May 16, 2008

Get Art-A-Whirled

Full disclosure time: I don't just play an arts writer in a magazine, I'm foolish enough to practice what I preach. I share a studio in the Northrup King Building in northeast Minneapolis, showing photography, and this weekend Art-A-Whirl--the neighborhood's multi-building open studio tour--will sweep through, bringing thousands of browsers, buyers (one hopes), and dudes who just want to drink our beer (sorry, that'll be a buck). But even if I wasn't on the tour, I couldn't imagine why any local arts fan would want to be anywhere else this weekend, at least for a few hours, soaking up 500 artists' work in what's arguably the largest artist enclave in a four-state area (no, I'm not... Read more »

Posted on Friday, May 16, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 9, 2008

62 reasons to go out this weekend

As all the artists in town scramble to get ready for Art-A-Whirl next weekend, you've got a week left to entertain yourself (but don't spend all your money before Art-A-Whirl, and I'm not just saying that because I'm in the show; seriously it's time to take down those couple-kissing-in-Paris posters and get some local art on the walls--you don't live in Nebraska, folks, and be grateful for it). Where was I?

Ah, yes, the Walker Art Center. Or at least I should be, and so should you: It's the Global Lens film festival from May 7 to 18, screening a select 10 films from across the world. Are they artsy-fartsy? Unabashedly. Will you enjoy them anyway? Almost certainly. You've still... Read more »

Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 2, 2008

Review: "Gem of the Ocean" shines

I’ve always thought of the new Guthrie Theater, with its waiting lounges and glowing directionals, like an airport: where do I want to go today? In the case of the two shows currently on stage at the theater, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Gem of the Ocean, you’re going to similarly magical places--realms only the theater can offer in full immersion, where the spiritual and pragmatic dramatically converge to explain our otherwise ineffable humanity. You’re going deep. Damn, it’s good to be a Minnesotan.

Gem of the Ocean, staged at the... Read more »

Posted on Friday, May 2, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

Best in Shows? An alternative to the critics' picks

"Best of" issues are an exercise in pragmatism as much as hyperbole. If you've named the same place or person the best for three years running, you may be obligated to consider another, just to keep things moving--even if the mainstay still reigns. So with that in mind, here are a few offerings in agreement or contrast to another local publication's picks for the "best" in local arts.

Best Exhibition: They chose "Frida Kahlo" at the Walker. This seems instead like the "smartest" exhibition--the 100th anniversary of her birth, 2007 was Kahlo's year (and still is, it seems) from here to South America. A Walker rep admitted privately that the show was perhaps a better fit artistically for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts--it's hardly... Read more »

Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 18, 2008

The Guthrie: Midsummer Dream or nightmare?

The Twin Cities will break down this weekend between those watching the Wild and those watching wild things onstage.

The Guthrie is staging its reprisal of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Only, it’s not as much of a reprisal as you’d think. It’d certainly have been smart move, given that every performance sold out during the 1997 run. But artistic director Joe Dowling is going deeper this time; here’s hoping he left a trail of bread crumbs to find his way out of the magical forest.

There’s no end, of course, to the contemporary themes that directors saddle Shakespeare with these days, and many times the work still manages to hold up. But whereas Dowling’s previous, more puckish foray into the forest was playful, romantic, and--dare we say, sexy--this... Read more »

Posted on Friday, April 18, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 4, 2008

Richard Prince: The Walker Goes Pulp

The new Richard Prince retrospective, curated by the Guggenheim and opened at the Walker Art Center a couple weeks ago, is subtitled “Spiritual America.” Which, given that we’re dealing with one of the most ironic artists since the Pop Art era, is itself ironic. Or is it?

Like Warhol, Prince often recreates things—comics, photography, advertisements—but with a twist. In the ‘70s, depending on the story you hear, Prince survived as a clipper, clipping articles from magazines for Time-Life writers or clipping ads to send to advertisers to prove they ran as promised; in any case he became obsessed with the advertisements. He’s both fascinated and repulsed by pop culture—which isn’t a terribly original reaction these days (who doesn’t have a long list of... Read more »

Posted on Friday, April 4, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 31, 2008

New Guthrie Season Announced: Something for Everyone

So many actors in this town, so little time/money/patience to sit in front of them and see what they want to tell us. Thing is, most of them are better than, say, Rock Hudson was in his prime. Better than Veronica Lake, better than almost anyone on TV in the '80s, with the possible exception of Alf. Yeah, us reserved Minnesotans, we act out in strange, but talented, ways. So what happens when one theater, the Guthrie, installs so many seats that they pretty much have to play to every taste--or have no taste--to fill them? Who's got time for so much theater--three stages, year-round? You do. Why? Because in a couple short years since moving into its airport-like new digs, the Guthrie has taken off, becoming what everyone either hoped or feared: a one-stop shop for Twin Cities theater. Read more »

Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (3)

March 21, 2008

Hot new plays, SXSW

Let's do some housecleaning first--it's been awhile. I wish I could say I was at South By Southwest, the massive indie music festival in Austin, but better yet, I was in Mexico. In a treehouse. Enough said.

But since regular readers know my affection for eBay oddities, I was kindly sent this Jesus on a Salisbury Steak just in time for Easter. Seriously, up to $212 at press time? Maybe artists should reconsider their mediums. Again, enough said.

In any case, Minnesota musicians made... Read more »

Posted on Friday, March 21, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 9, 2008

Review:

"The Piano Lesson" isn't the first installment in the late August Wilson's legendary 10-play chronicle of African-American life in the 20th century, but it sets the stage, as it were, as well as any. A black family has inherited a piano with a history entwined with slavery; one member wants to sell it to finance his dreams, the other wouldn't dream of it.

Wilson was a master of the old school, investing his--and the audience's--energy in the power of words rather than actions: people sitting around talking is one way to describe it, with characters moving pretty much only to leave or enter the set. Another is that all the talking, Tennessee Williams style, pulls you into another world the way a novel does--sit back and enjoy the soliloquies that roll off these actors' tongues... Read more »

Posted on Sunday, March 9, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 27, 2008

Parting thoughts on Diablo, plus the inside story of the Ordway's new season

How very meta. Everyone knows the story by now: Diablo Cody goes from City Pages blogger on pop culture to pop culture "it" girl (the spoofs are already rolling in). But what does her startling ascent to Oscar-winning fame really mean? And will it last?

To me, it means she's done what several months of striking didn't do for Hollywood writers -- pointed out that good writing matters (no matter what the evidence to the contrary at this... Read more »

Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 in Front & Center | Permalink | Comments (1)