The Rake: The Thousandth Word

Some Things About Some Things

Glenn Gordon — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:12:46 -0500

Bang a Drum for the Losers

Michael Fallon — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:25:09 -0500

I have a confession to make. Cynical as I’ve grown in recent years, I still do have a rather squishy spot in my heart for the losers in this world—all the clowns and clods, the misguided and the mistaken; all the failing and the failed.

Oh No! Elitists on the Horizon!

Andy Sturdevant — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:15:39 -0500

I was recently in Oakland, California, spending the afternoon watching some hipster bands play a house show in a sort of art-school punk-rock party compound, complete with barbed wire fencing all around the perimeter of the backyard (this is the sort of exotic jet-setting one does when one is an art blogger). I was having a good time, but after an hour or so, all the skinny kids thrashing away on their instruments were becoming less and less distinguishable, so I decided to wander elsewhere in the house to see what things I could find there.

Seeds of Change?

Rich Barlow — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:14:43 -0500

The first few times I attended the Minnesota State Fair as a kid I found it disappointing. It seemed a little run-down, old-fashioned, and the rides were more rickety (and scary) than all the shiny new stuff at Valleyfair. Plus, I have never liked crowds. Somehow, though, that changed when I became a teenager. Maybe it was just more fun to go with friends than family, but I think the real key was a major discovery: ironic enjoyment.

The (Mostly Conventional) UnConvention

Christina Schmid — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:21:43 -0500

When Teri Kwant submitted her yard sign to the Walker Art Center's "My Yard Our Message" project, she did not know that "I am for preemptive peace" would turn into the most popular of all the designs submitted. Neither could anyone have anticipated the delicious entendre this sign now resonates with in light of the country's second female vice-presidential nominee's ignorance when it comes to identifying major foreign policy changes authorized by the incumbent and fellow Republican president ...

The Day the Music Died

Michael Fallon — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:08:00 -0500

Note: An earlier version of this piece was published on mnartists.org on September 9, and is presented here by permission.

The Nester

Jill Yablonski — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:55:54 -0500

In an effort to seek out and engage multiple voices and viewpoints from the local arts community, we occasionally will present on The Thousandth Word postings by "Vicious Guests" -- that is, writings by various artists, curators, guest critics, journalists, art experts, art lovers, and other essential members of the arts community who have a story to tell. Michael Fallon presented the first "Vicious Guest" piece, by Gabriel Combs, last month.

"We Choose to Go to the Moon"

Michael Fallon — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:07:00 -0500
“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”
-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962

My Own Private Audio

Rich Barlow — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:31:24 -0500

Sometimes it is better to show up late.

One Day, One Night, Saturday's Alright

Andy Sturdevant — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:39:24 -0500

AMONG THE GREAT unanswerable questions that haunt our city is this one: Why is there a giant, crappy K-Mart superstore sitting in the middle of Nicollet Avenue?

Tourists, Travelers, Vagabonds

Christina Schmid — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:12:40 -0500

Summer and travel. For those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford to get out of the Cities, to the cabin or "up north," summer and travel make an unbeatable combination. Of course, camera phones and digital cameras come along for the ride. Looking at the Museum of Russian Art's current show of Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii's work, it seems that photography and travel, too, make a hard-to-resist combination.

Crate 1 of 2 Opened

Glenn Gordon — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:10:16 -0500

ArtofPolitics.com

Michael Fallon — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:56:20 -0500
One common blogging convention, that our Vicious Circle of intrepid arts writers has yet to employ, is what I am going to hereby dub the "Cavalcade of Links" (also sometimes called, by those who follow such things more closely, a "Blog Carnival"). For our purposes, a Cavalcade of Links is a posting wherein a lazy or overwrought (or too clever) blogger, in an effort to give the appearance of having thought an issue through, picks a topic and offers up a mass of live links to topic-related sites.

Yes We Can!

Andy Sturdevant — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:23:27 -0500

Bad design is all around us, but there's no bad design like bad election year design. Let's take a moment here to catalog some notable atrocities from recent election cycles, and then hang our heads in bipartisan shame. Offender number one is Bush/Cheney's militantly mindless logo from 2004; you can almost hear the designer making phlegmatic war movie sound effects to himself as he drafted it.

Art Cars!

Christina Schmid — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:52:15 -0500

Prelude: A friend--and faithful supporter of this blog--recently told me to consider taking more risks online. So, following this piece of advice, I offer you an essay about cars, hoping not to step on fellow blogger and serious car enthusiast Chris Birt's toes. A disclaimer: apart from driving them, I am not "into" cars. I think of them as gas-guzzling necessities that get me from point A to point B in case those two points are too far apart to bike.

