Posts RSS: blogs.walkerart.org/rss.wac
Comments RSS: blogs.walkerart.org/comments_rss.wac
↓Recent Comments
I’ve recently started work at the Walker as its grassroots coordinator, advocating for the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board’s legislative bonding request to restore and preserve the 22-year-old Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. (If you have yet to show your support for the project, please visit http://garden.walkerart.org/bonding to learn more and to write your legislator.) As part [...]
Perhaps because this New Yorker article was fresh in my mind, but all throughout Baghdad/Seattle Suite I kept thinking about chess. It became clearer after the show: the article describes Bill Frisell’s style as “Minefield America, a forbidding territory of ascetic, chesslike improvisations—multidirectional interactions in which every note counts, every modulation is eventful, and [...]
With their boundless curiosity, fertile imagination, and a natural mastery of the art of self-directed learning, children have much to teach adults about creativity and innovation. That’s perhaps even more true with today’s “digital natives,” says developmental psychologist Edith Ackermann, whose work explores—and exploits—the intersections of play, learning, design, and technology. An [...]
In looking forward to the upcoming events of “Expanding the Frame: Journeys,” a parallel revealed itself to me, whether intentional or not. Besides the theme of journeys, another common thread that binds the films and artists together is the persistence of vision. This diligence spans beyond the artistry and transcends to a humanistic plane. This [...]
It is a very busy couple of weeks for local art openings, events and opportunites. Here are a few picks to consider. Mark your calendar. 1. John Gossage: Here . . . Half Blind at the Rochester Art Center Opening Reception Saturday January 30, 2010 Rochester Art Center presents a new body of work by Washington D.C. based photographer [...]
Tauba Auerbach is a San Francisco and New York-based artist first known for her text-based paintings, who has since broadened her scope, adding photography and instrument making to her repertoire. She–in addition to Jean Luc Godard, the subject of my last post–is a non-designer who inspires my design practice. A: Hello Tauba. What is your view? T: This [...]
Following up on the mid-November blog posting, which introduced the new Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative (OSCI) at the Walker, is a report from our big meeting at the Getty Center last week where all of the grantee institutions convened. In attendance were Andrew Blauvelt (Design), Robin Dowden (New Media), Betsy Carpenter (Visual Arts), and myself, [...]
For our exhibition Benches and Binoculars, I was asked to create a touchscreen kiosk. The artwork in Benches and Binoculars is hung salon-style, making it impractical to use wall labels on works that are hanging 20 feet up in the air. Many get around this by having a gallery “map” (and our Design [...]
Recent Comments
LOVE PREVAILS
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Ellie / Scott
This is why you told us to check the blogs! haha thanks!
LOVE PREVAILS
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Ellie / Scott
that's why you told us to check the blog! haha thanks
Two Questions on The Great War
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: skewedvisions
Theresa, thanks for doing this via blog. I'm always much less idiotic and insane in print, so this'll let me engage in a relatively thoughtful dialog instead of just stammering in person (or via IM, or that old chestnut "phone call"). I realized I was relying on promo blurbs (including their website) a little too heavily in this last posting, and it was mostly to remind me of what I had seen. Like many of us I have a mind that has been replaced by the ability to Google. Why remember anything when you can just type it and get a half dozen more-or-less detailed reminders in less than a second? I think I needed this reminder in part because I enjoyed the piece. Ever notice how when something is really atrocious it sticks in your head like that bug Khan put in Chekhov's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hsK2YKphDA" rel="nofollow">helmet</a>? Well, when things are better I tend to lose them to the ether. Bringing people in is hard for anything (other than American Idol or the Grammys, <a href="http://news-briefs.ew.com/2010/02/02/grammy-tops-week-ratings/" rel="nofollow">apparently</a>. But look at how little effort they are requiring of their audience. How hard is it to turn on the TiVo? Oof, just got my exercise for the day. Bring me a high-quality alcoholic beverage. I can't wait to tweet this!). I imagine being good at promotion is a little like being famous (which I plan to experience before I die). When people come up to you on the street and think they know you and will act like morons to please you. You know? So my comparison is that if you're good at bringing people in it's a little bit beyond your control, that all the work you've done (and had others do for you for next to nothing) to promote you reaches a critical mass and people show up no matter what you say. (That people make no rational connection between your work and the reason they are stealing your unfinished sandwich. Because there is none.) There are some who will come because it's you (like it is even of you're anonymous and only your mother shows up), there are others who will come because they know