MN Day 5 - Funky Buildings, Fine Art, and Farewells
Today was my last day with my sister and cousins in town, and it began with most of us rolling out of our respective beds quite groggy from our previous night’s cavorting and karaoke-ing. Luckily by the time I woke up, some of my less hungover cousins had already gone out and picked up a dozen donuts from a place called Glam Doll Donuts, which blends creative flavor combinations with pop-art and 1950s pin-up inspired aesthetics. I initially only took a photo of the box, partly because the art was incredibly cool but also partly because as soon as it was opened the donuts didn’t exactly last long enough for a photo op. The donuts themselves were all mini works of art in their own right though, so to give them their due I’ve included a vibrant promotional photo from the shop’s website. Impressively, everything also tasted as good as it looked, and I remember there being a donut with pretzels on top that was pretty out of this world.
While the donuts started the day off on a great note, to really put our hangovers to bed we stopped at a cute neighborhood coffeeshop called Cuppa Java to get a good strong cup o’ Joe.
Our first major stop of the day was the University of Minnesota’s insanely designed modern art museum: the Weisman Art Museum. Apparently the dramatic Frank Gehry designed steel architecture is supposed to resemble an abstraction of a fish and a waterfall, and maybe you can see it if you squint from a distance but it mostly just looks like an improbably huge jumble of geometric shapes. It’s a hotly debated among Twin City residents whether or not the museum is an eye sore or a work of art, but personally I loved how gonzo it looked. I do admire an architect taking a big old swing and somehow convincing everyone involved to just go with it.
While the exterior may be somewhat debated, there’s no questioning that inside the museum is one of the finest collections of modern art in the state, and best of all it’s totally free to the public! Things start off with a bang as visitor’s are greeted with a monumental 20 ft. tall mural by Pop Art legend Roy Lichtenstein. This gigantic rendering of a comic-book woman expressing carefree abandon was originally commissioned as a to be hung outside one of the pavilions for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. When the fair came to a close, Lichtenstein gifted the work to the University. I’m not sure where they could have stored it before the Weisman Museum was constructed, but it looks right at home in its current location. I feel like Lichtenstein is sometimes accused of being repetitive because his most famous works employ the same comic book style, but the more I’ve seen of his art in museums around the country the more he’s grown on me and the depth he’s able to find in such a broad and potentially limiting style is truly impressive.
Along the hallway to the main galleries, we passed a selection of the museum’s recent acquisitions. Unfortunately at both this museum and the one I visit later in the day, the notes I took at the time were less detailed than I would have liked so there’s a number of works of art I sadly don’t have any information about. They’re still great to look at it, but I’m personally disappointed in myself not being able to credit the impressive artists on display.
Of the recent acquisitions we passed by, my favorites included: a surreal scene of two prisoners (or possibly custodians?) embracing one another while a a very stern owl flies by; a lovely and perspective-twisting abstract color piece by Ruben Nusz; a neat geometric construction either by or inspired by Sol Lewitt that played wonderfully with the light to create neat cubic shadows; and a ceramic sculpture of a face with lengthy text mimicking five o’clock shadow.
At the end of the hallway, we were greeted by one of the treasures of the museum’s collection, an enormous, glittering fish made out of wood, steel, and glass by the same architect who gave the building its unique shape, Frank Gehry. There’s something weirdly majestic about the way the fish valiantly arches upward (22 ft. in the air), bouncing light in every direction off its glass scales, and it’s hard not to be a little awestruck in its presence even if you’ve never been awed by a fish before.
Next up, we checked out one of the special exhibitions which was dedicated to vintage posters from WWI intended to rouse the American populace to either join the fight on the homefront by buying war bonds, joining the workforce, and rationing food. The collection was a weird mix of genuinely impressive art and occasionally melodramatic patriotism. I do get that war effort really did benefit from war bonds, but I think even the most patriotic of people would have to admit that some of these posters go pretty hilariously over the top.
One poster in particular though positively destroyed me. The slogan “Uncle Sam needs that extra shovelful” probably would have made me laugh on its own, but the fact that this unfortunate word choice is also paired with an image of a ghostly Uncle Sam grabbing a coal worker from behind while making a creepily knowing grin is really just icing on top of this wonderfully misguided cake. I may have laughed out loud hard enough when I saw it that my cousins felt I was “making a scene”.
