the art they displayed. While the space is small, I would have thought that at least a small area would be set aside to display a larger variety of works cover a wider time frame. The Russian civilaization has spanned more than a thousand years, and to only include work from the last 100 or so seems to be a bit of a disservice, and to limit that work to one medium is unfortunate. Though I was there to see the two exhibitions, I would have loved it if my time in the world of Russian art included a broader sampling in addition. No glowing Orthodox Ikons on cracking wood, no folk arts or crafts...I was hoping for a larger slice of the vast and varied land, culture, and history of Russia.

Nevertheless, it is worth the trip.

Do svidaniya!

-Catherine