Put those thoughts about “wearable art ”—the tie-dyed caftans and bat-winged tunics made from elaborately loomed, jewel-colored fabrics—right out of your head. With artists like Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, Yinka Shonibare, and The Art Guys, this exhibit is more like a bizarre, intellectualized version of Project Runway. Spanning five decades, its thirty-nine garments and other … Read more
Is there a seasonal approach to art, as there is to eating? If summer puts one in the mood for sprightly, challenging, out-there work from contemporary kids, does that make fall and winter best for cozying up to rich, impressive oils from long-dead Europeans? If so, then this traveling show hits our town at the … Read more
Norsten is one of those Minneapolis painters whose many, quiet years spent with his nose to the grindstone are paying off with higher-profile recognition of late: a slot in the Whitney Biennial earlier this year and a new affiliation with a New York gallery. Some (okay, it’s those dealers in New York) associate Norsten and … Read more
Virtually unknown here, Morrisseau is revered in his native Canada. The influential Woodland style of painting he developed stemmed from an isolated childhood in northern Ontario, where he was inspired by petroglyphs and drawings on birchbark scrolls, but also cautioned by his elders against indulging his own visions. He eventually gave in to his artistic … Read more
With its proximity to Macalester College, this new Mediterranean grill seems poised to fulfill student cravings for falafel, gyros, and kebabs. Shish’s hummus ranks as some of the best in the city, and for under seven dollars, you can get this lemony spread with a generous portion of gyros—a nice deal for wallet-watchers. The Shish … Read more
Lager-battered onion rings, homemade ginger ale, and Frogger on a flat-screen TV. Is there really any other way to spend your lunch hour? The Chatterbox’s new outpost in Highland Park, a onetime Perkins, has been refashioned as a hipster den full of vintage couches and paint-by-number artworks—though it seems slightly more polished than the original … Read more
Italian food had already gone from molto chic (oooh, pesto!) to ultrapedestrian shtick (humph, another Olive Garden) before carbohydrates, and thus pasta, went out of fashion. What has diners coming back to this cuisine, locally at least, is a mini-renaissance of neighborhood restaurants that focus more on Italian flavors than on heaping mounds of pasta. … Read more
What do you get when you put two eight-hundred-pound gorillas—er, Minnesota literary lions—in the same room? Hey, we’re just joshing! Truth is, Robert Bly and Garrison Keillor were entirely at ease with each other when Bly appeared onstage, along with his buddy Donald Hall, at one of Keillor’s “Literary Friendships” events last year. Which, come … Read more
Goldberg is known for the best-selling Bee Season, a novel that adeptly portrays a family’s unraveling in its desperate search for some sense of fulfillment. In her follow-up novel, Wickett’s Remedy, Goldberg’s smooth writing continues to make suffering, this time from World War I and influenza, seem beautiful. The book is filled with voices: the … Read more
The tiny literary journal Rain Taxi seems to top itself every year, lining up an increasingly impressive array of authors and other writerly types for its one-day book festival. Among this year’s eleven presenters: Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will read from her new book Half of a Yellow Sun; rock historian Steven Lee Beeber, … Read more