The (H)Art of Minneapolis

In Orientation to Art and Design, Annie Donnegan, Kyle Zimmerman, LaToya Miller, and Cati Eisel created a map project. It's a poster about 30 inches long and eighteen inches tall. The background is a very pale blue, like an extremely tinted baby blue color. In the verticle axis about a third to a half of the way down the picture, is a transparent photograph of a beating human heart. The heart having a subtle blue tint tying it to the pale blue background, but also having the pink tissue and red flowing blood vessels traveling throughout the muscle. Behind the transparent heart, is a black skyline of Minneapolis, as black as the universe. It is blurred at a few of the edges and it stretches across the entire page, like a caterpillar stretched out on a leaf. Coming from some of the black buildings, are thin and thick darker blue of the pale baby blue background. This blue is a rich blue, one that children would color their sky blue with, or color the ocean. The lines arc and wiggle from the black city to the center heart. Going into one of the arteries. Along with the blue lines, are vibrant red lines arcing down below the city to sixteen different squares, eight stretched across one row. The squares are all of the same size, not quite one on top of the other exactly and all completely grey-scaled. Each square has it's own logo that characterize what that square represents. Also, in the corners of the squares are either one of two museums or both of them, which are the Walker Art Center, logo or Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) logo. Those logos are also placed on each of the poster's upper corners, the black and white Walker logo in the upper left and the colorful MIA logo in the upper right hand corner. Lastly, right in the center of the poster at the very top between the two logos is the title "THE (H)ART OF MPLS" (H)ART being in the same vibrant red as the arteries going into the activities that the museums each have (the sixteen squares at the bottom with the museum logos in the corners to symbolize which museum offers what). 

My interpretation of this map is that the activities are the muscles of the city. They are what allows the city to move and function, without them it would be a "dead" city. It won't be able to breathe (like lungs) move forward (like moving the legs) or grasp anything new or exciting (like hands). Once the activities use up all of the "oxygen" then the blood will flow back to the heart where the cycle of the thriving city starts over. Activities using up the oxygen while being part of the city, veins leave the city back to the heart. It shows the never ending cycle of how art influences what's around it and vise versa. It shows how they are related. 

Peter Voulkos

Peter Voulkos

Cherubini

Sculpture

1957

Glazed Stoneware, 35 x 21 x 21 inches

Peter Voulkos is a master of handling clay. In the 1950's, Voulkos was the leader of the post-war American ceramics movement, "Revolution in Clay." His abstract and expressionistic style in clay sets him apart from various other ceramic sculptors (Brumer, artscenecal.com). In one of his pieces, which is being shown in the Dirt on Delight exhibit in the Walker Art Center, Cherubini, or also just known as "Sculpture" shows off Voulkos skill. The largest forms in that compromise the structure of the statue are three large spheres placed one on top of the other. They are placed, to where it gives a hint of a three balled snowman. On the top of the statue is a spiked, narrow, tall strip. Giving the snowman a look like it has a mohawk. On the sides of the top sphere are these twisting spiked extentions. They twist and turn out of the side of the sphere, just on what would be the flat part of the mohawk, twisting and turning like a spiked horn on the left side of the statue. There is another spiked horn coming out toward the back of the top sphere on the snowman. In what appears to be the front on the top ball, is a hole. That hole is like if you were in the tundra surrounded by cold snow and everywhere you look you see whiteness except for these two caves. These two caves whose entrance is as black as the snow is white. Underneath the top empty hole, where the top two spheres merge together, there is a bended spiked band. It curves into an arc, like a big droopy mustache, with spikes. Right below that, is another empty hole, like a belly button. Coming right out of the belly button, is the same design as the droopy mustache. It comes out going all the way to the floor like ribbon cascading down to the floor. On the sides of the middle ball are these flat slabs, much like the ribbon looking slab. The ones on the side travel up to the top sphere like arms touching the side of what would be the head. On the very bottom sphere are these spikes that jut out of  the snowman like it has a jester's hat on the bottom of it, instead of on the top by the "head". 

My interpretation of this piece is that life is never how you expect it. No matter how much you try to make sense of what is going on, something will always through you in a loop. You just have to keep journeying to different locations and see what else life can offer you. 

Looking at this statue by an instrumental point of view, and from my interpretation of it. I would think that it has a purpose; that it makes the viewer think. It makes the viewer think about what is going on. However, it doesn't make the viewer think about the problems that are happening in the world, or anything of the like. It just makes the viewer think about what this piece is all about. Makes the viewer try to make sense on what this piece represents, why it was created. So I believe, instrumental wise, it is a failure. I do however, feel that this piece is a success formalistically wise however, because it seems to have a really strong sense of "art for art's sake." It has potential aesthetic appeal; however, I dislike this work of art. I personally don't find it aesthetically appealing. 

Brumer, Andy. 

http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1999/Articles1299/PVoulkosB.html 

10/29/2009.