After the early 20th century nationalism, we made our way to the first gallery of the museum’s permanent collection which featured a mighty fine collection of modern and contemporary art. Highlights for me included: some simple but effective paintings of gently gradient color squares; Richard Barlow’s Pixelated Bromide which incredibly recreates a 19th century photograph of trees by a riverbank using nothing but meticulously arranged sequins; an incredible untitled painting by an artist named Douglas Argue (an excellent name) that might, from a distance look like an abstract painting, but is actually chicken coops improbably stretching outward into infinity with impressively detailed chickens in each cage even as they start to fade into the horizon (no idea why he painted endless chickens but I love it); some early 20th century paintings of racial violence and legal discrimination that have sadly lost little of their poignancy; a gorgeously expressive rendering of a Depression-era street scene by Joseph Pandolfini; an eerily evocative scene of Black street performers entertaining white crowds with colorful puppets by Jacob Lawrence, the playfulness cut with the artist’s darker visual metaphor for how he felt his fellow African-Americans were treated during the world wars manipulated to fight for a country that promised them freedoms it would not deliver; another playfully dark painting (one of my favorite genres) by Jim Demonie called Fort Snelling Bar and Grill which uses cartoony imagery (and a funny nod to Edward Hopper) to paint the actual military fort and former federal outpost for the corrupt Indian Administration as an over the top representation of American excesses which in its satirical way is a more honest portrait of the agency’s role in cultural genocide against the local tribes than traditional Western Art likes to acknowledge; a jazzy pop-art portrait of the museum’s namesake Frederick Weisman by none other than Andy Warhol; and lastly an impressively accurate and detailed rendering of the entirety of the Mississippi River’s vast watershed, stretching up from New Orleans to Minnesota and out as far as Montana and Pennsylvania all made entirely out of solid cast iron (the piece literally weighs a ton) by an artist named Tamsie Ringler.
At the center of all the two dimensional pieces, the gallery had two impressive sculptures that really benefitted from being seen from multiple angles. One was a vibrantly colored curvaceous women seemingly jumping for joy by an artist named Niki de Saint Phalle (the shape and color scheme pleasantly reminded me of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine), and the other was a huge ceramic sculpture by the Japanese artist Jun Kaneko which really wonderfully balances order and chaos with flurries of glazed and painted colors criss crossing and dripping all over the form except for two perfectly crisp, smooth unglazed geometric shapes on either side which almost seem to float out of the surface thanks to the contrast.
Perhaps the most unique piece in the gallery though, was an installation called the Pedicord Apts. by husband and wife duo Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienhol. The interactive piece features the actual interior from an old run-down hotel in Spokane, WA, which the artists painstakingly reassembled. Except they chose to really mess with your mind and perceptions by making the ceiling height slowly slant toward the floor making the space look longer than it really is and encouraging a sense of claustrophobia the further you explore. For added effect, none of the doors open but but viewers can hear audio snippets of random conversations coming from behind each one. It adds to the atmosphere of “benign neglect” (the artist’s words) of a genuine cheap hotel full of people in need for a space to stay, but it also adds a fun layer of making all your cousins look like creepy voyeurs eavesdropping on strangers if you just take a picture of them from one end of the hallway:
The next gallery we visited house a small but impressive selection of the museum’s prized collection of traditional Korean furniture. The full collection is considered one of the largest and finest outside of the Koreas, and it was donated to the museum by Dr. Edward Reynolds Wright Jr., an art collector who lived in Seoul for many years and worked to ensure that his collection encompassed pieces from as many regional styles and types of wood as possible. The wooden chests, headboards, and tables were remarkable displays craftsmanship as well as an excellent showcase of the natural beauty of the different woods. The furniture was complimented with gorgeous stoneware ceramics and paintings to really make the collection come alive.
Next up was a psychedelic special exhibition of colorful protest posters from the 60s and 70s. Each pieced served to reveal both the impressive possibilities of screen printing as an artistic medium while also showing how much we’re still struggling with the same societal ills of war, corruption, and diminishing natural resources some 50 years later. I was really impressed with how the print making process made each poster easy enough to mass-produce to spread their respective messages while also allowing each one to feel like a unique hand-drawn work of art.
These four were my favorite posters though because I feel like they were either the most classically pretty or the most humorously understated which was right up my alley:
The next few galleries were all great examples of early 20th century American modernist painters. This is my jam art-wise because I love how these works take more traditionally beautiful forms like landscapes and portraits and just mutate them in strange and wonderful ways.
My favorite pieces here included: some fiery red poppies by Georgia O’Keeffe that just sort of suck you in the longer you look at them; an oddly cute still-life by Marsden Hartley of a little pink crab hanging out with some chunky impressionistic flowers; a dramatic cubist landscape featuring a church in Drobsdorf by Lyonel Feininger; and a surreal and lovely forrest by B.J.O. Nordfeldt.
