Month: June 2008

  • Lyre

    There are certain works of art the body wholly understands before the mind kicks in with its distancing powers of disembodied detachment and analysis. In the Twin Cities, there is very little art in the public realm — in what we now call "the commons"– that does this. Most public art, strained through the cheesecloth…

  • Serious Art

    Here’s a truism of modern art: Every new generation of emerging young artists is convinced it will reinvent the culture. And, strangely enough, they all go about this reinvention pretty much in the same way: By making a bunch of meaningless noise. Think of Tristan Tzara here, and his poems that go nowhere. Think of…

  • Topless. Chicks. With Sticks.

    Like summer is upon us and will be gone faster than Flo Rida will be hot. With this in mind, I have to make a confession. I love women in convertibles (primarily) who shift their own cars. I want the summer streets filled with them. So. Here are my top three picks for the best…

  • An Insatiable Lover

    We’ve been having some pretty ridiculously great weather lately. If I had a real job (sorry, Mom), I probably would have played hooky last week to go and hang out by one of the lakes. Instead I just read a bit by Calhoun, but without the sense of freedom (or guilt) of having emancipated myself…

  • The Paintings Have Been Drinking (Not Me)

    Travel back with me, if you will for just a moment, to those happy, halcyon days of the year 2001. Oh, what a time to be a young American artist it was! The world waited breathlessly for the final bombshell in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster film cycle to drop (spoiler: Gary Gilmore did it!), and your…

  • Storytime at The Guthrie

    PERFORMANCE Studio Stories: Kevin Kling and John McCutcheon Engaging storyteller Kevin Kling and award-winning folksinger/musician John McCutcheon join forces to bring you an evening of off-the-cuff performance in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio. Kling, perhaps best known for his commentaries on NPR’s All Things Considered, and definitely for his autobiographical storytelling performances, will enrapture you with…