Off Center

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 of this effort, I’ve been keeping close track of goings-on at the Capitol – which are especially fascinating this year – and also, of course, tracking where the Sculpture Garden bonding request fits within the overall legislative process.

Which bonding projects are being funded?

Bonding projects, in part, are being selected this year because of the jobs they will create both for the project and following its completion, as well as the “shovel readiness” of the effort. The Sculpture Garden renovation is one such project: most of the work would be completed in 2010; it would generate 170 construction and landscaping jobs (90%+ being union labor); and preserve one of Minnesota’s iconic tourist destinations (45% of visitors are tourists, who bring $16 million in direct tourist spending into the economy each year). (Read more details in this previous blog post.)

So, in an effort to get bonding projects underway and get folks back to work as soon as possible, the ordinary legislative process for introducing a bonding bill started quite early, and has been put on a fast track.

What does “fast-track” mean when it comes to the state legislature?

A legislative process that normally takes months is being compressed into just a few weeks—which makes public input and action all the more crucial. This past week was an important one, as both the House and Senate Capital Investment committees submitted their bills. The good news is that the Sculpture Garden renovation is in both bills; the bad news is that the commitments to the project so far are well below what is necessary to preserve our Minnesota landmark. The Sculpture Garden renovation’s full request was $8.5 million; the House and Senate submitted bills with bonding support at $200,000 and $2 million respectively. 

So what happens now?

In the next week a 10-member House-Senate conference committee will be assembled that will likely begin convening on Tuesday, February 16. This conference committee reports back to the floors of both the House and Senate within a couple days with their recommendations on how to reconcile the two proposals. The entire legislature then votes on the bill and sends it to the Governor.

In the end, the process for a bonding bill is like a “Which Way” Book: It’s nearly impossible to predict the outcome. That said, during critical junctures—like the coming weeks—the chances of success at the legislature are increased dramatically when constituents from all over the state weigh in.

Show Your Support!

It’s especially important to make your voice heard—now—regarding the bonding measure to restore the Sculpture Garden. The legislative process is hard, but advocacy is easy.  Write your legislators today! It will only take a minute using our online email tool, but that minute could make all the difference in the bonding approval process. We need to preserve our iconic Minnesota garden with a cherry on top!

In cold and barren February, we notice the Sun’s brilliance burning a little longer into the afternoon, hinting at the warmth peeking just (months) around the corner.  Similarly, in the sometimes austere and modernist environs of the Walker Art Center, a passionate heat churns just beneath the surface.  Is it possible to fertilize the seeds of love at the Walker?  It’s possible, and evidence abounds.  Take, for example, this article describing James Turrell’s Sky Pesher as the best make out spot in town.  Kissing in the surrounds of ‘pigmented cast concrete?’  Very steamy.  One should take note, however, of the security camera watching every move.  No matter.  An adventurous lover knows that eyes are always watching, yet she boldly proceeds. 

Meet Ellie, one such bold adventurer.  The object of her affections is the roguish Scotty.  Her family-approved plan (Dad accompanied) was to ask Scotty to her high school’s Sadie Hawkins dance during a visit to the Walker.  Ellie had prepared a sign for her beau, a masterpiece worthy of the Louvre which implored, “Sweet Hearts? With Me, My Scotty” (sic).  Ellie presented me the sign to me in the snowy afternoon, asking where she could hang it. 

My colleagues and I discussed the matter,  chose a suitable place, and the sign was hung.  It was decided that I document the event, so I lay in wait for the magic moment. 

The tension was immense.  The unwitting Scotty approached and…

YES

Love prevails.

Note: Scotty was surprised by Ellie’s sign, but even more surprised by my prescence.  I explained, “I…uh.  I have to do this for work,”  then quickly fled.  Tender moments, cherished forever.

The Minnesota State Legislature is voting in the next few weeks on a bonding measure that could fund a badly needed renovation of the 22-year-old Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The article below, from the upcoming issue of Walker magazine, outlines the details. 