Nostalgia and the Irregular Lens

Collier White — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:14:10 -0500

Reclaimed Memory at Rogue Buddha through July 27^th and
Dots and Loops at Midway Contemporary Art through August 2^nd

A Cultural Complaint

Rich Barlow — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:43:47 -0500
I was recently quoted in print saying, "I don't particularly like complaining." This came as a huge surprise to many of my friends, who immediately contacted me about what they perceived as a glaring inaccuracy in the article. Of course, I protested that it all made sense in context: I was being interviewed about a music festival I co-curate and produce, and was trying to explain the genesis of the event. I was tired of hearing that there was "nothing going on" in town and decided to make something happen and give the lie to that particular complaint.

The New Dada

Michael Fallon — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:37:44 -0500

Part the first -- History Is the Past

History is something that happens to other people. -Anonymous

WELCOME STUDENTS. I'd like to begin today's seminar with a pop quiz. (No groaning, people!) Please take out your Bluebooks and answer the following two-part question:

Monsters, Maps, and Marginalia

Christina Schmid — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:45:35 -0500
How is your balance these days? I'm asking only because I'm about to take you out on a limb--and who knows how many of us have learned to walk on a tightrope unafraid, arms spread wide; how to fall without getting hurt; and how to lift off and take flight? (Impossible, you say?

Dried Blood and Dandelion Wine

Michael Fallon — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:01:25 -0500

(Header image credit: "Conversation with Death" by Gabriel Combs)

The Paintings Have Been Drinking (Not Me)

Andy Sturdevant — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:34:32 -0500

Travel back with me, if you will for just a moment, to those happy, halcyon days of the year 2001. Oh, what a time to be a young American artist it was!

Lyre

Glenn Gordon — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:19:32 -0500

There are certain works of art the body wholly understands before the mind kicks in with its distancing powers of disembodied detachment and analysis. In the Twin Cities, there is very little art in the public realm -- in what we now call "the commons"-- that does this. Most public art, strained through the cheesecloth of three or four bureaucracies, is earnestly mediocre, almost by necessity. Much of what wins competitions is "plop art," dutifully commissioned to meet the tithing requirement for one-percent-for-art public building projects.

Pavane for a Dead Sculptor

Glenn Gordon — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:40:36 -0500

The melancholy in the eyes of the gorilla imprisoned in the zoo, I think it is real. He is confounded by the loss of his freedom. He sorrows at what his captors have evolved into.

Minneapolis has two life-size bronze sculptures of gorillas by the late British artist Angus Fairhurst, who this past March committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a forest in England at the age of 41. One of them is in the courtyard of the Chambers Hotel at Ninth and Hennepin; the other is sited on the green outside the west window of the Walker Art Center.

Welcome to the Geometric Imaginarium

Christina Schmid — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:31:18 -0500
If an exhibition inspires imaginary conversations with William Blake, William Gibson, and Terry Tempest Williams in the same breath, it seems safe to assume that there's something going on: something that just might live up to art's potential to intrigue, confound, and, ever so slightly, alter the way you perceive the work at hand – and, ambitiously, the world at large.

Multipurpose

Collier White — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:05:29 -0500

Exhibitions discussed in this article:

Information Sickness and Time Fever by Molly Roth
At Thomas Barry Fine Arts through July 3rd

Roger Roger by Traci Tullius, and Meander, including work by Andrea Selese Carlson, Angela Zammarelli, Bethany Kalk, Brian Jorgenson, Caleb Coppock, Chad Rutter, Dan Tesene, Emily Smith, Erika Ritzel, Isa Gagarin, Joe Sinness, Markus Merkle, Mitchell Dose, Molly Roth, Robin Cotton, Ryan Macintyre, Sally Grayson, and Shepherd Alligood

Beautiful Resistance

Christina Schmid — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:40:43 -0500

Remember beauty? The breath-taking, awe-inspiring kind? Take a pause to remember. And remember what followed the initial encounter—the inescapable impulse to share. Did you fumble for your phone or camera to snap a picture for posterity right away?

The Man Who Fell to Pittsburgh

Michael Fallon — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:38:50 -0500

I recently sat down to speak with Douglas Fogle--the curator of the 2008 Carnegie International--in his office at the Carnegie Museum of Art. It was a fine, bright spring day about one month into the run of the latest version of the great survey exhibition of international artists that was first mounted in 1896, and Fogle, who left the Walker Art Center in 2005 after eleven years to take this job, looked relaxed--if somewhat more internally care-worn than the last time I'd seen him at the beginning of his stint in Pittsburgh.

Oh Man, Look at Those Cavemen Go!

Michael Fallon — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:05:11 -0500

On my first pass through the 2008 Carnegie International, the massive, just-mounted edition of the 112-year-old international art survey that runs through next January at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, I eighty-percent hated the show. It started with the forced theme, "Life on Mars"--the first time ever that the show has had a separate title and theme--which seemed just a tad mundane for this event.

How Much is That Metaphysical Totem Pole in the Window?

Andy Sturdevant — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:09:31 -0500

I was recently talking to a Minneapolis artist who was, as many Minneapolis artists of a certain generation are wont to do, rhapsodizing about the glory days of the Warehouse District art scene in the 1980s.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Starchitecture

Glenn Gordon — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:50:24 -0500