someone who's coming (your mother's friends), and so on and so forth until all the work "pays off" and you're, like, Rick Astley (whose birthday is, like, this Saturday!). I think much promotion is targeted, and likely highly rationalized and perhaps even debated in some dark room, but in the end (according to actual <a href="http://www.eggblogg.co.uk/2009/10/how-does-advertising-work.html" rel="nofollow">research</a>) "Ads that simply aim to generate pure emotion turn out to be twice as profitable as ads that use emotions to support a rational proposition." I take this to mean in this case, that even the name Out There sends a little shiver down our label-playing spines. The question of fairness (my comparing of my experience to the promo material) is taken pointedly: it's a useless (or at least merely academic comparison) because these are two different beasts: created by different people for different purposes. Isn't it almost like comparing two different shows? One plays with labels, the other plays with your emotions. So I think promotion is just as much of a shell game as it ever was. (If I reveal my pop-cultural ignorance will you laugh at me (more) the next time you see me?) I imagine the shenanigans of Mad Men (haven't um...seen it. Ever. At all. And my TV doesn't work.) have only changed their mode, not their model "...ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising, an ego-driven world where key players make an art of the sell" to match our contemporary Need Manufacturing Factory. But those of us in the performing arts sector are only playing with the butt ends of their cigars. Who here can afford air time? Who here can afford ongoing ad campaigns? Who here can afford anything more than some comps to bloggers to keep the conversation going? Or just telling all your friends? So we're not playing that game at Skewed Visions (see our website at http://skewedvisions.org for more information! Check out <em><a href="http://cubicle.skewedvisions.org" rel="nofollow">cubicle</a></em>!) ...ahem... We are in it to be brutally and demonstrably truthful. (Psssst, there is a better way of getting it out there, but I can't tell you here...) Was Monica's experience significantly different than yours? So yeah: philosophic undergarments...er, -pinnings. That's what I'm after. The naked <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An5xxPKkEp0" rel="nofollow">heinie</a> of post-Marxist critical reception. And I love that I can raise these question with this piece because most of the time you can't even get to that table. Can you imagine a world in which everything you saw was actually a rigorous attempt at quality work, regardless of its success in achieving this goal? I think I'd die. THAT'S what I want out of my life.
Two Questions on The Great War
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Theresa
Okay, I'll stop soon. I have the Charles bug. "Fair" is a stupid question. I love the way you discuss what the press quotes/set-up reveals about our expectations of performance and how those stated alliances reveal philosophic underpinnings. But I am still interested in how work that is breaking down the traditions promotes itself. If it is a systemic approach, there must be a novel way of getting it out there too? I'm just sayin', "I know, right?"
Two Questions on The Great War
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Theresa
Er, by the "last two" I actually meant this entry and your discussion of RadioHole. I found that discussion really interesting and invested a lot of time in writing a "brief" comment on it (which I failed to finish, and then I talked about it with Monica and Max instead of writing, which is why I never posted it, but which helped me to process it nonetheless). Anyway, your constant Guy Debord references are always appreciated. MKT is going to have to thank you in our next program notes for this timely discussion. In both the aforementioned posts you keep referencing the expectations raised by the press about the show. (Even if those expectations were raised after seeing the show and revisiting the promo.) I found that particularly interesting because I similarly found myself judging the piece against the blurbs I read on the Walker website (and finding serious disconnects.) (god, the reference in Radiohole's promo to Chatauqua as the "runaway hit of last year's Out There" sharing the Spalding Gray award had me disgusted and laughing. This is how we build expectations? How we bring people in?) And yet I wonder, is it fair? Is that press info meant for us? Okay, yes, who is 'us' (the people who are going to see the show anyway, and who will revisit the press as a reference in making meaning?) and who is it meant for is not 'us' (suburbanites? who really responds to press anyway? who isn't just going to something because they know the performers or they know the series?) and ultimately, what is good press? What is false advertising if not good advertising? And what is good advertising if not false? How do we write that blurb that will be honest to the work and will also function as marketing? How do expectations of press play into this. Because as someone who makes kind of "out there" work, who plays with labels, as someone who is interested in expectations, breaking them, making them, I want to know. Okay, I guess I had a few questions of my own. Monica made a point of going to all the Out Theres this year without knowing anything about them beforehand. (Not even the title.) I wonder at this approach. We haven't discussed it though.