Please take action by visiting http://garden.walkerart.org/bonding today. It’s quick, easy and will make all the difference.

Welcoming more than 7 million visitors since it opened, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden has become an integral part of Twin Cities life. When the Walker and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board partnered in 1988 to create the first major urban sculpture garden in the country, the vision, still very much alive today, was to combine an amazing outdoor space with world-class art and culture—two assets for which the state is renowned.  

 While Twin Cities and Minnesota residents are regulars, thousands of students and hundreds of schools groups from across Minnesota and the region visit each year. “It’s a unique place for learning,” says Lockie Chapman, a teacher who brings her Orono middle-schoolers to the Garden each year. “My students enjoy seeing works like the Spoonbridge and Cherry, which challenge their definitions of what a sculpture should be.”

And nearly half of the Garden’s visitors are tourists—from the all corners of the United States and far-flung countries alike. That amounts to $16 million in direct annual economic impact, according to Meet Minneapolis, the city’s official convention and visitors association. Melvin Tennant, its president & CEO, calls the Garden “a true destination for visitors to our state.” Walker director Olga Viso adds, “For more than two decades, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden has welcomed visitors into our park system and introduced them to the state’s remarkable arts community. Nearly everyone goes home with their own iconic image snapped in front of the Spoonbridge and Cherry.”  

But years of wear and tear have taken their toll on the Garden. To renovate and preserve it, the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, with the wholehearted support of the Walker, is pursuing $8.5 million in state bonding. “Every garden has a natural life cycle, and plants periodically need to be refreshed. For instance, the lifespan of arbor vitae—the trees that create the walls of the outdoor galleries—is about 20 years,” says Park Board superintendant Jon Gurban. “Also, in a place as heavily trafficked as the Garden, significant infrastructure needs must be addressed to maintain this vibrant public space.”

After a careful study, the prominent landscape architecture firm oslund.and.associates has recommended a range of necessary upgrades throughout the 11-acre landscape. Tom Oslund notes that “by taking advantage of efficiency improvements in mechanical systems and lighting in the past 20 years, we can significantly reduce the Garden’s carbon footprint. For instance, an eco-friendly irrigation system would allow us to capture rainwater runoff to maintain the plants. And improvements to the drainage system, as well as repairs to concrete walkways and granite walls, which were not designed with the expectation of millions of visitors, will allow us to preserve the unique experience of visiting the grounds.”

Preserving the Garden is in many respects a cost-saving measure, an idea borne out by comparing its original budget of $16 million—funded by private contributions—to those of newer sculpture gardens in other cities, ranging from the 4.5-acre Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Des Moines ($46 million, 2009) to the 22-acre Kansas City Sculpture Park ($95 million, 2007) to Seattle’s 9-acre Olympic Sculpture Park ($85 million, 2007). The Minnesota legislature is currently considering this bonding measure—if passed, it will ensure that the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden remains a vibrant icon for the state, not to mention a home to the single largest cherry in the country.

Please encourage your state legislator to fund the renovation of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Visit garden.walkerart.org/bonding today to draft and send an e-mail showing your support.

In July 2009, the Walker Art Center celebrated the first of two years of funding from the MetLife Foundation for its Open Door Accessibility Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to be inclusive as possible when offering guided tours of our galleries and hands-on art-making experiences.  For this grant, our core audiences are people who are blind, people who are deaf, and people who have cognitive disabilities, including those living with Alzheimer’s and dementia.  Existing access programs include:

• Contemporary Journeys, tours and art-making for people with Alzheimer’s and their care partners
• Touch Tours of the Walker collection (exploring objects through touch).
• Verbal Description Tours, using descriptive language to convey visual details (also included in Touch Tours).
• Multi-Sensory Tours, incorporating various props to allow visitors different points of entry to access artworks.
• Large Print Exhibition Labels, available at the lobby desks.
• Assisted Listening Devices for tours and events in the Cinema and McGuire Theater.
• Qualified ASL interpretation upon request (four week’s notice required for tours and art labs, two week’s notice for Cinema and McGuire Theater events). 

