Playwright Kira Obolensky is known for her keen intellect and vibrant imagination that has led her to write about topics as far ranging as American garage culture and a hermaphrodite in the Victorian era in both books and plays.

She was kind enough to answer a few questions about her role in the collaborative endeavor Permanence Collection, an in-gallery play she co-wrote with Ed Bok Lee for a project with the Walker and the Playwrights’ Center. Her responses below channel some of our internal Walker meetings, where programmers sit around to discuss how visitors respond to the permanent collection, the act of looking and the meaning of creativity. Needless to say, our conversations are far less clear and poetic than Obolensky’s.

Were you familiar with the Walker’s Permanent Collection prior to this project?

Yes, I’ve been a regular Walker-goer for years.

Has working on Permanence Collection changed or shifted your thoughts about the Collection or the current installation?

Writing the piece has really changed the way I view the installation–simply because the process of creatively engaging with a work of art is different than simply viewing it. One of the questions the play asks is why is there such a difference? How can the act of viewing art be in itself creative? “Art is a conversation”--someone famous said that--and in our play I think we finally get to really talk to the art work. The process of writing the play has coalesced some more nebulous feelings I’ve had as a museum goer, walking through the Permanent Collection. For example, I’ve always been aware of the shift in feeling/emotion I get as I progress through the collection. We used that shift in feeling as a starting point.

What was the process of writing a play based on a roomful of art like? How did you work together to draft the script?

The process of writing a play that is about art, without being ABOUT art in a didactic way was challenging. I think we both knew we didn’t want the piece to feel like a skit which is the easy way to do something like this. We wanted something more layered, more mysterious, slightly ambiguous but also entertaining to watch. In many ways I think it was slightly intimidating for both of us to face the innovation and masterful work of the collection and to attempt to stand next to it.

We wrote the piece in its first draft as an exquisite corpse. I started it, then Ed wrote the next scene, and then I wrote the next one and so forth. That said, once it was in its first draft form there was a lot of hands-on collaboration between us and Hayley [Finn], getting the themes to surface, and attempting to find action in each scene. We also realized on our first rehearsal that there were far too many words. Because of the marble surfaces, acoustics are difficult and it became clear that each scene needed to be cut in half. So a fair amount of writing and editing has happened on our feet.

What artworks were particularly interesting to you and why?

I love the David Smith piece (The Royal Bird) in the mid-century room. It is as if something is being born from the abstraction and color fields. It struggles to take flight--a kind of representation even as the paintings in the room resist.

The Jasper Johns set piece in the Pop Art room is a reminder to me of how theatre is at its core spectacle and visual.

The Bruce Nauman video is compelling to me as a work of theatre.

The Gober chair is so layered and narrative…it’s meaning shifts constantly for me. It tells a story that evokes irony and paradox. It is in a room filled with ironic works of art. It itself has irony to it--but it’s not a one-liner. It reminds me of how nuanced irony can be.

In the Mythologies room, I’m particularly fond of the scale of the scale of the artwork. I love how big and challenging the pieces are, and yet how delicate they are up close. The Mehretu painting has such a fine line in it and yet it maps something enormous.

Tell us how you came up with the title for the play.

One of the ideas in the piece is about permanence. In the first scene Harry says, “It’s not fair they (the art work) gets to stay put and we grow old.” It strikes me that this idea of the artwork as permanent is true it doesn’t change in its being, although it’s interpretation can be in constant flux. The viewers of the artwork age and move and change, and the theatre they unwittingly create in the galleries is entirely impermanent.

Permanence Collection is performed again on Thursday, May 15 at 7 and 8 pm in the Walker galleries.

This post was written by Marty Marosi, current Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC) member, about the 20 Under 20 exhibition.

Hello from St. Paul! This day is significant because it’s the second and last day of curating, and also the same for how many times I’ve been in St. Paul.

We’ve been putting the St. Paul show together by working with each piece like, well, let’s just say they don’t call ‘em ‘pieces’ for nuthin. We’ve looked at all the pieces in a giant group and picked out ones that seemed to work together. If an artist had multiple works, we considered it in its entirety. Then from there, we put it on the wall, and have been practicing a whole ‘mix ‘n match’ and trial and error process. Luckily we don’t make mistakes.