One of the most dazzling pieces was an installation specially commissioned for the museum called One Portrait of One Man by Beth Lipman. The work is a bit of a rabbit hole of allusions as at the center of the piece is a painting by Marsden Hartley which in turn was inspired by his friend Gertrude Stein and which he entitled One Portrait of One Woman. Lipman was inspired by the way Hartley uses his own unique style to evoke Gertrude Stein’s essence in the seemingly unlikely medium of the traditional still life. In turn, she used her own exceptional skill as a glass artist to evoke Marsden Hartley through the concept of furniture by making an absolutely insane, ornate blown glass dresser in which to house his painting. Inside the frosted glass drawers are various items inspired by Harley’s life, and at the center is a clear glass heart which both calls on his own penchant for surreal imagery while also adding a nice layer of visual pun onto the phrase “chest of drawers”. All around the painting and Lipman’s extraordinary glass furniture are a series of clear glass ornamentations that actually mirror the abstract forms and brush-strokes from inside the painting so the whole installation really becomes layers within layers of imagery.
The last gallery was an impressive collection of ceramic pieces ranging from the ancient and classical to the extremely strange and modern, with a little bit of everything in between. I used to sort of glaze over (sorry) when it came to ceramics in museums, but somewhere along this road trip I started getting really blown away by what people are able to do with such a delicate and temperamental medium so getting to see so many stylistic, regional, and historical variations on the process all in the same room was really a treat.
My favorite pieces here included: a smooth and almost impossibly naturalistic ceramic vessel in the form of a sleeping woman by Akio Takamori; a riff on classical greek pottery, traditional Native American ceramics, and early Christianity consisting of a red clay pot with Native American warrior labeled “Pope” attack a friar labeled “Fray Jesus”; two cubist bodies bending and twisting through space by Alexander Archipenko; and a jazzy amorphous vessel filled with bright colorful dancing bodies.
As we walked back out through the main galleries, I got pretty impressed by these unusual three-dimensional abstract pieces by a Minnesotan artist named Charles Biederman who used vibrantly colored pieces of aluminum to make his compositions literally and figuratively pop out of the canvas. I feel like pure color paintings can be the definition of pretentiousness, but everyone once in a while you see someone do something you’ve never seen before using just colors and it’s a really neat feeling. I love the way the aluminum messes with the light and shadows.
Of course you might have been wondering since you saw the outside of the building, what the heck does it look like on the inside? These can’t all just be normal shaped rooms can they? Well don’t you worry, everything was just as weird and wild on the inside as it was on the outside, but it did actually help the art get lots of natural light so maybe there was just a hint of method to Frank Gehry’s madness.
Last but not least, we passed through the gift shop and felt like we found the perfect dishtowel for my cousin Kevin, but for some strange reason he refused to buy them:
After the Weisman Museum, our next destination was one we were all excited about: an outsider art gallery called the House of Balls. The House of Balls is the brain child of the artist Allen Christian, who makes whimsical sculptures out of found materials ranging from traditional media like clay and wood to more idiosyncratic materials like old cars and discarded pressure cookers. Every hunk of junk has the potential to be transformed into to an impressive work of art, and plus with a name like the House of Balls, you’d be crazy to think we weren’t going to have to check it out no matter what. Unfortunately the actual gallery was closed while we were visiting, but luckily for us the artist’s creativity spills out all over the surrounding gardens and parking lot of the building so you still get a pretty amazing outdoor gallery full of a kooky menagerie of scrap metal creations that are either the work of a true madman or a genius and probably a little bit of both.
Some highlights from this crazy collection included: a sign for a very unsubtle mob front/ seafood restaurant; what I’m guessing is Donald Trump carved out of an old aluminum pot; two air ducts having a serious discussion; some very muscular, very naked vents greeting each other quite comfortably; a metal man with a hilariously immature use of the found object’s protruding pipe; and a hugely impressive giant polar bear fashioned from a welded metal frame and what looks like a few hundred dryer sheets (for scale my cousin Kevin is just over 6 ft. tall so that should help put the behemoth into perspective).
While we were driving away from the House of Balls, we passed this incredible work of public art: a playfully breathtaking optical illusion called Tromp-L'oeil by John Pugh painted onto the side of the Twin Cities’ oldest running theater, The Theatre in the Round.