We are also developing accommodations for these communities including: a Braille version of our visitor guide, tactile diagrams of select pieces in the Walker collection, new and more user friendly gallery stools and folding chairs, and a selection of audio described programs.

Members of local non-profit, arts, education, and disability communities along with Walker staff and volunteers have come together to form an access advisory group.  On January 12, our group met to discuss access initiatives at the museum.  We gathered in the Friedman Gallery, the site of Robert Irwin’s immersive installation Slant, Light, Volume.  It was important to meet and discuss accessibility in the context of a gallery, exactly where we intend to expand access.  As some of the members of the group are blind or have low vision, we began with a detailed verbal description of the installation.  A sign language interpreter was also on staff.

This was our first group meeting, so introductions came next, along with testimonials from people about memorable experiences with art museums.  This discussion was important in highlighting some of the individual needs and interests we are trying to address in the access initiative as well as the challenges we face.  The diversity of the group guarantees vibrant and broad discussions.

We continued by examining the grant goals and scope and existing programs, listed above.  We also mapped out future meetings and determined some essential details to be considered in our initiative, including:

• Creating a welcoming environment
• How to market our accessibility programming to the community
• Where to turn attention for future funding

More info is to come.  Do you have suggestions on how the Walker can make the museum more accessible?  We’re listening!  Please post below.  Any questions or concerns you may have regarding accessibility may be directed to access@walkerart.org, or call the access line at 612.375.7564.  Coming next: an introduction to your accessibility group!

Lester B. Morrison's Facebook photo

How to spend the money from all those gifts you’re going to return. Find some ideas browsing Alec Soth’s top 10 photo books of 2009. Fans of Soth’s earlier blog — and they were becoming legion — are elated that he’s back, at least in a bloggy kind of alter-ego way as one “Lester B. Morrison.”  They should also keep an eye out for more information about Soth’s first survey, opening here at the Walker next September.

Christmas, as only the Chinese can do it: My friend Adam Minter, a writer based in Shanghai, has been snapping photos of every Christmas tree he’s seen in the past few days — 141, to be exact. 

The script at the bottom of that tree says “Redemption House.” See the other 140 Christmas trees — some pathetic, some downright creepy, and many pushing kitsch into entirely new realms — at Adam’s blog, Shanghai Scrap.

Barbara Kingsolver & Walker history: In Lacuna, Kingsolver’s first novel in nine years, a character named Tom Cuddy writes to the protagonist, Harrison Shepherd:

“The Department of State is getting into the art business. … the idea is to pack up a fresh load of paintings on Uncle Sam’s ticket, and parade them around the museums of Europe. A special show of American paintings to send overseas, to show those Parisians we’re not a bunch of rubes. … They recruited my old boss for the job, Leroy Davidson from the Walker. He only got 50 thousand clams to work with but he’s done a killer job, Leroy chose everything himself. He’s fed up with the Europeans sniggering about heart-throbbing landscapes and the American Scene, so he decided to give them an eyeful. Seventy-nine paintings, mostly Modern Art: Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, it’s a killer.”

Joseph LeRoy Davidson (1908 - 1980)

Your most burning questions about art … answered! Watch the informative and instructional video below, which tells you how to submit queries for the upcoming Inquisition — a revival of a public quiz forum that played out at the Walker in 1940. In fact, Davidson probably got in on this game, as it was invented by his boss, Defenbacher. 

Marcel Wanders cover for de Bijenkorf's 2008 holiday magazine

page from Wanders' design book for Target, 2009

Marcel’s Wanders-ing here, and over there: Can’t get enough of Marcel Wanders’ holiday trinkets at Target? You might want to moon over the 312-page digital book that Wanders published on his website, which exposes the whole design process and then some, including “Santa’s rejects.” It’s well worth paging through. Also check out the wrapping paper, socks, teddy bears, lingerie, Christmas balls, vases, dresses, and table decorations he designed for the 2008 holiday season at de Bijenkorf, a department store in his home country. (This year, de Bijenkorf’ commissioned Victor & Rolf to create a Christmas collection—perhaps Target will bring that duo to this side of the Atlantic next year?)

