Off Center

 

• “An ingenious amalgam of painting and printmaking techniques” – mnartists.org’s Susannah Schouweiler shares a review of Carolyn Swiszcz’s work in Innovation Road, a show at Franklin Artworks. Swiszcz was half of the husband and wife team behind the an unforgettable song, created for the Worlds Away Exhibition, and the call for art for The UnConvention’s I Approve This Message.
• “Not your basic draw a line here draw a line there architects” – rolu. links up several images and videos of Best, the failed big box retailer, whose iconic buildings were designed by SITE. This video was also featured in Worlds Away. The designs never cease to amaze me. 
• A bit eyebrow raising - Perhaps in the 2009 British Television and Advertising Awards?
• Fishing pole photography - MNKiteman added a couple photos to the Walker Art Center pool on flickr, both from a high angle. How he did it is almost as intersting as the photos: “My camera was mounted on the end of a fishing pole and triggered using an infrared device. You can do a search using PAP for the tag to see more pole aerial photography photos.” His other photos of the Art Shanties are worth checking out. 

Walker staff members Nancy Gross and Michele Tobin have been on the mother of all shopping trips in New York – including, first and foremost, several days at the New York International Gift Fair. With several thousand designers, artisans, craftspeople, etc. exhibiting their wares, this gargantuan buyers’ mart takes up not just the entire Javits Center, but also Piers 90, 92, & 94. Nancy just sent this update as they prepared to make their final rounds at the Fair before returning to Minneapolis tonight:

“In spite of the current state of they economy, and light attendance at the show by vendors and buyers, we have found some great new merchandise for spring and summer. Some highlights include Alessi’s adding to its already successful line of “Banana Brothers” products by Stephano Giovannoni. We loved the collection, including the placecards, corkscrews, canisters, toothpick holders, etc.

Monday evening, we were invited to a special dinner event hosted by Alessi. We enjoyed connecting with our colleagues from Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (Mark and Maxine) and our Alessi rep, Diane O’Donnel. And for the pasta course, the chef demonstrated Alessi’s ingenious “Pasta Pot”: a crock-pot-like appliance designed by chef Alain Ducasse and designer Patrick Jouin, which allows vegetables, pasta and sauce to cook together and go straight to your table.

One of our favorite companies, Kid-O toys (mentioned in our last blog post), introduced a new, well-designed wooden memory game and also an interactive depth perception toy. Look for them in the Walker Shop in June.

Some other fun things we found were a Ipod speaker with a Lego-like look, a roll of packing tape with Shepard Fairey-inspired graphics, real “Wee Plants” the size of a fingernail that grow in a glass vial, and specialized lenses for your camera phone that create special effects (wide angle, kaleidoscope,etc.).

A fresh color trend we found was citrine yellow combined with grey – a look that we’ve incorporated into our spring assortment of Chilewich placemats. Turns out that Michelle Obama’s Inauguration Day outfit was right on trend!”

Director of merchandising Nancy Gross and sales manager Michele Tobin are currently on the run in New York, hunting down cool stuff to bring to you in the Walker Shop. Nancy just sent us this dispatch from their first couple of days:

We come here twice a year mainly to find unusual things at the New York International Gift Fair and elsewhere, but there’s more to the trip than that. We get inspiration from our colleagues, we make the rounds to design shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, we pin down trends, and we connect with colleagues from all over the country on everything – from an amazing tea set they might have just found to the state of the economy.

So here’s a glimpse into our winter visit. Last Saturday, before the Gift Fair itself opened, was spent shopping stores in Manhattan – we are always on the search for the newest places. Our first stop was the Museum of Arts and Design, recently re-opened in the famous and now (controversially) renovated 2 Columbus Circle building. The galleries had us captivated and the jewelry in their vast permanent collection is amazing. If you go, don’t miss the artwork that involves over 5,000 spools of thread – and be sure to look at it through the crystal gazing ball! Of course we visited their beautiful, light-filled new store on the main level. They have a great assortment of jewelry, as well as ceramics and glass. Jamie, the manager, ok’d us taking a picture of the store.

Our next stop was Soho. We make a regular pilgrimage to Moss, an always interesting and well-curated emporium. We paid a visit to our Minneapolis friends, Blu Dot, at their new Soho store. The space really shows off the furniture – we love the quirky accessories like the blue ceramic squirrels. A huge wall mural on the second level features an image from their catalogue – most of the models are our Walker colleagues from various departments!

Kiosk, a tiny shop hidden at the top of a strange graffiti-filled stairway,

showcases “souvenirs” from the owners’ trips around the world – the items are really just regular objects in their native lands, but unusual to someone outside. Each item comes with a full description – fun reading.

We also paid a visit to Kid-O, a toystore on 10th at Greenwich Avenue. They specialize in wonderful wooden toys and other playthings that encourage the imagination. Walker Shop sells the block set they now license and produce, first designed by the founder of the City & Country school in Greenwich village in the early 1900’s. We’re eager to see their new products at the gift show in the next few days.

