Art Hounds

By: Minnesota Public Radio
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  • Summary

  • Each week three people from the Minnesota arts community talk about a performance, opening, or event they're excited to see or want others to check out.
    Copyright 2024 Minnesota Public Radio
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Art Entertainment & Performing Arts
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Episodes
  • Art Hounds: The M gets bigger, student-curated Black joy and fancy chairs you can’t sit on

    Art Hounds: The M gets bigger, student-curated Black joy and fancy chairs you can’t sit on
    Nov 21 2024
    From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.The M’s new wing triples its exhibit space in downtown St. Paul Architectural historian Marjorie Pearson of St. Paul wants people to know that the new, expanded wing of the Minnesota Museum of Art, commonly known as the M, is now open in the historic arcade of the Endicott building in downtown St. Paul. The major renovation triples the available exhibit space for Minnesota’s oldest art museum. The exhibit in the new wing, entitled “Here, Now,” features 150 works from the M’s permanent collection, ranging across centuries and styles. The museum is open Thursdays through Sundays and admission is free. When you visit, Marjorie recommends you take time to admire the architecture in addition to the art.Marjorie says: This is a premier office building that was designed by Cass Gilbert in the early 1890s and the arcade with its wonderful arch stained-glass ceiling, beautifully restored by Stonehouse Stained Glass Studio in Avon, Minn., really enhances the whole gallery space. The Endicott building was constructed around the historic Pioneer building … the two buildings were combined. The galleries now are in the historic arcade, which was a shopping arcade for people in the offices downtown — a precursor to a shopping mall.[Note: Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) was a prominent architect who lived and worked in Minnesota for portions of his life; he designed many important buildings, including the Minnesota State Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court Building.] — Marjorie PearsonArtist created, student-curated Black joy Billy Nduwimana Siyomvo got an early view of the exhibit “Layers of Joy,” which he called “mind-blowing.” The exhibit features five Minneapolis artists — Leslie Barlow, Alexandra Beaumont, Eyenga Bokamba, Cameron Patricia Downey and seangarrison — whose selected works celebrate Black joy and identity. Billy loved the work, and he recommends taking your time to take it in from all angles. He was also struck by the exhibit’s backstory: the show was curated by University of Minnesota students enrolled in ARTH 3940: Black Art in Minneapolis, taught by Dr. Daniel M. Greenberg and Dr. Dwight K. Lewis, Jr. Billy describes the show: When you walk in, the first thing that embraces you is colors —different textures, colors, different stories. Each art piece I felt like was made with love. What I love about this [exhibit] is that this class is basically giving these artists a platform. I don’t think it’s every day that you hear about curating art; people need to understand that, yes, these artists are very important, but without the right curated spaces, their art is not put on a platform that it deserves to be on. — Billy Nduwimana SiyomvoWhere design meets play Rebecca Montpetit of Rochester is a lifelong fan of the Rochester Art Center, and she’s already making plans to go back again with her family to see Mini Golf and Chairs. The interactive exhibit consists of 20 chairs from the private college of an Owatonna family, which artist then used as inspiration to create five mini golf holes. You can’t sit on the chairs, but you can play the golf holes. Clubs of all sizes, including adaptive clubs, are part of the exhibit, and there is a par for each hole. The exhibit runs through May 4, 2025. Rebecca describes what it was like to visit the exhibit with her kids, aged 8 and 10: The beginning of the exhibit leads you through this hall of chairs. And it was a really fascinating discussion with our kids to talk about. We said, all of these have the same purpose: to sit! But look at all of the materials and ways that you can create ways to sit. They’re everything from corrugated cardboard to molded plastic to, a kind of a shag material. So we had all sorts of different ways to explore, ways to sit. So it gave the artist creative license as well to really be inspired by the materials or the shape or even the thought process as they created the mini golf elements. — Rebecca Montpetit
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    4 mins
  • Art Hounds: Songbirds and snails onstage