After all the art and balls, we stopped for lunch at fantastic local tavern called Red Cow which is known for their handmade burgers and specializing in modern twists on classic pub food. This was gonna be the last meal I’d get to share with my sister and cousins before they had to head back MA, so it was fun sendoff doing something simple but incredibly well done. While the traditional burgers looked heavenly, I got really enticed by their menu’s proclamation they had the official best turkey burger in the Twin Cities per a magazine vote and the idea of taking a small break from red meat after a very beef heavy couple of weeks was added incentive. The turkey burger was insane, coming with avocado, cilantro-lime aioli, arugula, and (this is the kicker) little pieces of crushed pistachios which added a salty sweetness as well as some fun texture to the proceedings. It was such a clever and flavorful burger, and every ingredient really complemented the whole. Throw in a sizable side of fries, and you’ve got yourself a near perfect lunch (minus the pickle, I pawned that off to one of my cousins).
On the way back to our Air BnB, we stopped at Venture North Bikes & Coffee, which as the name implies was a bicycle shop that also doubled as a pretty great cafe. The coffee was very good, but what the name leaves out however is the places delightfully absurd decorations. These included a painting of the Madonna and child as members of the KISS army; a vintage penny farthing- esque bike dangling from the ceiling; and photos from a naked bicycle race which seems like a very uncomfortable experience for all involved.
After our coffee we made it back to our Air BnB, cleaned up after ourselves, and my cousins and sister got ready to return their rental car and fly back home. It was sad to say goodbye, but I was glad to get to spend the time with them while I could and after my roller coaster of a week in North Dakota I don’t think I can ever properly articulate how much it meant to get to see them when I did.
After saying my goodbyes, I decided to keep myself busy rather than mope so I jumped right back into sightseeing with a trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The museum makes a powerful impression right away with a two ton bronze sculpture of a delicately cracking God of Love entitled Eros by the Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj.
I walked into the museum through the rear entrance which happened to be near the antiquities galleries so I was greeted by this gorgeous classical rotunda with a marble statue called The Doryphoros by an unknown 1st century B.C. Roman sculptor as the stunning centerpiece. It makes for quite a stately entrance.
From the Rotunda, I moved on to a few galleries of ancient Greek and Roman art featuring marble work, ceramics, mosaics, and even blown glass, which I was hugely impressed had all survived the test of time for over two millennia
. One of my favorite pieces in these galleries was an enormous photonegative print by Vera Lutter of a Greek temple built between 460-450 BC called the Temple of Nettuno. I really loved how it captured the traditional grandeur of the temple but used modern photography techniques to give it an eerie otherworldly quality.
The next gallery was focused on Islamic art from Empires spanning across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, North Africa, and Europe. I was particularly impressed with the lavish and intricate designs on the ceramics and wood carvings, but really everything was impressive. I also feel like I didn’t always get to see this massive vein of artistic history represented in quite such a large fashion in other museums across the country so, even though it’s quite ancient, it felt very fresh and exciting to see in a way that even very good Greek and Roman art isn’t.
One of the highlights for me was this chest from the Ottoman Empire made of wood with mother of pearl and ivory inlays. I think it’s quite pretty upon immediately looking at it, but the magic really comes the longer you stare at it and the patterns and naturally beautiful materials just keep revealing new intricacies and lovely details.
In the hallway between galleries, they had a series of ceramic sculptures by contemporary Japanese artist Sueharu Fukami whose stunning blue-green pieces really seem to defy all known laws of physics with their delicate but complex shapes.
The next few galleries were dedicated to African art featuring an impressive blend of ancient and modern pieces from all over the continent. In terms of more traditional art, I was probably most drawn in by any piece featuring characters drawn from myths and ceremonial rites rendered in truly jaw-dropping wood carvings. Other highlights included beaded Yoruba crowns, Egyptian sculptures and even a Mummy, and beautiful crafts including animal skin drums, metal blades, basketry, and religious ornaments.
My favorite of the more traditional pieces included: this elegant ceramic vessel in a traditional feminine form by Kenyan-British contemporary potter named Magdalene Odundo; a very modern looking, beautiful wood carving of a woman’s face that incredibly dates back to a 12th century Yoruba shrine; and a wonderfully wild but amazingly realized coffin in the shape of a lobster by Ghanaian artist Sowah Kwei in the tradition of jubilant fantasy coffins that have risen in popularity in Ghana over the 20th century.
Maybe my favorite piece was this giant vessel in the shape of man who is seemingly absolutely shocked by the fact that he is also a vessel:
Other highlights included some more two-dimensional works like this beautifully patterned cloth with a goose and golden eggs motif and this dark and moody contemporary photograph by Mohau Modisakeng:
My favorite contemporary African piece though was this phenomenal painting by Joseph Mbatia Bertier entitled Untold Story, which masterfully blends realism and fantasy in its rendering of a bustling Kenyan city scene. The piece initially looks like a somewhat straightforward scene until you realize that he’s infused it with all kinds of surreal, humorous, and sometimes downright filthy images laced with political and social satire. Some of the things that really caught my eye were Bill Clinton buying baskets with Monica Lewinsky, Barack Obama trying to stop two goats from having sex, a woman boldly peeing standing up in an outhouse, and, perhaps most wonderfully, a giraffe being airdropped in by helicopter just outside the Devolution House.
