We tried something different in the selection process for our August book. The Artist’s Bookshelf nominated five outstanding choices, and asked you, the reading public, to decide. We are pleased to announce that the winner is:

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

We think this is a great choice, and will finish off our summer season with a literary bang. Ms. Desai is one of Britain’s most exciting contemporary writers, and weaves intriguing tales of her native India with great compassion and conviction. It should be on the top of everyone’s summer reading list, and we’re now happy to say it’s on ours.

We’ll begin our summer by tackling one of the great anti-war novels of all time Slaughterhouse Five by the late Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who met his untimely demise just last week.

I first encountered this book while an impressionable teen, and will never forget its impact. While re-visitng it this past month, I was again amazed and saddened by its humorously poignant plea for an end to the absurd human behavior we call war. “So it goes.”

In July, we will focus on The Painted Drum by Minneapolis writer Louise Erdrich. For those of you unfamiliar with Ms. Erdrich’s work, be prepared for a powerful, muliti-voiced narrative full of love, loss, dark humor, and ultimately, hope.

Happy reading!

Photo: Ilene K Mojsilov

On Wednesday March 28^th, I had a small group of students from City Inc, an alternative Minneapolis

High School, in the Art Lab. They came to see the exhibition Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. High school teachers may ask how do we engage our students who are viewing this work for the first time?The show brings up a host of questions about racial stereotypes today. For a profound conversation about Kara Walker, I suggest that teachers consider doing this art activity Skin Deep before their tour of the exhibition. This has proven to be a good way for students to consider their own assumptions about color and race.

Skin Deep is a painting activity that explores color as a metaphor for racial stereotypes and classifications. I demonstrate how to mix a universal brown using the primary colors. Next, I add black and/or white to make a myriad of skin tones. Students then mix their own skin tones and collect samples of other people’s skin tones, paint them on canvas, and add a phrase that responds to their notions of black and white.

Photo: Ilene K Mojsilov

When the students from City Inc came to the Art Lab, we spent an absorbing hour previewing a few works from the show. Kara Walker has a series titled Do You Like Crème in Your Coffee and Chocolate in Your Milk? We looked at one of her watercolors that features a nude woman outlined in green with brown, black, ochre, and peach circles covering the upper torso and head of the figure. These samples refer to skin tones, and remind me of my own experience testing make-up.

Since the City Inc group had only women, we talked about this experience at the make-up counter. The way these products on the market try so hard to approximate our skin tones, and we realized how subtle our skin tones really are and how many variations exist. This theme of human variation is also current in the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Race: Are We So Different? http://www.smm.org/race/. By the way, the students from City Inc had viewed this exhibition before coming to the Walker Art Center. It was opportune to pair these two field trips.

Photo: Ilene K Mojsilov

If you get to the Science Museum for this show, don’t miss the label that introduces the artwork of Byron Kim. He did a project called Synecdoche that is composed of 400 smaller panels that match an actual person’s skin. Although I hadn’t heard of his project before, I think that it really gets at the important questions of racial politics and encourages a frank dialogue about stereotypes, classifications, and civil rights.

So, if you can take in both exhibitions, I encourage you to do so, and keep the activity Skin Deep in mind for your group here at the Walker Art Center.

Now is your chance. You get to decide which book will be read and discussed by THE ARTIST’S BOOKSHELF for our August gathering.

After perusing the five nominees outlined below, simply e-mail your selection to:

artistsbookshelf@walkerart.org

It’s as easy as that.

People often ask how books get chosen for THE ARTIST’S BOOKSHELF. It’s a highly subjective and unscientific process that begins by browsing in local bookstores, involves a great deal of talking with readers we respect, and ends in a mad flurry of googling and last minute e-mails.

As always, we consider a myriad of factors when determining which book might work best for THE ARTIST’S BOOKSHELF. We’re always interested in diversity, whether it involves the gender, ethnicity, and geographic origins of an author, or the literary style and subject matter of the book. We lean strongly towards contemporary fiction, but have included works of non-fiction, as well as classics suitable for re-examination.

Of course, we try to choose books that relate in some way to something happening at the Walker, but we have been known to choose books simply because we felt the need to share them with a wider audience.

All that being said, considered and processed, we present you with the following nominations for our August selection:

1) Snow by Orhan Pamuk

This one tops many “ must read” lists. The author has gained notoriety in his native Turkey for bravely writing just exactly what’s on his mind. The story is set in a remot Turkish town, where the stirrings of political Islamism threaten to unravel the secular order. A quick read of this book reveals a very complex mind, indeed.

“ Richly detailed….A thrilling plot ingeniously shaped…Vividly embodies and painstakingly explores the collision of Western values with Islamic fundamentalism….An astonishingly complex, disturbing view of a world we owe it to ourselves to better understand.” –Kirkus Reviews

2) The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Our British friends tell us this is the real deal. Already a book-world superstar in Britain, Ms. Desai brings the voice of a new generation to the forefront of post-colonial lit.

“… manages to explore…just about every contemporary international issue: globalization, multiculturalism, economic inequality, fundamentalism and terrorist violence.” –New York Times

3) Where No Gods Came by Sheila O’Connor

A local writer who teaches at Hamline, Ms. O’Connor takes the requisite coming-of-age novel to the next level. (Disclaimer: Ms. O’Connor’s son once acted in a play I wrote. Though he’s a great actor, this small-world coincidence in no way influenced our decision.)

“ … a memorable portrait of the artist as a scrawny young girl. . . . It’s a story about the power of love and guts and imagination to sustain a skinny kid in a hard world.”

–Buffalo News

4) Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

What can you say about Salman Rushdie? This Fatwah-survivor, continually proves that he’s really not afraid of any one or anything. I loved this book for its epic scope, beautiful imagery and mastery of language. Some of our friends: not so much.

“Huge, vital, engrossing…in all senses a fantastic book.” –Sunday Times

5) Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami

Japanese lit sensation Murakami has been labeled a surrealist, a visionary genius, a fraud, and everything in between. I lean towards the genius moniker, but his work can be challenging for those accustomed to more conventional faire.

“[W]hile anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it’s the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves.” –Laura Miller, The New York Times Book Review

We encourage you to further research our nominees. We have found www.powells.com, www.metacritic.com and www.nytimes.com to be particularly helpful.

Please feel free to include a sentence or two in support of your choice. And yes, write-in candidates are allowed. Polls remain open until April 11th.

Results will be announced later this month on this site.

VOTE!