    Art Hounds: Songbirds and snails onstage
    Nov 14 2024
    From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Hankering for a crankeringNorah Rendell is the executive artistic director of the Center for Irish Music in St. Paul. She saw — and loved — the original storytelling musical “The Well Tree” by the Heartwood Trio last spring. The trio consists of Sarina Partridge of Minneapolis, Heidi Wilson of Vermont and Willie Clemetson of Maine. They’re back for performances of “The Well Tree” tonight at 7 p.m. at the Twin Cities Friends Meeting House in St. Paul and Friday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at New City Center/Walker Church in Minneapolis. Norah says she imagines the acoustics of the church venues will be well-suited for a show with beautiful harmonies. Norah says: It’s an original singing story performance that includes songs and instruments and acting and illuminated paper cut art called a “crankie” [so named because a person turns a crank to scroll to new images]. It tells a story of a young woman who finds herself running away from home, and along her journey, she meets songbirds and snails and ancient trees as she finds her way home. And the three artists who perform are super talented. They’re beautiful harmony singers. There’s a fiddle player, a banjo player and they’re all actors and they invite the audience to sing along. It seems like it would be geared towards children, but it really suits anybody of any age who loves the experience of singing together with other people. You leave the show feeling great; it’s very inspiring, very positive. The show itself is really inspiring.— Norah RendellThe male gazeErin Maurelli is an artist and educator in the Twin Cities. She wants people to know about the MCBA / Jerome Book Arts Residency show which is up now at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, inside Open Book in Minneapolis. Free and open to the public, this show displays the work of the three winners of the Jerome Book Arts Residency: photographer Christopher Selleck; papermaker Jelani Ellis; and artist and printmaker Louise Fisher. Erin says: Christopher Selleck is a photographer who takes on the body, the figure and what we think of as idealism, and through the lens of the camera, he’s able to capture kind of the ideal masculine body — which, in my experience, we don’t see a lot of that in art and art history. Christopher brings issues of identity and sexuality into his work as a gay man, I think the male gaze becomes part of his narrative. Christopher was selected to be part of the Jerome book arts fellowship, and the show is through January 4 of next year. He’s one of three artists that are part of that show, there are some hand-crafted books featuring his photographs as well as sculptural elements. He’s exploring bringing the photographic process into bookmaking. — Erin MorelliBaroque in GaylordCharles Luedtke is a retired professor of music at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, and he is heading to Gaylord tonight to see La Grande Bande. The group specializes in performing music written from 1600-1800, using instruments of the period. Their November concert celebrates the 340th birthday of Handel with two of his works set near water, his famed “Water Music Suites” as well as his cantata “O come chiare e belle.” Handel’s "Water Musicks" is tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Gaylord. Michael Thomas Asmus, the founder and artistic director, will give a talk before the performance at 6:45 about the music. Charles says: It’s rather spectacular because he lives in Gaylord, just outside of Gaylord and his music performances have been kind of centered around that area, sometimes in St. Peter, sometimes in New Ulm. So, it’s kind of local, but [it’s] tremendous quality. They’re not amateurs, never amateurs. They are all really professional performers and on period instruments — baroque instruments.— Charles Luedtke
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    4 mins
  • Art Hounds: Threads Dance Project asks what shoes say about us

    Art Hounds: Threads Dance Project asks what shoes say about us
    Nov 7 2024
    From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Dance a mile in another’s shoesErinn Liebhard is the artistic and executive director of Rhythmically Speaking, a jazz and American social dance-based company. She’s looking forward to the Threads Dance Project’s fall show, “Impressions,” this Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Luminary Arts Center in Minneapolis. Erinn elaborates: Their artistic director, Karen L. Charles, is a really fascinating artist. She was a mathematician and statistician who ended up shifting into dance education and eventually was able to open her own company. So she’s got a really sort of methodical yet artistic way of creating choreography.Something that I love about Threads’ work is that I feel like it’s really artistic and accessible at the same time. So it’s saying something, but you don’t have to have special training in dance in order to understand.(As part of the show), Threads is going to be re-exploring a piece about shoes. The piece is called “Abolition in Evolution, Part 2 – Shoes,” and it’s based upon the shoes we wear and what they say about us. I think it’s really interesting that they’re taking this metaphor of walking in someone else’s shoes into a visual and artistic representation that causes you to ask questions about identity, race, class and how we see each other.— Erinn LiebhardAlice in NorthfieldMargit Johnson of Northfield appreciates the work of ArtMakers, and she’s looking forward to their new, original musical, “Alice’s Wonder.” Shows are this Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. (with audio description) at Northfield Arts Guild Theater. Admission is free for this family-friendly show. Margit says: What I like about ArtMakers’ storytelling through music and theater is the genius of the artists with and without disabilities. For 10 years now, ArtMakers start with individuals from the Northfield area, from Colorado and even from Norway; they craft a production around and adapt to the talents and special needs of each participating artist. This way, they create authentic, artist-centered projects in the community. I know that “Alice's Wonder” is going to surprise and delight me. Alice is blind, and so is her friend, the White Rabbit. Their Wonderland is going to come alive with sound and what they call the brave idea of living your life as you choose. The ensemble includes local performers with disabilities alongside professional musicians from Northfield and the Twin Cities.— Margit JohnsonTake me to the riverAuthor Marcie Rendon of Minneapolis recommends that people see “The Adventures of a Traveling Meskwaki,” written by and starring Oogie Push. Originally a one-woman show, the multimedia performance has been expanded to a cast of five. Full Circle Theater is producing the show, which will be staged at Park Square Theatre in downtown St. Paul. There’s a preview performance tonight ahead of the opening Friday. The show runs through Nov. 24, and tickets are pay-as-you-are-able. Marcie says: It follows her adventures as she’s exploring and working with other Native people around issues of protecting the water. It’s broader than just the water: it incorporates many of the things that she’s learned on all of these different travels that she’s done, from Alaska to Vancouver to Washington to California to out East. As a young person, she was a pow wow dancer. So she’s also got stories from that part of her life that she incorporates into her work. The thing to know about Oogie is that she has a wonderful sense of humor. She can also go really deep into the emotional aspects of a piece, like into a character that she's taking on.— Marcie Rendon
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    2 mins

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