(Here’s a picture of Witt spouting off some philosophy)

Witt (WACTAC superfan) is workin like a dog over here, he paces back and forth all the time. With how long the spaces are in this warehouse, each trip takes alost 20 minutes. He hasn’t eaten anything all day except doritos for lunch and toast for breakfast. But I think he’s milkin it a little bit because he said he ate just ‘a piece of toast’, leaving much to the imagination as to the scantness of his meal. Nonetheless, I saw him sporting the tired-man’s beard a couple days ago and I think he needs to just kick back and let the WACTAC’rs do some work for a change.

While David puts his life on the line to hang up all the art, I get the real cush job of documenting our progress and eating snacks to sustain myself. David is the real strong-silent type, but we like having him around.

Putting all this together has been a trying process, both emotionally and physically. At one point I thought my body wouldn’t take another kit-kat after eating so many during the initial curating phase, but I endured.

Before we got to this point, we spent countless hours down in the WACTAC bat-cave looking at what seemed like, and probably was, thousands of artworks. It was like No Exit down there. Sartre said ‘Hell is other people’ and the temperature became infernal with all the bodies in the room. One benefit, however, was how much muscle mass I gained from raising my arm for multiple votes and re-votes.

Overall, this has been a great experience. It’s been a long and elaborate process, but that makes the fruit of our labor that much sweeter. We hope this contest and show will be successful in continuing our objective to reach other teens (and tweens) out there who want to get involved with the art world.

If you have a chance, check out the series of 20 Under 20 events happening in the coming weeks.

As part of the Richard Prince: Spiritual America exhibition at the Walker, Education is sponsoring a series of three tours related to broader themes in the show.

This Thursday, Paula Rabinowitz will lead the second in our series American Mythologies: The Art of Richard Prince Part 2 Fetish. She’s the chair of the English Department at the University of Minnesota, professor of cultural studies, feminist theory, and visual culture. She’s written several books including They Must Be Represented: The Politics of Documentary, and Black and White and Noir: Americas Pulp Modernism. She’ll explain to us why anyone would read a book like Student Nurse in the first place and how the act of collecting is itself a fetishistic practice.

She’s in the midst of reading prose and meeting with students as finals approach, but I did get her to answer some of my questions in anticipation of this Thursday’s tour.

What is the history of pulp fiction novels and the artists who painted the covers?

The history of their production and reception is very complex–dating from the 19th century in France and US where books were not really bound but covered in paper, then the emergence of paperbacks as we know them through Penguin in Britain, and finally with the emigration of some Penguin publishers to the US just before WWII, here. Pocketbooks was the first US paperback publisher–followed by many others–including Signet, started by someone originally associated with Penguin.Copyright precluded any use of the “bird” insignia so the title of the publisher is a joke as it uses a medallion–a signet–but the name is a homonym for cygnet–a baby swan–deep insider literary joke. Paperbacks were distributed through magazine and candy sales methods rather than through usual booksellers distribution processes; they were sold at candy stores, train and bus stations and so forth across the country–even in places without bookstores. The range of materials published is vast–from trashy nurse novels to Freud or Faulkner (both of whom would have trashy covers) to appeal to a broad reading public.The cover artists–for instance Robert Jonas and James Avati (known as the Rembrandt of paperback)–were influential designers and superb draftsmen (almost all men–though the back covers of Dell books often had maps drawn by Ruth Belew), who incorporated modernist and realist influences. Again they too appealed to wide audiences–books were published in runs of close to half a million minimum.

Can you make a comparison to the artists who painted the pulp fiction covers and Richard Prince's art in terms of high art/low art?

Cover artists were concerned with bringing attention to the product being sold–their works were meant to be eye-catching, to be lurid and informative (sort of) yet they were meant to be reassuring, in that the images, colors, format were regularized and familiar–they were parts of a series. People knew what to expect. I think Prince is tapping into this idea of replication and familiarity–witness recent Christie’s advertisement in the New York Times that one of his nurse's is being auctioned and expected to bring in six to eight million dollars.

What was behind the stereotype of the femme fatale/caregiver image that is portrayed in the nurse paintings?

