photo by Raffy Abasolo(Cover photo by Brian Hayes) Strange and terrible things happen all over the world every day, of course, as well as wonderful things, things merely prosaically sad, irresistibly trivial, or urgently relevant to our lives. People suffer and die in far-away places and in neighborhoods where we live. Legislation is debated and … Read more
Maybe this has happened to you. But it was my first time. It was a Monday afternoon, and I’d made a date to meet C., a former colleague, for a drink. I was a little late getting to the restaurant, my head fuzzy from a summer cold. So I pulled into the first parking place … Read more
Musicians Steve Roehm, Chan Poling, and John Munson have a knack for freshening up the classics. Here, the trio pays tribute to the old-fashioned practice of dressing for dinner, patronizing two St. Paul establishments with timeless style. Special thanks: Concept, productions, and styling by Janine Ersfeld Photography by Aaron Smith Art direction … Read more
Catherine Sullivan, erstwhile dorm-mate of local dancer Dylan Skybrook (who collaborated on this show), now fields world-wide commissions to make her critically acclaimed video installations and films. For Triangle of Need, her latest project, Sullivan produced eight different works for simultaneous projection. At the heart of these disparate strands of images are three locations: the … Read more
This young (got his BFA from MCAD in 2005) and fast-rising (fellowships from Jerome, McKnight, Bush, and Skowhegan) Minneapolis artist works in the mode of the moment: a combinatoire of painting, assemblage, ragpicking, and video. These are fragmented times we live in, and it’s artists like Bryant who pull together the pieces of exploding cultures … Read more
This somewhat mysterious exhibition, curated by Elizabeth Grady of the Whitney Museum, seeks to use the Soap Factory itself as subject and object. The grandeur and melancholy of the Factory, not to mention the deeply ingrained scent of soap and labor with which the place is imbued, have long been the best aspect of shows … Read more
Megan Rye’s brother supervised the regional detention facility in Fallujah and transported Iraqi detainees within the Sunni Triangle. He took more than two thousand photographs during his tour of duty. As a painter, his sister is the real deal; she used these images to make huge paintings that are for keeps. These paintings are part … Read more
Let’s call this a hybrid of the fictional Brazilian exposé City of God and Errol Morris’s police procedure doc The Thin Blue Line—both tremendous entertainment. Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)is a bizarre documentary detailing the rise of corruption in Brazilian culture as well as the country’s kidnapping epidemic. “Men will steal with a gun or … Read more
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht may never have had it so good. G. W. Pabst, who brought Louise Brooks to fame in his silent (and seductive) 1929 masterpiece Pandora’s Box, this time took to sound production and dirtied up the silver screen like never before. The Threepenny Opera tells the story of Mackie Messer (a.k.a. … Read more
Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin are rugged men investigating the murder of a veteran who had just returned home from Iraq. The new Coen brothers’ film? No, that’s the eagerly-anticipated No Country for Old Men, which also stars this pair. Elah, on the other hand, is the first vehicle from director/screenwriter Paul Haggis since … Read more