Two Questions on The Great War
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Theresa
Brief indeed! Charles, thanks for your continually incisive ruminations on the Walker shows. I've particularly enjoyed the last two. Nothing caps an Out There like reading your blog entries. You're better than the Balcony Bar.
The Great Mini-War
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Michael K
I agree this was one of the performances I will talk about and tell others to go see. Everyone I spoke with last night were amazed at the effectiveness of the production that we saw on screen, the emotional effect it caused within us, even while we could see how it was being acted out for the camera onstage. And yes the sound effects were so incredible in making this more moving than any movie or theater about the war I've seen up to now.
Roger, Mark, Daniel, José, Sabato, Sherman, Helen, Jean-Michel & Co.
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: skewedvisions
I've been trying to figure out what to write since I saw it days ago. My notebook has these scribbles: 'rich vocal impersonations,' 'close eyes and listen to the poetry,' 'beautifully slow video projections,' etc. I just couldn't put my finger on why my notes indicated I should have enjoyed myself, but I left feeling so empty. Maybe you're on to something with a Fine Evening Out, I don't know, but you got me thinking. The piece just didn't work as a solo monologue. It wanted to be more like a concert. With a live band. Maybe I was just hoping to see <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5809" rel="nofollow">Sekou Sundiata</a> again, but I thought with more emphasis on music (and less on the performer's personality) the poetry of the lines could have really taken off. Sean Kelley-Pegg Skewed Visions
Call Cutta, I’m All Tied Up. Another Skewed Perspective
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: doorbell button
I don't know if I agree with you here. See you do make the best point, I don't think you've truly given a large amount of thought to the opposite side of this argument. Maybe I can do a guest post or a follow-up, just tell me.
Robert Irwin’s Walker installation: Were you there in ‘71?
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Frank Gaard
Underwhelming I remember liking Siah Armajani's floating sculpture in that first gallery (1971 new museum opening) that's where I first saw Irwin's scrim. I know Irwin is well regarded but I think he's just not credible in the scrim pieces. He was a great painter but this is way just whack. The test of time requires diverse opinions. I like his painted circles(disks) better than his hyped less material post-minimalism. Painting keeps returning like zombies in a b-movie, when Irwin painted he was very fine but this rag with a light behind it is like Star Trek sets on tv.You can do some things well but not everything well. I guess I like Irwin more human and more fetish finish 60's than as a conceptualist. Call me romantic but Irwin was quite a fascinating painter.This scrim is like saving wrappers off a birthday present.I don't mean to be glib but the mystery of art has grown bigger in the last 40 years and the gambits the propositions of then don't all hold water today. Maybe he was opportunistic ambitious artist to threw the dice and voila look at my little sensation (apologies to Paul Cezanne).Not everyone thinks minimalism is pie.
The Inquisition is coming! Meet your expert competition for round one
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: kids summer fun
Hey there, I've been lurking on your website for a few months. I like this writing and your whole website! Keep it up!
Watts at the Walker
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Michèle Steinwald
This just in: rave <a href="http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/onstage/82389692.html?elr=KArksD:aDyaEP:kD:aUUULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr" rel="nofollow">review </a>from the Star Tribune!
