Off Center’s dear old friend Paul Schmelzer wrote a series of posts on his own blog, eyeteeth, about The Miss Rockaway Armada back in 2006. Paul hung out with the collective when the group of artists, performers, and adventurers were congregating in Minneapolis to begin their journey down the Mississippi river on homemade rafts. A traveling community, the artists perform, give workshops, and create spectacles along the journey.

In April, MASS MoCA opened an installation and interactive exhibition by the collective: Being Here Is Better Than Wishing We’d Stayed. There are bunches more images of the installation on the Armada’s blog, including the one below.

From the river: Miss Armada flickr pool

And here’s a clip of the ferris wheel in action (pictured at top, photo via Flickr user tchandler.)

In light of my new obsession with a certain bacon meme (Did you know there were buttons?), I wanted to post this response to the New Museum’s Ugo Rondinone.

Via Paul and Wooster.

Yesterday while using the facilities, I happened upon this intervention when I dried my hands:

As a longtime vegetarian, I wasn’t exactly hoping that meat would pour out…but I also have to admit that it took me a minute to realize why the label makes perfect sense. It’s a dark bathroom, so the image above is hard to see, but the wavy lines in the icon are suspiciously bacon-shaped.

It’s the Hennepin lobby women’s bathroom for you intrepid bacon-seekers (sorry dudes).

There are still two weekends of the Art Shanty Projects left and I swear it’s not that cold. Now in its fifth year, ASP brings together a community of artists to build and inhabit themed fishing shanties on Medicine Lake in Plymouth.

This year two co-conspirators and I created Medicine Lake Fisheries, a two-story shanty with an open air deck and a fishing tent on the second story. We’ve been fishing from the second story and admiring the view (see Justin Heideman’s shot above) for the past month. Andy Sturdevant, of the MOWSAR Shanty, has a thorough rundown of 2008’s shanties, but here are some of my favorite firsts from this year:

1. Catching a fish from a frozen lake.

Medicine Lake Fisheries is strictly a catch and release operation.

2. A Taiko-drumming groundhog wedding.

Last Saturday, February 2, Duane Tougas and Kat Corrigan were wed on the top of Medicine Lake Fisheries. Their wedding party consisted of 3 groundhogs and one mouse.

Also check out the Snap Shot Shanty’s photo blog- where they post the images they capture in their on-ice portrait studio.

The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan comments on the Walker’s Kara Walker exhibition My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, currently at the Whitney museum in New York. Givhan does an excellent job putting Kara Walker in the context of recent events.

Christoph Bchel, who has until now remained silent, finally spoke about his woes with MASS Moca in an email to Geoff Edgers at the Boston Globe. Funny, perhaps, but not the most mature answer- a sentiment also noted here. Hopefully MASS MoCA won’t be responding in kind.

For Paul’s original post on the museum’s legal victory, click here.

The Year of Living Biblically chronicles the time A.J. Jacobs spent adhering to the more than 700 rules contained in the Bible. He strictly upheld the 10 commandments and many more obscure rules (sleeping in a hut on certain holidays, eating crickets).

What caught my eye though, was the photo progression of his hair growth (thou shalt not cut side hair, in case you needed an explanation). It reminded me of a very different version of the Eleanor Antin performance Carving: A Traditional Sculpture.

Just a quick note about the MPR story that woke me up this morning (love my clock-radio). The new owner of Linden Hills’ first weeHouse, which dropped into the neighborhood today, first learned about his prefab house from the Walker’s own exhibition Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses.

Neighborhood gawkers pictured below:

As a Philadelphia native, I have been following the fight over the Barnes Foundation for a few years now, mostly with the help of the newspaper clippings my mom mails me. Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes posted a flurry of posts last week about the legal battle that appears to be heating up again with another move by the Friends of the Barnes Foundation to keep the institution in Merion, PA.

I’ve seen the collection both in its native habitat and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and while I was still wowed by much of the work at PMA, the installation, the building, the location, the gardens, and the ghost of stubborn old Barnes combine to create an artwork much larger than any of its parts.

I’ve been prompted to spend a lot of time thinking about the context of the works in our own museum; as you can see in the image above, Barnes’ installation is jam-packed and those aren’t exactly white walls. Are all white walls created equal, or are there certain places that make or break the artwork? I’ve been trying to brainstorm artworks I’ve seen that I wouldn’t want to see anywhere else.

Another example of Philly pride/stubbornness in the arts: does the effort that halted this move signal hope for Barnes?

Images from http://www.new-york-art.com/e/e-mus-barnes.htm

Peter trades a limited edition print (which you buy) for a whole day of his guide service. This year he teamed up with Minnesota Public Radio to produce free audio tours that you can download for free here.

Mmm, mini donuts.