“…and a giant cherry on a huge spoon”: Target’s 2009 festivities also include a new video and radio commercial with a song by the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers. Watch the video and try to guess which Singer has a day job at the Walker.

Enduring? Certainly. Endearing? You decide … an exhibition about “sagging” called Hang Time: The Enduring, Endearing Trend, is up at Pill House (aka Pillsbury House) in South Minneapolis through January 30. As curator Roderic Southall told MPR’s Marianne Combs:

“If I were asked to boil down the messages that are sent to saggers by those adults who object to it I would suggest the phrase ‘you low down dirty dog homo boy who lacks any positive sense of who you are . . . listen to me as I tell you how to be.’ I think that accurately reflects how little I think the dialogue has been worth. Why we have such a violent community dialogue about clothing in the midst of all of the other social challenges is worthy of study and, in a way, celebration.”

Fair enough. But as Combs and Southall himself point out, if something’s been going on for 20 years, hasn’t it transcended trend status? Count on a lively artist/community discussion on January 15 atat 6:30 p.m.

From the Archives: Celebrities in our Midst! One of our interns is going down to the archives and will soon be posting treasures she unearths there (following up on this post). For now, pay a quick visit to Eyeteeth, the blog of former Walker staffer Paul Schmelzer, to see Sonic Youth enjoying the Walker’s 2006 Cameron Jamie exhibition. He hasn’t yet visited the Walker — that we know of — but James Franco’s been making inroads of late in the contemporary art world, including an appearance as a presenter at the First Annual Art Awards; now the Wall Street Journal has published his lengthy piece about performance art, questioning whether his role as artist “Franco, just Franco” on General Hospital qualifies as such; it’s accompanied by a video in which he interviews “godmother of performance art” Marina Abramovic.

"Franco, just Franco" on "General Hospital" (image from ABCO)

Robert Pattinson’s got nothing on Francis Bacon! Who needs fan sites and movie trailers when you have ArtsConnectEd.org? See the slideshow presentation created by a Twilight fan, who uses artworks by Bacon and others to illustrate an outline of this, uh, literary sensation.

It’s not too early to get a start on next year’s Halloween costume: Take inspiration from this paper-crafted self-portrait-as-helmet by 3D artist Eric Testroete, inspired by “big-head mode seen in videogames” See more pictures here. (via printeresting.org)

NYC Mayor Bloomberg only narrowly won re-election — and now this. After 66 years in Manhattan, the nonprofit American Craft Council has had it with the cost of doing business there. It is quitting the New York — and following a long trail of artists to greener, more fertile, and far cheaper pastures of Minneapolis, where it will take up residence next summer.

Minneapolis artist David Rathman, who showed here in 2003, has branched out from paintings and drawings to video, with stunning results. See below — best viewed in full screen!

The Quick and the Dead lives on. Three works from the highly regarded exhibition were recently acquired by the Walker for its collection. Probably the most familiar is Pierre Huyghe’s Wind Chime (After “Dream”) (left), which became a favorite in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden over the summer. We’ll All Go Together, a sound piece by Susan Philipsz, was an oddly comforting yet slightly eery presence in the underground parking garage (where it kept company with a battered, oil-leaking Buick — a surprise artwork by Trisha Donnelly that appeared the day before the show opened). And Mark Manders’ Life-size Scene with Revealed Figure is an enigmatic work that suggests any number of functions – an alterpiece, an obsolete projector, a stationary puppet — though its ultimate purpose remains mysterious.