Sex and Death–night work (like a prostitute) but within an institution (like a prison guard)–care and trauma. Birth and death–uniforms (especially in 1930s-1950s iconography) that cross health (doctor’s whites) and religion (nuns’ habits ) I could go on and on–and will on Thursday.

Collecting is an essential part of Richard Prince's artistic practice, and you've said there is a fetishistic aspect to that. Why?

Same but different–countable, uncontrollable–secret and widely available (at least for those of us without money who cannot collect art)–obsessive.

Yesterday, all of us were sitting around trying to come up with original jokes, and you know it’s pretty hard!

That’s why we’re prepared to up the ante for the first prize winner in our one liner joke contest! Instead of two free Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf, you will now score two free Rock the Garden Tickets plus two free tickets to Adventures in Mating by Joseph Scrimshaw if you can come up with an original one-line joke about a joke by June 4th.

Why are we doing this? Because we want you to come to out third and final Richard Prince gallery talk about jokes on June 5th. It’s being led by Joseph Scrimshaw who will talk about why jokes are funny and the history behind humor.

The rules are simple:

It has to be an original one-line joke about a joke (we will be searching Google for cheaters!)

And, it has to make Joseph Scrimshaw laugh!

Send all entries to allison.herrera@walkerart.org with name, email, and phone number by June 4th!

Let the best man/woman win!

One of the bloggers on Babble, the painfully hip online magazine for a “new generation of parents” (that I read constantly), writes fairly frequently about taking his kids to museums. The blogger, Trey Ellis, is a single dad in Manhattan with two kids. He recently wrote about taking the kids to the Murakami exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. He didn’t have any warning about the content of the exhibition, which includes sculptures of “a Japanese girl jumping a rope created by milk spurting from her gargantuan breasts” (according to the Brooklyn Museum) and a naked young man with an erect penis. Read his post about the visit — it seems he was able to navigate the visit pretty gracefully. He answered his kids’ questions directly and simply, and he asked them questions, which probably gave him a good idea of where they were in their understanding. And they all had a good giggle.

The text in Richard Prince’s monochrome joke paintings are described as borscht-belt style humour. Jokes like, “I met my first girl, her name was Sally. Was that a girl, was that a girl. That’s what people kept asking me.” These are the kind of crude, below the belt, old school raunchy one-liners our parents’ generation might remember telling during cocktail parties and the like. Maybe eating fondue was involved as well.

If you’re a New Yorker reader, then hopefully you’re familiar with the cartoon contest every week. It’s where you, the reader, are given an opportunity to supply text to a cartoon drawn by one of the esteemed New Yorker cartoon artists. So, in response to the Richard Prince Spirtual America show here at the Walker we’ll give you a chance to come up with your own one line joke to win prizes and other Walker Art Center swag. Sound exciting, then keep reading!

This contest is a little different. You, the gallery goer,the blog reader, the joke enthusiast, will be asked to supply a one line joke that is about jokes in time for our Richard Prince Gallery talk on June 5th. This third in a series of three specialized gallery talks will attempt to explain what makes a joke funny, what is borscht-belt style humor, and the history of humor. It’s being led by Twin Cities funny man Joseph Scrimshaw who is an internationally produced writer, performer, and independent theater producer. He’s created multiple best-selling shows in the Minnesota Fringe Festival including Die, Clowns, Die and Macbeth’s Awesome Scottish Castle Party. His hit interactive romantic comedy, Adventures in Mating, has played in New York, Seattle, the UK, Bulgaria and every Monday night right here in Minneapolis

Submit your joke by June 4th. Again, the rules are simple. It has to be a one line joke about a joke. Submit them to this address: allison.herrera@walkerart.org. Include your name, email address and phone number.

First prize wins two tickets to Joseph Scrimshaw’s current show Adventures in Mating plus two free tickets to Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf, which opens May 24th. Runner up is two free tickets to Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf and a B.T. McElrath Salty Dog chocolate bar from the Walker Art Center Shop.

To win, you must make Joseph Scrimshaw laugh!

Let the games begin!

Well, we’ve come to the end of our Arty Pants activities connected with Worlds Away, but not before our toddlers could show off their interior decorating skills, giving all those shows on TLC a run for their money.

