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 … Read more
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? For a city that is second-to-none in making catastrophic urban planning blunders, surely the decision in the late-‘70s to plop down a strip mall in the middle of … Read more
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: 1. Identify the following historical era: In the early years … Read more
(Header image credit: "Conversation with Death" by Gabriel Combs) In an effort to seek out and engage multiple voices and viewpoints from the local arts community, I will present in my space on The Thousandth Word occasional postings by “Vicious Guests” — that is, writings by various artists, curators, guest critics, journalists, art experts, art … Read more
Here’s a truism of modern art: Every new generation of emerging young artists is convinced it will reinvent the culture. And, strangely enough, they all go about this reinvention pretty much in the same way: By making a bunch of meaningless noise. Think of Tristan Tzara here, and his poems that go nowhere. Think of … Read more
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! The world waited breathlessly for the final bombshell in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster film cycle to drop (spoiler: Gary Gilmore did it!), and your … Read more
A revealing and fascinating set of images snapped by an untrained eye have been making the rounds through museums around the country and finally makes a stop at the Minnesota History Center starting July 4. "Augustus F. Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits, 1905 – 1920", a photographic series of newly arrived immigrants taken by an Ellis … Read more
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 … Read more
photo by Jessica Hegland, Hair by Jon Richards. Make up by Leilani Baker, Make up Artist Goddess. Wardrobe from Melly’s Closet of Phases: Dress-BADGLEY MISCHKA-purchased at the DAYTON’S 2day warehouse sale during my lunch break at KSTP TV. Price for me to know and you not! Shoes: don’t have a clue because someone stole them … Read more
(Pictured. Douching device (not to size). May also be used for urea replacement in your diesel. Read below). Do me a favor. Take the snarky tone of my blog (is it? oh, is it? please!) and put it aside for a minute. I mean create an Obama and the Preacher (aka bigot) wall between my … Read more