“I traced out that Morandi drawing … Traced that son of a bitch out on a blank piece of paper, and I said, ‘There’s the artwork.’ ” Who says curators aren’t badasses? Read, via Greg.org,a brief yet fascinating account of curatorial license by the legendary Walter Hopps—all with the noblest of goals in mind: to promote the work of Giorgio Morandi, who in the late ’50s/early ’60s was mostly unknown, at least on the West Coast. At an early stage of his long and illustrious career, Hopps founded and ran the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles (from 1957 to 1962), showing the likes of Robert Irwin, Ed Kienholz, Wallace Berman, and Ed Ruscha, in addition to Morandi.

We’ve noticed this, too: “The word ‘curate’,” lofty and once rarely spoken outside exhibition corridors or British parishes, has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting.” From a recent New York Times piece.

You be the curator, option 1: Help commission a work of art with the stunningly simple FEAST MPLS: Attend a (not all that expensive) dinner. Peruse artists’ proposals with your fellow diners. Vote. The winning artist gets the take from the door (minus the dinner cost). Uses money to create proposed work. Shares work at the next FEAST MPLS dinner. Try it out on November 14.

Chief Curator, Darsie Alexander and Curator of the Permanent Collection, Betsy Carpenter, planning upcoming PC exhibiton, Event Horizon, opening November 21, 2009 and running through August 26, 2012, in Galleries 1 and 3.

You be the curator, option 2: Make your own exhibition at the Walker’s After Hours Preview Party on November 20. Select thumbnail images of works from the Walker collection (including photos, videos, films, performances, or sound pieces). Arrange works on a gallery floor plan. Put the works you care about the most in prominent places. (“Curate” comes, after all, from the Latin for “to care”?) Paint the walls of your miniature gallery. Find ideas connecting the works. And finally, title your exhibition. Get tickets to the After Hours Party here.

Who are the Walker’s avian neighbors?

My father and I went “city birding” to see the surprising ways wildlife dovetails with the urban environment. In May and then in October, we wandered the grounds of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, then migrated to Loring Park, and concluded our observations perched atop the Walker’s green slope. Here is a bird’s-eye-view of the territory we covered.

1: Minneapolis Sculpture Garden; 2: Walker’s greenspace; 3: Loring Park; 4: Walker Art Center, Gallery Tower; 5: Walker Art Center, Theater Tower

First, to introduce the birders:

Abbie

• Novice at bird identification
• Walker Art Center staff
• Fledgling artist

Renner

• Enjoys applying the principles of evidence-based medicine to his birding
• Admires thorough, rigorous experimental design
• Empty nester

What we saw may surprise you! Take a look at our list, then go look for yourself. I welcome your comments to this post — I’m curious to see if you see the same species or others!

FIELD NOTES:HIGHLIGHTS

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

• In the Garden we enjoyed observing a fairly diverse bird population. In both May and October, lots of birds find their way to the Garden grounds.
• In May, the Green Heron was our most unexpected sighting. We saw it flying low overhead at 8:41 am. Later we spotted it in a pine tree along the western edge of the Garden. Maybe it nests in the wetlands located about 1/3 mile west of the Garden?
  
• As we walked along the park’s eastern and western edges in October, we saw Ruby-crowned Kinglets in the pines, often at very close distances (as close as 4′). They would flit from one pine bow to the next, and would frequently hover (almost like a hummingbird), positioning themselves just under the pine needles’ tips. Could they have been drinking water droplets?
• Another great bird to watch was the Brown Creeper. It lands at the base of a tree trunk then slowly hops and spirals up, foraging for insects. Once it gets as high as the branches, it takes flight and alights at the base of the next tree. We watched it scale 5 tree trunks, very methodically and consistently repeating its search for food.
  

Walker Art Center’s Greenspace

• In May, virtually all the observed individuals were flying over.
• Contrasting the greenspace observations with those recorded in the Garden or in Loring Park, one can hypothesize that features such as physical structure, diverse flora, and a water source make a quantifiable difference in the abundance and diversity of birds, even on a micro-local level.
  