Leaving the African galleries, I passed this this wild Samurai helmet in the shape of a dragonfly which really caught my eye. While it’s beautiful from an artistic stand point, I do have to wonder if perhaps wearing something that outrageously goofy might make you slightly less intimidating to the other samurai.
The next galleries I passed through were focused on traditional arts of the indigenous Americans, which featured incredible turquoise jewelry from the Southwest, delicate gold carvings, from ancient Peru, Mayan Monkey-themed ceramics, and intricately woven patterned baskets from tribes all across the country (though the one in my photo is also Southwestern and of Pomo origin).
My favorite pieces though were easily these ceramic animal vessels in the shape of gloriously chunky birds. They’re a great blend of fantastic craftsmanship and supremely doofy imagery.
The next galleries really made me happy because they were filled with an actually sizable collection of amazing contemporary Native American art, which museums across the country unfortunately skimp on. I think in realizing they and museums in general were neglecting this important area of contemporary art, the MIA has been really putting the effort in to make their collection of contemporary Native art one of their must-see exhibits and the pieces on display were really extraordinary.
Some of the pieces put modern spins on traditional forms like these excellent contemporary ceramics. My favorites were: a very pop-arty clay vessel by Susan Folwell with the wonderfully melodramatic title thought bubble “Why does he call me Caitlyn??…” ; a mesmerizing geometric seed-pod inspired vase by Franklin Peters; some gravity defying ceramics by Hubert Candelario; and a very elegant pot with stalk of corn motif by Iris Youvella Nampeyo.
Some of the more sculptural pieces skewed more contemporary aesthetics wise, and these were some of my favorites. In particular, I really loved: a beautiful minimalist limestone sculpture; an ethereal steel and neon sculpture by Ernest Whiteman; and a towering surreally painted totem pole by Jim Denomie.
On the two-dimensional front there was tons of colorful paintings and prints which had really gorgeous blends of abstract and natural imagery:
My favorites were all fun animal related pieces including: an imaginative rendering of fantastical animals encircling a group of friends out stargazing; a sweetly funny drawing by Julie Buffalohead of a beaver trying to make shadow puppets for a sleepy dear while accidentally unraveling a bird’s sweater; and a dreamy painting by Robert Freeman of a warrior leading a charge of horses which all blending in an out of each other the more you look at it.
Along the wall there were also some pretty incredible quilts including one featuring really effective use of buttons by Marion Hunt Doig and a one featuring dynamic silhouette horses over a snowy landscape by Gwen Westerman.
Last but not least (for this gallery at least, there’s still plenty of museum left) were installation pieces by contemporary native artists featuring a blend of different medium. These included a pretty powerful assemblages featuring a beer can wrapped in threaded bead placed inside a box layered with screen printed skulls and Robert Rauschenberg’s ( who I never knew was a full quarter Cherokee) Opal Gospel which features ten plexiglass panels with screen printed words and images which when you put them all in a row and look through them starts to form a single image.
My favorite of these installation piece for sheer gleeful weirdness of it was a massive series of pop-art collages by the artist Frank Big Bear featuring the same black and white photograph of Patti Smith with different layers of cut out images transforming her into an almost surreal pop culture quilt intertwining religious imagery, traditional native art, celebrity photos, and stray scenes and characters. I’ve included a picture of the full series to give the effect of the whole scope but I’ve also highlighted two of my favorite individual collages featuring a very grumpy baby and Tom Waits respectively.
Moving to the secton of galleries, I passed a landing featuring two huge abstract minimalist tapestries by the Norwegian artist Jan Groth. The pieces seem so simple with their single white lines across black backgrounds, but the simplicity actually masks the tremendous work of weaving grand tapestries that large. There was something oddly engrossing about the rich dark black wool backdrops that really sucked you in either if the abstract lines might not be your artsy cup of tea.
The next wing of the museum was dedicated to East Asian art. The first room I entered was filled with luxurious Japanese painted scrolls featuring exquisite landscapes and natural scenes with insanely precise brushstrokes across the fine delicate silk.
My favorite scroll was entitled Sailboats which featured a ridiculous ability to really capture the reflective surface of the water in a truly beautiful way.