Another discovery, albeit a more ephemeral one: the cupcakes at Batch bakery, just across the street from Kid-O. We recommend the pumpkin rum raisin, but as this Flickr photo set attests, they change their varieties regularly.
More soon from the NY International Gift Fair!

Last year, street artist Shepherd Fairey got the go-ahead to create a now-iconic portrait of the then-candidate Barack Obama to use in campaigning for the nation’s highest office. Now another high office of sorts – the National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution – has put the portrait on view. It’s unclear whether the piece was acquired, but its owners/loaners are Washington, D.C., art collectors Heather and Tony Podesta – Tony being, yes, the brother of John.

One note of interest: the National Gallery usually displays the officially commissioned portrait of a U.S. president in the weeks before he leaves office. So is this display of a President-as-candidate portrait unprecedented? Another issue speaks to the artistic success of the image (though I loathe Fairey’s Obey Giant stuff – yes, I suppose that makes me “old”): it has retained its icon status despite the veritable flood of Obama imagery that has come along; as candidate and now as President, he is one of the most-commodified presidents ever.

More from the Walker blogs on Fairey’s Obama portrait is posted here, and just yesterday, the New York Times published a thoughtful piece by Randy Kennedy on what it means when cultural institutions of authority (like this one) begin to accept and even welcome the longstanding questioning of that authority by street artists and others once considered outsiders.

Museum of Bad Art

Today the Walker was visited by Michael Frank, the Curator-in-Chief of Boston’s Museum of Bad Art (MOBA). Since the early 90’s, the MOBA features “art too bad to be ignored™,” displayed in galleries in the basements of two community theatres in the Boston area, the “largest network of theatre-basement exhibition venues on Earth.” The museum exhibits artworks with a playful ironic subtext. The hilarious website is a fascinating peek into the world of images found in thrift stores, garbage piles, yard sales, and even donations from artists themselves. Michael is in town to view and promote Masterworks: The MOBA plays , 6 commissioned plays based on 6 paintings from his new book The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks. Being a Boston native myself, I was immediately excited to meet Michael and ask him some questions about MOBA.

What is your professional background?
I’m a professional musician and guitar player—Mike the Hatman. I do kids’ shows.

How did you become involved with MOBA?
In the early 90’s, the founders of the Museum of Bad Art decided to move on. There were a group of us who wanted to see it continue. I knew the founders because of a donation I made to the museum. I became Curator-in-Chief because I donated more art than anyone else.  Louise Reilly Sacco, the sister of one of the founders, became Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director.

What is the mission of MOBA?
We look for art created in earnestness, but where something went wrong in the execution or concept.

Which piece exemplifies the mission of MOBA?
That’s so hard to do, choose one piece. That’s like asking, “Which kid do you like the best?” I think Gilded Nude does a good job of showing what we’re about. You have to read the commentary, though—“The viewer is struck immediately by the youthful female subject’s oversized arm.”

Very tongue-in-cheek.
That’s MOBA.

What is your definition of “bad art?”
It’s difficult to be ironic about abstract art. Most art I would include in MOBA is representational, mostly with poor technique. Just because it has poor technique, though, doesn’t mean it automatically fits in at the MOBA. Some of the work has very good technique. It has to be a compelling image, one that I find interesting. Basically, if I say it’s museum-worthy, it is.

How do the artists at MOBA compare with “outsider” artists?
The works are very similar to Outsider Art or Art Brut. Some of the artists are also in many outsider art collections.

Some artists donate their works. How do the artists feel about being exhibited at MOBA?
A lot of artists do donate works. Some artists will use MOBA on their resumes. I follow the mission of MOBA when choosing the works. If the artist is too self-conscious or silly, trying to make bad art, I don’t accept it. Some artists are surprised when they find that their works are in MOBA. Only one person objected, the rest are happy about it for the most part.

MOBA exhibits mostly paintings and some sculpture. Have you considered including other media like film or performance art?
No. I thought about photography. Like abstract art, I find it hard to be ironic about photos. I do have a collection of music that I play at the galleries. One musician is Mary Schneider, Australia’s Queen of Yodeling. She yodels the classics. She yodels the melody to the William Tell Overture with an accompanying orchestra. She has fantastic technique.

What are people’s reactions to MOBA?
Almost everyone likes it. Some people don’t get it. What are people’s reactions to the Walker?

Mostly positive, some mixed opinions. The Walker shows so many different kinds of art, not many people like everything at the Walker. A lot of people know who we are and that we push the boundaries of the definition of art, so they expect that. Some people expect to see Van Gogh paintings and are mad when they find out we don’t show any.
I saw some works in your museum that I might consider for MOBA but like I said, it’s hard for me to be ironic about abstract art. I wondered, “Why is a canvas with a slit cut into it considered art?”

The Bryant Lake Bowl is currently showing Masterworks: The MOBA plays, performed by the Minnesota-based Commedia Bauregard theatre company. Interestingly, one of the plays is based on the painting Bone-Juggling Dog in Hula Skirt, by Minneapolis artist Mari Newman.

