Pssst….

Well, the biggest secret today is clearly our new website. Be sure to check it and enjoy our new features. No more buried content! You’ll find a much airier feel all around — I hope. Hell, forget about going out. Just spend the weekend digging through the archives and emailing articles to your friends. I’m joking, of course — but there are indeed some great articles back there.

Ok. Onward. There are, after all, some great events this weekend.

ART
From Zinnia Seeds to Zinnia Still-Lifes — Art Attack

The Northrup King business is currently just one facet of a global conglomerate, but the massive complex of ten buildings in Northeast Minneapolis retained the name of the seed company founded over a hundred years ago. Now, of course, those buildings all crank out art and crafts. With more than 125 creative tenants, there’s no shortage of goods to peruse, but everything’s concentrated in one location, which is a boon for those of us who are getting on in years, or who are just plain lazy (we’re both). If you find Art-a-Whirl overwhelming, this is the art fair you want. Look for a special exhibit in NKB’s group room marking the fair’s tenth anniversary, with historical displays about the seed company as well as art inspired by present-day activities in the complex. —Julie Caniglia

Friday from 5 to 10 p.m., Saturday 12 – 8 p.m., Sunday 12 – 5 p.m.); Northrup King Building,1500 Jackson St. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-363-5612.

Naked Wonder: Mark Dion, Christine Baeumler, and Eleanor McGough

Colleen Sheehy, curator at the Weisman, put together a nature-themed
show with this Bob Dylan epigraph: “The sky cracked its poems in naked
wonder.” She chose Mark Dion’s candid deer portraits, Eleanor McGough’s
paintings of natural subjects subsumed into lushly decorative patterns,
and Christine Baeumler’s paintings from her recent trip to the
Galapagos and the Great Barrier Reef. Sheehy chose “curator artists”:
Dion has always been interested in what museums do to their subjects,
the animals or art that end up in them; McGough seizes flowers,
branches, cells, and proliferates their patterns, creating a decorative
context that acts much like a museum in deracinating the subjects.
Baeumler seems better able to stand back—in the past, her paintings
often contained such patterns and grids, but these new ones seem to
find rather than seek. —Ann Klefstad

Opening reception on Saturday from to 9 p.m., Gallery Co., 400 First Ave. N., Suite 210, Minneapolis; 612-332-5252.

MUSIC
Lovely Leila

She’s one of those classical music babes—a twenty-something player who, on account on her good looks, packs no small amount of marketing punch. But the peripatetic violinist Leila Josefowicz also has serious chops. She performed with such top-ten orchestras as Cleveland and Philadelphia while still in her teens, for heaven’s sake, and has since managed to forge a successful solo career. She has a passion for new music; she is known, in particular, for playing the works of contemporary composer John Adams. (As for Adams, he is perhaps best known for his operas Nixon In China and Doctor Atomic.) This weekend Josefowicz plays solo on an Adams violin concerto (written in 1993/4) with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. —Christy DeSmith

Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., Ordway Center, 345 Washington St., St. Paul; 651-291-1144; $11-$59.

And, of course, if you’re looking for some fabulous old-school rock, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing at the Xcel Energy Center this evening, Friday, at 7:30 p.m. Yes, the tickets are steep ($67-$97), but Sprinsteen is always worth the cost of admission.

FILM
American Gangster Finally Opens

Between the Coens’ new shoot-’em-up and American Gangster, this year’s Oscar contenders will probably be slam-bang pieces of entertainment. In Gangster, Denzel Washington plays African-American mob boss Frank Lucas,
who ruled ’70s Harlem by making his product—heroin—better and cheaper
than his rivals’, while simultaneously becoming one of the city’s great
civic leaders. Opposing him is one Russell Crowe,
an “outcast cop,” who is equally possessed of a solid moral ethic
amongst a corrupt force. These two men will meet, bullets will fly, and
all the while we’ll be treated to some awesome ’70s imagery, great
music, and two of the sexiest leading men to go head to head in a movie
since Heat. —Peter Schilling

Opens today at area theaters.