After the silk scrolls were some larger scale painted screens which were really spectacular. My favorite screens were the expressionistic plum blossoms by Funada Gyokuju and a dreamlike scene of Orchids and Bamboo with goldleaf paper backdrops by Tsubaki Chanzin.
Up next was probably my favorite collection from this wing, a gorgeous collection of richly detailed full color woodblock prints. These were really jaw dropping because each color has to be stamped with a different carved wood block so reaching this level of depth and vibrancy takes real forward planning, skill, and patience that just blew me away.
While most of the scenes were really sumptuous landscapes, one print in particular stood out for going with slightly sillier subject matter:
Next up was more contemporary ceramic art by Sueharu Fukami which expanded on his physics busting forms from earlier and really showed off his range of talents and what was possible to achieve in the medium.
Last up in this wing was a display case filled with insanely elaborate swords that really showed the artistry and craft behind the weaponry.
From there I moved up to the modern and contemporary art galleries where I started out in some rooms dedicated to the art of design. These featured various household products and appliances ranging from sleek art deco deigns to goofy age space contraptions to more minimalist (but still sort of goofy in an oddly elegant way) contemporary pieces. Design galleries were another thing that never really spoke to me before this trip, but now I really have a lot of fun looking at how these wild forms may or may not actually aid the piece’s functionality.
The centerpiece of the design room, which also helps give you the scale of the enormous museum, was a full size Tatra T87 four-door sedan, a German engineering feat of a car that was once upon a time one of the fastest cars in the world and one of the first to feature a novel little accessory called a sliding sunroof which was considered the height of sophistication.
Next up was a gallery of contemporary works on paper featuring mostly drawings and prints. My favorites here were: a serious of 9 very surrealist sketches (most notably to me a woman with a telephone for a head); a quietly powerful print of a confident young Black woman in bathing suit with incredibly expressive eyes; a gorgeously over the top Rococo inspired piece by Kerry James Marshall (one of my favorites); and a haunting triptych of silhouettes by Kara Walker (another favorite of mine) that evokes the horrors of slave trade on a grand, mythological scale.
The next room I passed through featured just two monumental contemporary pieces on polar opposite side of the realism spectrum. On the one hand you have Chuck Close’s hyper-realistic portrait of a man named Frank that is shockingly all painted in a acrylic despite how hard it may be to believe that it’s not a photograph. On the other hand you have the totally abstract piece Big Ben by Gene Davis which is a little over 8 feet long and features a pitch black half contrasted with a really unusual arrangement of colored vertical lines on the other half. I think in this case the sheer size of the piece really enhances it, because you almost feel like you get sucked into the jarring vertical lines and you almost need that black square to keep coming back to reset your eyes. I talked earlier in this post about how pure color art can be a little obtuse, but when it clicks it clicks I guess, and I did like this one.
The next room featured more decorative arts from the swingin’ 60s and 70s, featuring funky Charles Eames, chairs, Pop-arty folding screens, beautiful wall hangings, and a far too ornate trash can.
The next few rooms were filled great modernist paintings that blended realistic character scenes with exaggerated symbols and stylistic flourishes to heighten the stresses of the modern world. Some favorites of these included: two cubist nudes by Marguerite Thompson Zorach; a lonely city street scene; a wistful painting of a man in bed dreaming of fields from long ago; an impressionistic rendering of the tea party from Alice in Wonderland by Sylvia Fein; a playfully expressionist scene of people skating with trays of champagne by Max Beckmann; a more ominous triptych of party scenes also by Max Beckmann depicting people playing Blind Man’s Bluff amid; a haunting depiction of people grocery shopping that looks like something out of a zombie movie; and an aggressive yet humorously round scene of men and women fighting by George Tooker.
Some of the modernist pieces skewed towards traditional portraiture but with clear stylistic flourishes. Some highlights included: a riveting self portrait by George Grosz of himself visiting a building bombed during WWI and being haunted by memories; a fascinatingly unflattering portrait of a telegraph operator by Albert Birkle; a portrait that is supposedly not of John Waters but if it wasn’t painted decades before he was born I’d find that hard to believe; and a gorgeously impressionistic painting of a young woman in her nightie by Wilehlm List.
Possibly the two most distinct portraits were by two modern masters. One was a nightmarish portrait by Francis Bacon that I would have loved to see the model’s reaction to, and the other was an early, classics-inspired portrait by Pablo Picasso with more gentle hints of surrealism than his later signature style.
These rooms also had some later impressionist pieces that start to take on the more violent brush strokes that would inspire abstract expressionism. Some highlights include one of the more kinetic Monet’s I’ve ever seen that is supposedly a Japanese Bridge and a grotesquely captivating painting of a cow at the slaughterhouse by Chaim Soutine.
