Author: rakemag

Although we’ve been appalled by plenty of McMansions, we still find the greater mystery to be the look of inexpensive homes, which can be the epitome of ugly. Can’t inexpensive mean simple and attractive? The HOME House Project demonstrates that low-cost (or at least lower-cost) homes can be creative, inspiring, sustainable, innovative, and even beautiful. Moreover, the exhibit takes the view that they really should be all of these things, if people are going to care for and invest in them. On view are award-winning visions from more than a hundred local and national architects tackling a critical issue. 333 East River Rd., Minneapolis; 612-625-9494; www.weisman.umn.edu

Duckworth is most often celebrated for her work in porcelain, which has the opaque, milky presence of bone, gives off a sensual glow, and inspires a surprisingly emotional response. As she says, “there’s no other material that so effectively communicates both fragility and strength.” The steadily productive eighty-seven-year-old artist has been sculpting evocative forms from ceramic and metal since she fled Nazi Germany at age seventeen; her influences range from ancient Egyptian sculpture and Henry Moore to, most evident in her porcelain works, Isamu Noguchi and Constantin Brancusi. Duckworth eschews naming any of her work, so as to refrain from giving any suggestions to viewers (though she does profess a deep concern for ecological issues). Contrasting with her delicate porcelain tabletop pieces, her figurative work is more to the point: human and animal figures strike expressive and even humorous poses. Also included in this retrospective, which includes some eighty-five pieces and spans almost fifty years, are ceramic murals, carved stone pieces, and bronze castings. 612-870-3131; www.artsmia.org

The art of book illustration is particularly revered in Iraqi culture; traditionally, artists have enhanced religious, contemporary, and political texts with highly detailed, almost baroque imagery. Today they are equally likely to turn to abstract, colorful expressions that tell new stories in a new way. The three-dimensional works of seventeen Iraqi book artists are on display in this rare glimpse of the people with whom we are now entwined, and it’s made abundantly clear that art is a far more effective communication tool than any press conference. 1 North College St., Northfield; 507-646-4469. Part of the exhibit then travels to the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Suite 100, Minneapolis; 612-215-2520; www.mnbookarts.org

As portraiture exhibitions go, this one is pretty crackling: Osama bin Laden in airbrush, five-foot-square photographs of blood-soaked extreme fighters, a painstaking oil rendering of Louisa May Alcott, a Marlene Dietrich-inspired video presentation, and a sculptural self-portrait using years’ worth of garbage are just some of the faces greeting viewers here. In all, nine local artists–Ernest Arthur Bryant III, Katinka Galanos, David Hamlow, Suzanne Kosmalski, Anthony Marchetti, Peter B. Becker Nelson, Ben Olson, Xavier Tavera, and Jay Wittenberg–offer up more than thirty unconventional portraits. 50 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul; 651-266-1030; www.mmaa.org

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Henrik Ibsen’s death. And what better way to commemorate the solemn dramatist than with a wallop of theatrical desperation, accompanied by some Norwegian rosemaling workshops? Around these parts, there’s no finer Ibsen-obsessed company than Commonweal Theatre. Based down in the hip hamlet of Lanesboro, Commonweal Theatre is firmly rooted in southern Minnesota’s Scandinavian community, where it hosts an Ibsen festival that is now nine years strong (the festival runs February 3 – 6). This year, Commonweal stages When We Dead Awaken, a stoic play about an aging artist that is, coincidentally, the last in the Ibsen catalog. 206 Parkway Ave. N., Lanesboro; 800-657-7025; www.commonwealtheatre.org

Minneapolis’ Theatre de la Jeune Lune and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based American Repertory Theatre seemed to be a match made in heaven when the pair put on Molire’s The Miser last year. But the dream team will wander into uncharted territory this year with a joint adaptation of Franz Kafka’s unfinished book, Amerika. Kafka, whose feet never touched American soil, wrote of confused and cruel American landscapes, including an impossibly long bridge connecting Boston to Manhattan, and a sword-wielding Statue of Liberty. This stage adaptation will likely be dark and brooding–it is Kafka, after all–but we’re holding out hope for a few moments of profound beauty. 105 First St. N., Minneapolis; 612-333-6200; www.jeunelune.org

This audacious revision turns Tchaikovsky’s dainty and classic ballet on its head. And in the process, it shakes out a story with more complexity, emotional depth, and humor than any production of Swan Lake we’ve seen before. A bare-chested bevy of cobs–that’s the word for male swans, you know–helps express the frustrations of a young prince who is struggling to find his place in the royal world, understand his sexuality, and forge relationships with uptight family members and exotic new friends. This thoroughly modern psychological drama takes the prince to dark places where drugs, suicide, and repression help uncover deeply buried truths. But a thick edge of humor, along with bold staging and special effects, makes this event as thrilling as it is thought-provoking. 805 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-339-7007; www.hennepintheatredistrict.com

We have to admit it: Sheer exoticism is part of the appeal of this group from the tiny Siberian republic of Tuva. Elaborate silk outfits, stringed instruments with horse-head headstocks, and an otherworldly singing style in which one man produces up to three tones simultaneously–it doesn’t get much “other” than this. But the remarkable thing, when you sit in a roomful of people spellbound by this spectacle, is just how universal this quartet’s art is. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling a lost love or contemplating the heavens. 416 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-338-2674; www.thecedar.org

Nick Cave has forged an incredibly sprawling, prolific career. The brooding Australian punk rocker, novelist, and Goth balladeer has been known to leave his audiences in tears of rapture with live renditions of his exquisitely miserable music. He’s enhanced the film world with his soundtracks for several Wim Wenders films and the 2003 documentary Winged Migration, and he’s even acted in a few movies (most notably in Wings of Desire). For The Proposition, his latest film project, he provided both the story, about a pair of outlaw brothers roaming the Australian Outback during the 1880s, and this appropriately haunting and ambient soundtrack, a collaboration with violinist Warren Ellis.

Transforming a homely, second-rate child actress into a scorching-hot indie rock femme fatale is an endeavor usually plotted more with wishful thinking than actual viable talent. But Jenny Lewis, whom you’ll remember from, well, nothing (her acting career included Beverly Hills Troop and other 1980s atrocities), has a sweet and silky voice that deftly plays many roles, including Postal Service backup singer and Rilo Kiley frontwoman. Now, with Rabbit Fur Coat, she’s added country-soul songstress. For this outstanding side project, Lewis’s off-kilter pop sensibility is inflected with country, 1960s soul, and folk motifs; working with the gospel-slinging Watson Twins on backup was an inspired choice for these thematic explorations of religion, romance, and revenge.