Loring Park

• In both May and October, this location had the most diverse populations of our three sites.
• Mourning Doves: We saw them all through the Sculpture Garden, even atop George Segal’s Walking Man, but we didn’t see any in Loring Park!
  
• 70% increase: In October, we saw 70% more species than we saw in May! This was striking because the species counts at the other sites were consistent for our two survey dates.

We submitted our observations on e-bird, an free online checklist tool. E-bird  offers organized record storage and customizable reports to users. Its greater purpose is to serve researchers in the fields of conservation and ecology.

Every two facts in the hand is worth a third in the thicket.

Had my dad and I only surveyed the Garden, our experiences would have been less dimensional. The accumulation of information is not a strictly additive process, but can compound our knowledge multiplicatively. With every observable datum, relationships exist between that singular bit and all the pieces that came before. In this context we cobble together patterns, discriminate and identify categories,  speculate as to meaning and postulate as to the future. How many bits and pieces must we put together to present a satisfactorily convincing semblance of a whole?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a discussion between artist Fritz Haeg and some Walker staff. Reflecting on his works and practice influenced me to conduct this bird census. I appreciate the power of Haeg’s work to remind us that wilderness is always at hand, and closer at hand than we might casually believe.  Thank you to Education and Community Programs for making this encounter, this exploration, and this learning possible.

Sekou Sundiata – Voice and Passage

Today, I ponder death. I am thinking of life’s inevitable end because it is gray and I have just returned from Paris and feel the demise of my own vacation, acutely (and remember some vain and heroic graves in Pere Lachaise cemetary that now lie in ruins or are forgotten.) I am also thinking of death in relation to my lost compatriot, the poet Sekou Sundiata, whose life and work we celebrate and remember this week at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis.

Sekou created in voice – invisible exhalations of sound and meaning. In our time, voice can be preserved in analog and digital technologies. But constitutionally it is wind – ubiquitous, forceful and completely mysterious. Voice (as wind) shapes and moves us, wounding and restoring, animating and destroying. As long as we breath (easily) we give voice to ourselves and to others. Our (or at least my) beloved and hated remembrances are linked to these invisible currents of the lungs, throat and lips. We are upheld by those moments when we are nourished and sustained by the voices of care; of friendship; of understanding; of compassion: and often crushed by those breaths that carry the forces of hatred, contempt and violence. Spirit. Voice. Are we not wind too – ubiquitously banal – blown and blowing; arriving as departure?

These dark and light gifts of voice: a newborn’s cry; words of love and endearment from someone we long for; news of the passing of someone we cherish. Passing – always – wind and voice – words that wound, heal, reverberate and echo. Sounds carried in the head and heart; in the caverns of the body. Voice – inescapable – whisper or harangue. Voice as phantasm – mystery and mist – more allied to expiration than to form.

Unlike others who in print lie forever prone on a page; Sundiata rises holographically even now in his voice (listen to him on the web- linked here); ghostly returning to stand before us, nearly as gorgeous and tall as he was in life; convening and communicating in his crooner’s baritone; lulling in his clear tones – smoothing over the very depths he so expertly navigated. Making it all seem so easy (His Coolness forever preserved). Listen in. He tells how he temporarily escaped the inevitable through transplantation, accident and re-creation. In the end, by aligning himself with voice – perhaps he mastered expiration; escaped the final silence by refusing to just be written down.

We return this week to his work (an expiration of voice together in song and conversation); perhaps, to dance our own undoing; to be with him in passing.

* * *

Singing the Legacy of Sekou Sundiata: The America Project
Thursday, October 22, 2009 – Saturday, October 24, 2009
2822 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55408 | 612.871.4444

Intermedia Arts is proud to host Singing the Legacy of Sekou Sundiata: The America Project Twin Cities, a series of community events including Art Treats lunches, citizenship dinners, a film screening and community sing, all designed to inspire and ignite our passionate ideals around citizenry, civic work, and active engagement in civic life. Together we will use art, music, conversation and laughter to discuss what it means to be an American today, and to dream about what it could mean in the future