As the galleries moved forward in time, we got some pure surrealism without all that pesky unnecessary realism. These were some of my favorite pieces in the whole museum and they included: a dreamy, wavy horizon painted on glass by Max Ernst; a swirling void of allusions to the 17th century Spanish artist Diego Velázquez by the legend, Salvador Dali; a fantastical portrait of a Queen of Hearts-esque figure; a hilariously unflattering cubist portrait of a woman in an armchair by Picasso; three very geometric women hanging out by Fernand Leger; a trippy scene of a storm with hidden images in the tempest by Dorothea Tanning; a captivating if sort of grossly amorphous scene by Yves Tanguey with the very poetic name Through Birds, Through Fire but Not Through Glass; a surrealist still life by the great Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico; and a wonderfully nightmarish bird woman by my favorite Joan Miro.
Next up we had some more contemporary pieces from the latter half of the 20th and first chunk of the 21st century. Some highlights here included: a gorgeously abstracted scene that reminds me of a great wave by Lee Bontecou; a multimedia collage blending abstract painted shapes with color photographs that are all connected by a sort of dream logic by the artist Sadie Benning; a gorgeously multi-layered giant mural; a classic Robert Rauschenberg collage blending silk screen printed photos with abstract paint strokes to create a slightly darker evolution on Andy Warhol’s famous pop-art prints; a lovely haunting print of a ghostly woman with smokey tendrils of hair; a beautiful impressionistic portrait of a scorned bride called Urkindifuratira (You Turned Your Back on Me) by Portia Zvavahera; a dramatic contemporary patchwork quilt; and a hypnotic massive color abstraction by Frank Stella.
Amid all the paintings, there were some pretty fabulous and strange contemporary sculptures. My favorites here were: a symbolism rich assemblage of found objects by Lonnie Holley called Hair Was My Glory and Chain; a very pompus looking chubby bird man by Leonard Baskin; a fascinating piece of abstract forms shaped from porcelain by Ruth Duckworth; and the iconic Dadaist Lobster telephone by Salvador Dali.
Perhaps the most delightful contemporary sculpture was this gleefully cartoony technicolor panda by Takashi Murakami:
Next up was a special exhibition of incredible photographs by Naoya Hatakeyama called Excavating the Future City. Each piece was so richly colored and imaginatively composed that they had the feeling of almost being like surrealist paintings. In particular, the way Hatakeyama found locations where he could photograph bodies of water inside city scapes really had an eerie beauty to them that just blew me away.
Next up was a Cubism room, which featured some great perspective twisting pieces like: Alexdra Exter’s Italian Villa by the Sea; a portrait of a clockmaker sort of melding with his creation by Ivan Vasilievich Kliun; a dapper looking Harlequin by Juan Gris; and a very animalistic domestic scene humorously entitled Married Life by Roger de la Fresnaye.
My Favorite though was an energetic till life by Joan Miro, which shows off his versatility beyond the cartoony beasts that really made him famous:
Next up was a collection of Post-impressionist pieces which had uniformly stunning uses of color. Some highlights were: Neil Welliver’s evocative Vickie featuring a young woman submerged in rippling water; right below Vickie, a sexually charged rendering of Pegg Bacon on a couch by Alexander Brook; a gorgeously sun-dappled seascape by Claude Monet; a fiery redheaded nude in front of a really engaging green backdrop; and a dramatically stylized scene of three female bathers by Henri Matisse.
Next was a room of more later 20th century modernist works by American artists. The two wonderfully crazy ones that immediately leapt to my attention were: John Wilde’s David Lynch-y blending of horror and middle America mundanity hilariously titled just The Barn as if that really captures the whole scene; and an impressionistic painting of the Macy’s Day Parade by Lucille Corcos featurring the goofiest dang fish I’ve ever seen.
One of the most ingenious installations that I’d been excited to see since I got here was The Curator’s Office. The museum’s first curator of modern art, Barton Kestle left mysteriously in 1954, and his office was boarded up. Years later during renovations it was uncovered, perfectly preserved as it was left in the 50s so the museum decided to display it as one of their period rooms. Except none of that is even remotely true. There never was any Barton Kestle and the whole room is actually a carefully curated work by the artist Mark Dion who used found period objects and fake art to create a scene that would perfectly feel like an authentic window into a different time. It’s an impressively elaborate illusion meant to make viewers be a little more interrogative of their information intake, which I think in this increasingly post-truth world is never a bad thing to encourage.