A few weeks ago we had the tots decorate their own room within the Arty Pants McMansion.

Faced with blank walls, the tots quickly got on to furniture design, wallpapering, carpeting, and decor. There was a room evocative of a breezy seaside getaway…

… a much-needed habitat for a snowman family…

… another room for the tropical animal-loving snowmen …

… and a swanky lounge complete with commissioned soldier monkey art.

Other than snowmen, trends for this season also include brightly colored foam heart wall decor and larger-than-life animal wall illustrations.

I expect DesignSponge and Apartment Therapy to report on these trends very soon…

Which room would YOU fight your sibling for in the McMansion?

For those of you who don’t know what or who the UpTake is, let me inform you now. It is definitelyy one of the most rockin citizen journalist efforts to spring from the offices, basements, and living rooms of Minnesota.

It is also the brainchild of St. Paul activist and sculptor Jason Barnett, Minnesota Stories creator Chuck Olsen, and Mike McIntee, producer of Inside Minnesota podcasts. Not only have they stayed up late covering all things Minnesota politics, but they also have loyal bloggers, video journalists, and writers all over the country covering this wacky thing we call the election. Their motto is, “Will journalism be done by you or to you?”

I sing their praises on the Walker blog because we here in ECP will have the pleasure of working with these nice fellas during the summer months on the Walker’s Unconvention project, “I Approve this Message.” It’s a project that will hopefully incite the Twin Cities and beyond to explore what is democracy, and what does participating in it look like despite the craziness that will be our metro area in the first week of September. Ordinary citizens like you and I will roam the streets armed with video camera and microphone to find out what people think about this election and our role in it.

So, congratulations, UpTake folks! We’re working with the best!

If you’ve read the Star Tribune yesterday and today you’ll know what a woeful state the Twin Cities suburbs are in. Especially Wright County’s many cul-de-sacs and developments that sit empty and unfinished waiting to be unloaded while one bad investment scam after another takes its toll on the residents there. Many of the them were promised bustling shopping centers, recreation facilities and schools to send their kids to. A safe place away from the city, but with some culture and more shopping options than a strip mall.

This Thursday at the Walker we will talk about the rising rate of home foreclosures amongst other changes occurring in the metro in our panel Next Exit: The Shifting Landscape of Suburbia. It’s in conjunction with our exhbit Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes.

How will America see it’s suburbs in the growing housing meltdown? What does a city do when they’re left holding the bag after borrowing money to pay for new schools, roads, and water treatment facilities when there is no tax base to pay for them? These questions will be addressed by Lance Neckar of the Metropolitan Center for Design at the University of Minnesota, Michael Lander of Lander Group Development, and Dan Bergin, documentary filmmaker for TPT.

Reading the the story about the Collins family in Monday’s Star Tribune article Housing Bets Gone Bad I felt many things. From anger at these fraudulent investor scams to a sense of amazement at how anyone would want to take out million dollar mortgage when they make less than 30K a year. Everyone shares some responsibility. People are desperate, and sometimes getting money for free doesn’t seem to be a bad idea, even when it’s not really free.

While foreclosures are ripping communities apart and shredding people’s good credit, it’s no wonder people are bitter. They should be. Homeownership is sold as the American Dream, but now with the economic downturn it is a nightmare. It’s now wonder they’re clinging to their guns and subdivisions, as one presidential hopeful might suggest.

Escape to the Suburbs was an awesome day and since pictures are worth a thousand words….

The Elia Chair, brainchild of Michael Gross, was a stand-out hit!

The kid-sized chairs are fun to customize, recyclable, and yielded amazing results!

Kids also got a chance to get their groove on as part of the Flow Motion performance featuring Truth Maze, Dancin’ Dave, DJ Stage One, Autumn Compton, Arturo Miles, Debra McGee, and Aaron Barnell.
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In addition be being awed by the talent, I heard one of the coolest versions of the ABC song ever!

I always enjoy watching the kids diligently work away as they did at the Satellite Suburbs activity, where kids got to create their own aerial view of a suburb by making a collage with satellite images of Twin Cities’ suburbs.

