Author: rakemag

Vast and stark, repetitive and meditative, this pair of video installations lulls viewers into transcending their own boredom. In The Desert Sweepers, a crew of street sweepers in orange vests gently rake sand into small piles in an endless, digitally enhanced desert. Tse herself appears in Echo, playing cello in a stunning alpine valley, accompanied by her own echo bouncing off the mountains. Tse came out of nowhere (by international art scene standards) when these works were exhibited in the pavilion for her native Luxembourg at the 2003 Venice Biennale and won the Golden Lion award. Also on view: an installation by Minneapolitan Margaret Pezalla-Granlund. We last enjoyed her wry cardboard models of parking ramps at the Soap Factory; here she offers icebergs that float from the ceiling, accompanied by lighthouses anchored to the walls. 1021 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-872-7494; www.franklinartworks.org

Rock ‘n’ roll was always meant to be heard and seen. While Hip Art That’s Square, a show last year at Goldstein, examined the art of the album cover through the eyes of a local collector, this exhibit, organized by the Museum of Design in Atlanta, focuses on that more public and transient medium, the concert poster. Graphic Noise unrolls the history of rock ‘n’ roll through nearly five hundred posters by nearly 150 artists, spanning decades, genres, and countries, not to mention styles: elegant lithographs, choice moments captured on film, vivid expressionistic exercises, op-art masterpieces, psychedelic paint fits, and computer-assisted imaginations. Appropriately enough, this is a touring show; in our Cities it will be supplemented by the local Post No Bills: Gig Posters of the Twin Cities. 2501 Stevens Ave., Minneapolis; 612-874-3700; www.mcad.edu

Gary Baseman’s artwork is amazingly insidious: It’s part of the Cranium board game, corporate logos and ad campaigns for the likes of Disney and Starbucks, and the Teacher’s Pet animated television series and movies. It commonly includes elements like dogs leaking worms and cats dripping blood, with bones popping out, naughty skeletons, and other creatures riddled by various agents of decay. Yet these figures are often cuter than cute, grinning delightedly in the midst of their woes–it’s that balance of darkness and dorkiness that explains, at least in part, his popularity. This exhibit focuses on Baseman’s paintings, so it’s bound to revel in the kind of perversity that ensues when it’s a devil, rather than a corporate client, peering over his shoulder. 1111 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-259-0085; www.ox-op.com

This tribute to the fleeting beauties of urban living includes the obvious (photographs of neighborhoods that face the wrecking ball, by Mike Melman, taken just before dawn), the subtle (an installation of teacups representing the teahouses of Japan, by Tetsuya Yamada), and the surreal (David Lefkowitz’s cityscapes built from Styrofoam packing materials)–plus work from seven other international artists who interpret city life through a diverse range of media. 405 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-624-6518; nash.umn.edu

Pedicord Apartments, the installation in which viewers/voyeurs to walk down the hallway of an apartment building and eavesdrop on the “tenants,” has always been one of the more popular artworks at the Weisman Art Museum. Now the Minnesota History Center takes Ed and Nancy Kienholz’s idea a few steps further. In the Railroad Island neighborhood on St. Paul’s East Side, an entire house has been outfitted with the domestic and cultural ephemera of various people who have lived there since the Victorian era, including German, Italian, African-American, and Hmong families. Photographs, furniture, toys, and personal effects, along with home movies and oral histories recorded by past Railroad Island residents, intertwine American home life and the immigrant experience. 470 Hopkins St., St. Paul; www.mnhs.org

Kaye Gibbons took her own sweet time in getting around to writing a sequel to her debut novel, Ellen Foster–twenty years, actually, but who’s keeping track? The Life All Around Me catches up with Ellen Foster while she’s still in her teens, so if it’s been two decades for you as well, it may behoove you to reread the first book before plunging into the latest. Don’t think of it as required reading so much as an opportunity to revisit one of the best and earliest works in the “sick and twisted American childhood” genre (which seems to be dominated by Southern women). Gibbons’ elegant and emotional prose creates oddly uplifting material out of tales of child abuse, which is no small feat. Fortunately, her protagonist has moved beyond all that in this book, and applies all of her hard-earned wisdom and pluck on her way to a spectacular new grown-up life. You’ll doubtless hear more about the travails of Gibbons’ heroine, and about the other, highly praised volumes she wrote during the incubation of her long-awaited sequel, at this reading and discussion.

Phil Donlay’s Category Five is the sort of ripping good yarn that real guys are supposed to like. All the archetypal, Ian Fleming elements are in place: a hot-shot zipping around the world in hot airplanes and cars, a brilliant and beautiful love interest, and plenty of personal and political intrigue. And to keep things clipping along, the plot whirls around in the vortex of a Category Five hurricane that is about to destroy a major American city. The flying sequences are hair-raising, so we’re not sure we can in good conscience recommend this as an airplane read, although Donlay could perhaps calm our fears with some more prosaic stories from his real life: When he’s not writing, he flies jets for a living. And as real guys will understand, that’s cool.

The masterful Julian Barnes returns with an epic, complex, and fascinating tale of two men brought together by a third, fictional character: Sherlock Holmes. In the midst of grieving the death of his wife, Holmes’ creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is roused from a deep depression when he receives a letter from a man who has been wrongfully convicted of bizarre crimes, requesting the assistance of the writer (and his legendary deductive skills) in proving his innocence. Loosely based on true events, the tale unfolds so gracefully that the identity of the famous writer isn’t immediately obvious. Barnes manages to transform one of the most storied–and critically examined–personalities in literary history into a vivid figment of his own imagination, and turns this interesting historical episode into an engrossing mystery all his own.

Some people are masters at creating their own mystique. Notable examples include Greta Garbo, J.D. Salinger, and, more recently, J.T. LeRoy, who may not even exist if you ask the New York Times. Terrence Malick would be high on such a list as well. A filmmaker who declines interviews and doesn’t like to be photographed, Malick has forced judgment based solely on the merits of the small number of films he’s directed: Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line. Lucky for him, and for the filmgoing public, each of his offerings has been gorgeous and brilliant. In Malick’s films, nature is grand and expansive, creating an enveloping context for his characters. Each setting–whether it’s a Texas wheat field filmed at the “golden hour” or a South Dakota prairie barren enough to encapsulate the psyche of a bored, murdering teenager–serves as a nuanced and complicated character unto itself. No doubt the same is true of Malick’s latest, The New World, which retells the fabled story of Pocahontas (Q’Orianka Kilcher) and Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), who helped found Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607.

Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, former grouse-beater for the Queen Mother, tries to drive an Oscar from the Hollywood moors by writing this original screenplay for the celebrated Merchant Ivory production team. Ismail Merchant’s death in May makes The White Countess the duo’s final production, and it’s a strange one. Against the backdrop of pre-World War II Shanghai, a blind diplomat struggles to keep his sanity after the death of his family. He falls in with a disgraced Russian countess who supports her family by working for tips in a sordid nightclub. The Redgrave women (Natasha Richardson, mother Vanessa, and aunt Lynn), Hiroyuki Sanada (the “Tom Cruise of Japan”), and Ralph Fiennes, in his sixth film of the year, give this bizarre and complex tale a sheen of elegance.