February 28, 2018
“If big things come in small packages, what comes in a 10 pound, seven ounce, brown paper package that measures 2 feet by 2 feet by 5 1/2 inches? A 10 foot 3 1/2 inch[-tall] 36 foot 2 inch-long life-size poster of a Greyhound bus, what else?” That was the beginning of an article…
February 14, 2018
Life is so often in the details, all the little things mixed up together that make your life yours. Artist Lawrence Weiner may have put it best in his public artwork formerly on the exterior of the Walker Art Center: “Bits and pieces put together to present a semblance of a whole”. Many art exhibitions…
February 2, 2018
While processing the archival materials of the curatorial department of the Weisman Art Museum, I came across an article from MN Daily called Imaginative Immersion: Three Days, Five Artists, which was about an atypical exhibit at the Weisman Art Museum in February of 2008. These five artists were part of a group independent study with UMN’s art…
January 25, 2018
As with any loan from a library, a bank or otherwise, unexpected things can happen. The University of Minnesota’s permanent art collection has long had an art rental program and at one point in time there were no rental fees to University employees. It happened one day in 1969 that a loan gone awry…
January 22, 2018
Jacob Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an artist, storyteller, educator and chronicler African American life in America. Lawrence’s works are in collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Art Institute Chicago, and Seattle Art Museum. Locally, Lawrence’s works are included…
January 15, 2018
Fifteen years ago this weekend, the anticipated exhibition In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opened at the Weisman Art Museum with a full schedule of events. The purpose of the exhibition is clearly stated in the invitational brochure: “By juxtaposing accounts in Dr. King’s life with visual…
January 10, 2018
Photography has a curious way of encapsulating and immortalizing what might otherwise be a fleeting moment. Contemporary architectural photography is often devoid of people, sometimes placeless and gives a sense that the structures exist outside of time. While processing hundreds of photos for A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota, these uncropped, raw, pre-published versions…
January 8, 2018
Straight lines, crisp angles, geometric forms, and openly planar surfaces in buildings become an embodiment of human’s power over the elements and ability to manipulate materials and environments. A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota defines most of the buildings included in this post as Moderne (Art Deco) Style, International Style,…
January 5, 2018
Minnesota has no shortage of roadside attractions, including sculptures of monumental scale. Third in a series of photo-posts inspired by A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota, published in 1977 as a supplement to University Gallery’s Bicentennial exhibition The Art and Architecture of Minnesota, this post is dedicated to just a few of…
January 2, 2018
Idiosyncratic and quirky architecture seemed to abound at one time in the not-so-distant past. The purpose of these buildings remains in most cases a mystery–perhaps in some cases necessity was the mother of invention or in other cases people someone took matters into their own hands to make the building of their dreams a reality….