At this point, I wasn’t actually done with the museum, but my phone did die from the massive number of photos I’d been taking so the next few galleries are unfortunately un accounted for. These included the museum’s famous collection of intensely researched and curated period specific rooms, and there was also an excellent special exhibit showcasing two of Minnesota’s pioneering female print makers Wanda Gag and Elizabeth Olds. The former wrote the charming children’s book Millions of Cats which was one of my favorite Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories growing up so I was sold on this exhibit right from the start, but both women had such incredible wit and skill on display. While I didn’t document these various gems, I did find some good representations from the museum’s website (and a quick google search of Millions of Cats).
After a jam-packed day of museuming it up, I took a short nap in my car which miraculously did not have a parking ticket even though I completely misread the street parking signs. Still a little groggy when I woke up, I decided to go to the sleek and hipstery Wesley Andrews Coffee for one more good strong cup of coffee to keep me going for tonight’s open mic.
The open mic was in a cozy little club in the basement of a fun sports bar on the corner of a street very fittingly called The Corner Bar. I had some time to kill before the mic, but I didn’t feel like going too far so for dinner I got the Bar’s famous Korean BBQ wings which were a tasty blend of both traditional Korean and American BBQ flavors. It was perfect bar food and a great portion size to tide me over but not overwhelm my body which I’d really been stuffing to the brim all week.
The open mic was amazing, and honestly felt more like a Friday night showcase than a normal mic, because of the overall high quality of all the Twin Cities comics. I feel like partly because the basement space was so cozy, it also added to the atmosphere of the show being like a fun hang out so the audience energy was also really high so it just felt super fun to be there. Something that impressed me about the scene in general was that even when the comics were offensive they were pretty woke about it which feels like a very Midwestern way to be offensive.
My favorite comic of the night was a guy name Moe Yaqub who had a really strong delivery, confidently blending fun personal stories with insightful racial commentary. My favorite line of his came at the end of a story about he was the first brown person a girl dated and then a week later she was dating a Mexican guy. He said “I’m like the he Neal Armstrong of interracial relationships, one small step for dating Palestinian guys one giant leap for fucking Mexicans”
Other highlights (sorry that my notes sucked today and I don’t have most of the comics last names sadly):
Raina- (after realizing she set her stopwatch too early by mistake) My clock says I'm at 32 minutes into this set and it feels like it
Adam- The only worse way to express an opinion than a bumper sticker is a Dave Matthews band song
Charlie- l look the guy who dies in the first five minutes of a ww2 movie
Shelly- I lost 50lbs and I also lost 50.,. minutes of Material
Cooper - My step mom called me to tell me she won a chili cook off with five bean in chili. My real mom puts thousands in there
Pierre- tell that gps bitch not to interrupt Beyoncé
Chris - Kids don't learn words from TV. You never see kids talking about mesothelioma
Dorothy- I look like Rosie the Riveter after she she finds out how much work sucks
Eric Ethan- (he was an actually good comedy magician who at one points held up a card and said “This is the ace of clubs” the woman said “no” to which he replied, “ I never said it was your card I just said it was the ace of clubs”
Brian Miller - I have a statue of my ex -girlfriend in my room and my wife hates it but I say whoah that's part of my history. (he also had an insane true story about trying to Returning a Porno VHS tape not realizing that 9/11 was currently happening)
My own set went well, and I just remember it being such a welcoming room that it was hard not to have a good time while you were up there. It was sad to have said goodbye to my cousins today, but nothing like a great night of comedy to turn things around.
Favorite Random Sightings: Mixed Blood Theater (intense); a men’s spa with the hilarious grandiose slogan “male grooming at its best!”; and a vending machine really overdramatically called The Dream Machine
Regional Observations: I don’t know how to prove this, but I feel like I saw the most Hawaiian shirts I’ve ever seen in Minneapolis
Albums Listened To: I was still listening to my Phillip K. Dick audiobook so no albums
Joke of the Day:
A man went to a psychiatrist for his phobia.
"Doc," he said, "I've got trouble. Every time I get into bed, I think there's somebody under it. I get under the bed, I think there's somebody on top of it. Top, under, top, under. You gotta help me, I'm going crazy!"
"Just put yourself in my hands for two years," said the shrink, "Come to me three times a week, and I'll cure your fears."
"How much do you charge?"
"A hundred dollars per visit."
"I'll sleep on it," said the man.
Six months later the doctor met the man on the street.
"Why didn't you ever come to see me again?" asked the psychiatrist.
"For a hundred buck's a visit? A bartender cured me for ten dollars."
"Is that so! How?"
"He told me to cut the legs off the bed!"
Songs of the Day:
a wild ride of a song by one of the same artists whose sculptures were featured at the MIA
Just an excuse to share a clip from one of my favorite Minnesota bands