Robert Arneson

John Figure

1965

glazed stonware

In the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, one of John Arneson's glazed stoneware is being displayed. His "John Figure" is a ceramic statue of a toilet juxtaposed with a human face and a female body placed on a tile floor which has foot prints and a foot walking away from the toilet. My interpretation of his surreal ceramic is that no matter how crappy your life seems right now, it can only get worse. You could be trapped inside of the toilet never escaping. Crying as loud as you can, but no one will be able to help you out. If you escape it, your path would be visible where ever you go. Though you escaped your problems, a part of you would still be stuck though it. You would never be gone completely of that problem, you will always have the memory of the struggle and the pain. 

Tartan Dancer 2

Rebecca Warren's Tartan Dancer 2 shows gorgeous mastery of bronze. The small facets in the sculpture go in and out giving the sculpture an illusion of a coral reef deep down in the blue ocean waiting for the divers to explore it. The front of the sculpture, or what I perceive as the front, reaches up at what appears to be a 60 degree angle as if the structure is reaching up toward the sky. At the tip of the outstretched arm, it gets broader and appears as if a ball could be placed inside of that tip. As if the statue is trying to grab something in the sky with it's claw like hand. The bottom of the coral reef textured statue, the base has an almost rhinoceros look to it. With this one little bump that is like the rhino's horn broke off, and there is a small indent that Warren placed which appears to be the eye ridge of the almost implied rhino. The back of the statue appears like a tumor with a distorted, elongated head and arms protruding out of the tumor. With the elongated almost toucan head and the little long strips that could be perceived as abstracted limbs, does not seem to be part of Rebecca Warren's usual creations. The Tartan Dancer 2, (again in my perception) to be a female dancer of the Scottish clans. Majority of Warren's pieces of art portray the exaggerated female form (Ruf). However, I fail to see the female form in the Tartan Dancer 2.

Tartan Dancer 2

Rebecca Warren

2005-2008

Bronze

25.2 X 15.4 X 27.2 inches

Collection of Jay Ecklund

Displayed at Midway Contemporary Art

Ruf, Beatrix. About Rebecca Warren and her art. Web. 2003-2009. http://www.saatchigallery.co.uk/artists/rebecca_warren_about.htm

Mining MIA

The pieces that I will be using that were from Minneapolis Institute of Art include:

Age of Bronze

Francois-Auguste-Rene Rodin
1876-1877
Bronze
France





The Tiber Muse
Unknown sculpture
2nd-1st century BCE
Marble
Rome







Head of Aphrodite
Unknown sculpture
3rd century BCE
Marble
Greece







Mirror (that I couldn't get to load on here, but here is the website for it http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=8288

Mirror
Unknown artist
1710
Wood, gesso
England

Ceremonial Ko Dagger (another that I can't get to load on here
website: http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=835

Ceremonial Ko Dagger
Unknown craftsman
1523-1028 BCE
grey-green jade with white striations and bronze with green crystal inlay
China

Imagine a room with oak paneling and small windows. There is a mirror placed on the far wall painted a gold color with two candles placed in it flickering softly. The Rodin statue Age of Bronze is facing the mirror, seeing it's reflection looking back at it. Right behind him, about a few feet away is the Ceremonial Ko Dagger. It is lying on the floor pointing away from what it lying right next to it, the Head of Aphrodite. The Head of Aphrodite is lying on it's side about a foot away from the knife, and facing the dagger. Rodin's statue is placed farther away from the head than it's distance from the dagger. Standing right behind the breakage point in the head, is The Tiber Muse. The Roman statue is placed about two feet away from the head. Throughout this whole setup, the only light would be from the two candles in the mirror.

I wanted it to symbolize how people are always innocent bystanders. That people rather worry about their problems instead of helping those who need it.

Postmodernism

Postmodernism. It is artwork that, some believe, started in Paris in 1968 from the student riots; while others believe it started twenty years ago. It is an artwork that is innovated, but does derive some background in society, whether it is from everyday life or a famous painting. An example of a postmodern piece of art is Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. That architecture is postmodernism because of the innovation throughout the entire building. He designed the museum off of the history of Bilbao as a fishing town; hence, the giant fishing boat. By forming the entire museum as a boat, Gehry showed how the history of that city is important to that area. He doesn't go completely away from modernism, like what postmodernity artists do, instead he shows the science and industrialization that modernism emphasized. The curves of the steel plates catches the light, and the entire building is constructed of a steel frame and titanium sheathing. Lastly, the dog that Jeff Koon placed in front of the museum added a comical viewpoint on the building. The dog seems to be the museum's guard dog. Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain with Jeff Koon's Puppy, in my opinion of what I know about postmodernism, are postmodern works of art.

Website for just the museum

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/bilbao/guggenheim_museum_bilbao.htm

*note: If you want a larger picture of the museum just click on that thumbnails. Also, this website has better pictures of just the museum.

Website for Guggenheim Museum with Puppy

http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/spain/bilbao/gehryguggenheim/gehry.html

*note: Again, if you want a larger picture of the museum with the puppy, just click on the thumbnails.

Thank you for reading

Susan Ahlfs

Intro

Hey, I'm Susan Ahlfs. I go to the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, MN. I will be blogging about various artists and artwork that are located in the twin cities' area. I basically will be blogging about the contemporary arts, with most likely a few exceptions.