Museum Exhibition Title Graphics
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Jimmy Longoria
so I asked Miguel the janitor about \design\ being art. so he says, you no, if it is in a museum, and you see um, then it must be art. at least for me, he said, you see, every time I put a new roll of toilet paper in the room, I emagine that people will write the experience down in marveloous and unique patterns. And after they have grunted they will strike the chrome handle and send the message on to the underground with thousands of other messages about the ART. Miguel always laughs at me when I ask him big ideas. coyote joke 657
Disapointed & Down: a Skewed Response to ‘Call Cutta in a Box’
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Jimmy Longoria
commento: the paint died on the tattered canvas. My neighbor, and illegal alien worker from Canada laugh at me as I buried it in my back yard. He mocked a tooting of a horn with his three fingered hand and played taps as I put dirt over dirt. Paint is dead? But you just keep making more everyday? He shook his head as he took the small one with the picture of a red bird-it'll look gude in the garage. I spoke softly to his shadow as he left;\when will clever art out clever itself\. a week later he told me with a bit of shame that his cousin had \boughted\ the bird painting, and he had to sell it to her because she just loved it-so if it would not be much trouble, could I paint him another bird picture? I quietly turned my shoulder to him and softly told myself that \frost back\ might be a good slur for illegal aliens from Canada.
TEN: This Week in Local Art
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Jimmy Longoria
poe-m para Jennifer three advice written on an icicle put the box off gallery postcards by the fire place realize that a gallery that sells paintings will see you for what you are never collect art that you like you will never see what art is about two the advice is melting post cards with picture are pretty but stupid the paper burns and leaves ghost of ash the art is often best in this state visit the artist in his home see what he collects buy what you think you might hate and see if it lasts the trial period three melting painting for the wax and eating postcard and peanut butter sandwiches is no picnic it is better to paint with soy sauce on Macy's silk blouses than to rub crayola on my face be happy with a blank wall until you find the right painting coyote verde
Why do we go to museums?
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: sally
I think the reason that I go to art museums is to open my mind to veiwing how others see things, express things and show me things. Also, for the beauty of color, texture, light, size, places and people I don't yet know. I also go to get inside the mind of another person, because art is so open, it is an opportunity to really understand others, in a way we aren't able to on a day to day basis. For escape!
Yellow Earth and The Trials and Tribulations of Screening 35mm in the 21st Century
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Books search engine
Thanks for sharing. I like this director. His Farewell My Concubine is something special.
Why do we go to museums?
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Tim
Food for thought. Like one of her tours!
Why do we go to museums?
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: sonny
I think at some point in my life I have been each one of the noted visitors to art museums. My reasons for going are: -a social outing -to be inspired -to feel culture around me.. different countries, eras, etc. -to reflect -to return to see my favorites and/or famous works -to see new exhibits I have not yet seen
WHA?! or How to make a show with lots of Jello and Cheap Beer.
Date: January 01, 12:00 am
by: Maren Ward
well, i appreciate both of your rundowns. (skp and gk). I've been struggling with how to think about this one. How can i really not be sure what i thought? (that question also has my head aching but anyways.) i did at times find myself in deep appreciation of how wierd it was and as someone who on several occasions has found herself in that conversation of "what does dada look like today?" ANd, YES gulgun, more importantly WHY dada today? (and WHY that conversation ACH its endless) ....i did appreciate an offer of an answer to that question. a piece that seriously irritated all the experimental art/theater people in town (at least great percentage of the whole lot of them there on thursday). HAHAHAHA. that's funny to me. it's funny to me now. at the time, as i didn't yet know that i'd listen later to a lot of people -including myself - complain about it, i was grappling with the fact that i wanted to like it, for it's irreverance and gusto, and i just didn't. and yes, i thought about how i was wasting my time. or my time was being wasted but it's my fault. need to do something else. i said after that maybe next year i will specifically schedule some self care time or time to read a newspaper or do some volunteer work, when otherwise i'd be at outthere. but no, i'll be there. like a jilted stalker. i'm gonna keep using that one charles. ok there's some ramblings. thanks for being great thinker articulators and artists and being in this town skewedvisions. heart, mw