David Bowen’s Networked Bamboo and Pete Driessen’s White Fleet are among works in the MMAA’s 3D II biennial exhibition.
You can drive by the Science Museum of Minnesota every day and be forgiven for overlooking the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the bastion of homegrown visual art that, until not long ago, shared walls with the jail in the Ramsey County Government Center.
The MMAA’s Minnesota Biennial is the only so-named exhibition in the Twin Cities. Two- and three-dimensional work get alternating showcases — the latest 3D turn, the museum’s first since 2002, opened Saturday. 3D II is at turns bright, trite, engaging, unpolished, unpretentious, flat, fatuous, funny and wholly unique on the local gallery and museum scene. A sole juror — Jennifer Jankauskas, associate curator of exhibitions at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, in Sheboygan, Wis. — winnowed down more than 150 artists to select the 27 in this show. 3D II closes February 3, 2008.
Jankauskas leans to the wry and socially relevant, emphasizing installation over static sculpture, and much of the work begs for direct interaction. At the well-attended opening-night party, visitors easily lost their heads the moment after walking in the door — Julia Kouneski’s pinhole cameras are like hexagon helmets. David Hamlow of Good Thunder, Minn., cast his life between 1994 and 1998 into a giant cardboard ball taped together from every box of cereal, crackers, soap, razors and other products he bought and used during those years. Friends and family weighed in with their own takes of Hamlow, made from the artist’s discarded materials.
My favorite pieces were David Bowen’s Networked Bamboo, an installation carrying deliciously creepy Borg overtones (the water-injected stalks make jerky, pained movements through light and electrical impulses) and an unnamed piece by Todd Severson of Minneapolis, a ceramic artist who created a web of figures in a frozen free-fall. I want to see more work from Pete Driessen, whose White Fleet, a stark comment on African colonialism, traces its influence to the work of Kara Walker.
3D II celebrates artists worth discovering.
Matt,
Thank you for wanting to see more of my artwork from the MMAA Biennial 3D-II and the positive mention on the Walker Blog. Just a few correctional clarifications:
The title of my work is actually “Untitled(Dreamtime Resistance)-White Fleet.” The image you posted is “Untitled(Dreamtime Resistance)-White Fleet-Section 1″. I had to break up the fleet in order to photograph them.
The imagery reflects Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime, not African colonialism. The ships are a statement about the Bush empire. It was a curatorial decision to not put up my artist statement–perhaps this would have made it more clear.
Though I respect and enjoy her work, I am not influenced by Kara Walker. I am more influenced by the Critical Art Ensemble, Rirkrit T., and Sub Rosa, and long list of tormented painters and artists that changes daily.
You can also view my new fleet of ships at the following exhibition:
Nuestra Frida opens Tonite! December 1, 7-11pm, thru January 5, The Casket Building, Minneapolis, MN.
(Two Dos Fridas ships with Unibrow Tweezer Cargo)
Several ship images can also be viewed online at .
Search Driessen. Then click on the head portfolio. Then click on the sailboat portfolio. Let the images and music load.
Thanks again, pete d.
Comment by pete driessen — 12/1/2007 @ 12:49 pm
Matt,
This address didn’t seem to post on the second to last line of my 1st comment: http://www.myartspace.com.
Sorry, not so good with html.
Thanks,
pete
Comment by pete driessen — 12/3/2007 @ 2:22 pm
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