Month: February 2007

Sure, you know Dylan’s from these parts, but do you really know Dylan? This retrospective of his early years, curated by Seattle’s Experience Music Project, should appeal to casual fans and obsessives alike, tracing his evolution from Hibbing rock ’n’ roller to Dinkytown folk-scenester, then on to New York, where he was destined to achieve…

Like all good minimalists, Rollin Marquette trains his focus on the materials he works with: individual servings of pasteurized cheese-food product poked through chicken wire, or plastic tubes filled with electric-green antifreeze, or, in his latest installation, balsa wood and steel. Wedged into two galleries at the MIA (and piercing the wall between them), this…

Life at the Grande Chartreuse monastery, nestled deep within the French Alps, has remained virtually unchanged for almost a thousand years. Following their motto, “The Cross is steady while the world is turning,” these Carthusian monks live entirely in silence and are even cloistered from one another. In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning sought permission…

Six regionally based artists take cues from nature in artworks that are—and this is not intended as a backhanded compliment—both clever and stylish. Made from foam, plastic, and felt, Liz Miller’s Errant Ecosystem sprawls over three walls with graphical aplomb, while Holly Anderson Jorde’s quartet of seasonal ceramic assemblages radiates a 50s vibe. And the…

This fiddling, clogging, four-girl jug band reveres old-time American music, rabble-rousing, and knocking down gender boundaries. But unlike their compatriots the Dixie Chicks, Uncle Earl’s music is open to a wide range of influences. How else to explain their choice of Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones as producer, their occasional lyrics sung in Mandarin Chinese,…

Every time we see an ad for the Gap’s laughably unattractive Red campaign for Africa, we cringe for Bono. The man who started his career writing great political songs should stick to that, rather than shilling a failing clothier’s misguided marketing schemes. He could take a cue from Ted Leo, whose catchy and beguiling indie…