The project was designed by Ilene Krug Mojsilov in relation to the Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes exhibit.

Thanks to all the volunteers, artists, and participants that made it one of those days when, at the end of the day, I think…Wow!

It’s a curiosity cabinet of sorts that displays an array of projects. These are art works that have been made by people who have attended an After Hours party, a school tour, or a workshop.

This project was all about wrapping, Cassidy ran out of time and materials, but she could have worked all afternoon on her assemblage. Notice how her layering included her name tag. Like a cyclone, she explored her tactile sensibility, emphasizing her love of the process.

Yes, anyone can participate in an art lab. Just come with an intention to play with the materials set out for you. You’d be surprised by your ability to invent and build stuff. For those people who love to learn by doing, I suggest you take a look at the Walker’s permanent collection or a special exhibition after you’ve done the art making. You might experience the galleries in a new way.

Next time, you’re at a Walker event, try out the art lab. Look for the Kiki Smith inspired doll parts sculpture, Object with a Cause, or just marvel at the playful creativity of our local talent.

Winter is clinging on to the state like unwanted guest and it was incredibly dreary in Minneapolis last Sunday.

So, instead of sitting around the house cleaning and wishing I could ride my bike around Lake Nokomis, I took a trip with my friend and fellow independent journalist Todd Melby to Wright County to discover the charms of outer ring suburban living.

Why would we do this? Well, it’s all to promote our upcoming panel Next Exit: The Shifting Landscape of Suburbia where we will explore the changing dynamics of the suburbs in the culture, green open spaces, and why people live there rather than a city. This is all in conjunction with the Walker exhibit Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes.

Why would people live where there might not be easy access to shopping and the commute may be longer? We attempted to answer some of these questions when we went on the Parade of Homes tour. Across the greater metro area, folks can go in search of the home of their dreams by driving around cul-de-sacs, lanes, and avenues to visit semi-finished and finished units. Some of these are staged to give the potential buyer a warmer feeling for the house in question. It also helps the realtors chance of unloading the house. And what realtor doesn’t need help in todays housing slump!

Our journey began on a long drive on I-94, but we finally arrived at our first home, selling for a mere $179,900. We decided to pose as a married couple to see exactly what that would get us. Not much really. We were greeted by a young man of 25 who was watching golf and eating cheezits. We would have to purchase our own sod and finish the garage. This house was not staged and as I walked around, I felt an overwhelming sense of boredom and gloom. It was so small and so plain looking. Even with staging I wouldn’t have bought it. It felt a little too slapped together. We moved on, thanked the young gentleman, and let him get back to the golf channel.

Our next stop was 76th and Larabee in another development with lots of new looking units around piles of dirt. It was almost complete. This house was totally staged. Complete with faux family photos, plates on a well dressed table, and even a pretty pink dress in the girls room. We met a nice family walking their dog. They said they like the quiet, and the fact that they could walk around without the fear of crime.

We were also fortunate to meet another young family of five who were looking to purchase another home. They currently live in Elk River and were wanting a place with more space than they currently had. This development seemed nice to them. They could let their kids run around without being hit by a car or falling into a pond. Below is a complete interview.

Our last stop was Oakland Homes, where we met the enthusiastic Randy Straus. He almost sold me the house he was so nice. I could picture myself laying on the couch watching cable, my waisteline expanding. He echoed what other folks had said about living here: a quiet place to raise kids, shop in nearby Maple Grove, but then return to the sanctity of your own four bedroom home.

We saw a lot of empty homes in our trek. People are staying put, hoping to hold on to the house that they’re already in. In 2001, Wright County ranked 44th in the nation of fastest growing suburbs, but today that figured has lagged to 169th. Yesterday’s Star Tribune article, “Dash to the Suburbs Slows to a Jog” explains why. Home foreclosures are also a problem in the suburbs. With that brings vandalism, some crime, and the potential of other homes losing value in a development that is slumping in sales. The Atlantic Monthly has a great article on that called “Suburbs: The Next Slum”.

Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes comes at a critical point when art making is responding to the shifts in the culture, and identity of the suburbs. Surely anyone who ventures out to the houses in Otsego and Wright County can feel that.

Click below to see more.