The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks and other MOBA merchandise can be purchased from the MOBA website.
Like all reputable museums, MOBA happily accepts donations. Submissions should be made via email: curator@museumofbadart.org.

A friend just send me this post from artfagcity, on images of babies in contemporary art – something we’re both interested in, being moms of toddlers ourselves. (I’d say we’re obsessed, but being moms of toddlers leaves scant time for obsessing about anything except the toddlers.) AFC’s Paddy Johnson also includes a link to this essay on motherhood and contemporary artists, from The Brooklyn Rail. While reading it, I recalled watching the uptick in strollers on the streets of Williamsburg (Brooklyn) a few years back – but at the time I wasn’t considering that many of those pushing the strollers might be working artists … Then again, isn’t Williamsburg now too expensive for working artists, with or without offspring? Circling back to artfagcity, an artistic comment on both topics.

PS – Margaret, a working artist and mom-of-toddlers and a regular here on the Walker blogs, has a number of thoughtful posts on art and parenthood.

One of reasons to enjoy working at this institution is that there’s an understanding about certain things – such as the fact that many of us employees (not to mention Walker visitors) might be a touch giddy in our anticipation of the history taking place next Tuesday.

So, thanks to the coordinated efforts among four departments – Human Resources, New Media, Events and Media Production, and Visitor Services – the Walker will be showing the television broadcast of 44’s Inauguration in the Cinema, for employees and visitors both.

Note that the actual swearing-in ceremony, where President-elect Obama loses the “elect” qualifier, is scheduled for 11:00 am CST; right as the Walker opens, so arrive promptly to catch that event on the big screen (consider using the Vineland entrance, right next to the Cinema). All of the attendant Inaugural hoopla will also be screening throughout the day (the traditional parade should start about 12:30pm CST), so take a break from the Tetsumi Kudo / Text/Messages / Beuys, Flavin and Judd exhibition circuit and stop by the Cinema to revel in the Change underway, at long last.

Edited: Times corrected.

mnartists.org’s Scott Stulen (project director) and Susannah Schouweiler (editor) are two of four critics selected to make an art show, rather than write about it. The Critics’ Show, running January 15 through February 22 at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, makes visible the personal tastes of local critics; it also subjects them to dissection, analysis, and, of course criticism, from their peers, arts, and the public at large.

A novel idea, no? Still, the critic in me can’t help but quibble with the format. The exhibition theme does not revolve around the art or the artists, but rather the curators (let’s leave out the fact that Stulen, for one, is a practicing visual artist as well). That would be fine if a single curator/critic were involved, but having four of them, each contributing one or two artists, makes this a group show of curators, not artists, if that makes any sense. Which it largely doesn’t – thus the quibble.

But there’s another novel aspect to the show, one that could detract from the above issue: At tomorrow’s opening reception, the quartet of curator/critics will briefly talk about their selections. Actually, the press release used the verb “defend,” perhaps to sound more provocative. But whether the critics defend, justify, extol, or merely explain why they chose what they did, it sounds promising. Perhaps this is something that should occur at more gallery receptions?

PS – if you’re hesitant to venture to Hopkins, get over it. Hopkins Center for the Arts is at the end of a quaint (but not overly cute) shopping street, with several options for dining and drinking; you can even catch a movie after the reception – the gallery is across the street from one of the few remaining bargain cinemas in the metro area.

“The Critics’ Show”
Opening Reception + panel discussion with artists and critics
January 15, 6 – 8 p.m. (panel discussion at 7pm)

Charles D. Redepenning Gallery at the Hopkins Center for the Arts 1111 Mainstreet
Hopkins, MN 55343

The Critic/curators:
Kate Iverson (A+E Editor, Secretsofthecity.com) selected Rudy Fig and Travis Stearns

Susannah Schouweiler selected Kao Lee Thao, Alex Kuno, and Alonso Sierralta

Scott Stulen selected Erik Ullanderson, Beatrix JAR<
Gregory J. Scott (Lead Arts Writer, Vita.mn) selected Ruben Nusz

Here at the Walker, as associate registrar Joe King is preparing to restore the brilliant red paint on Spoonbridge’s crowning touch, we received the sad news that one of its co-creators has died. In addition to writing scholarly pieces on artists like John Baldessari and Gerhard Richter, Coosje van Bruggen worked with her husband Claes Oldenburg on a number of sculptures that basically monumentalized Pop art, a body of work she dubbed “The Large-Scale Projects.”

The outsized objects, which date back to the late 70s, range from a baseball bat in Chicago to binoculars in Venice, California, to a broom and dustpan in Denver; Spoonbridge and Cherry (1985-88), a highlight of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, is special in that it was the duo’s first fountain sculpture. Van Bruggen, who succumbed to breast cancer at her home in Los Angeles over the weekend, is being memorialized by dozens of obituaries online, including Time and the L.A. Times, which has a fine slideshow as well, featuring the work that has become a Minneapolis landmark.