The Edge of Reason: Shedding Light at the Phipps
By Christina Schmid
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
– Albert Einstein[i]
Trust Einstein to articulate what reconciles two seemingly opposite ways of making sense of the world: science with its prerequisite distance to ensure analytical dissection of [...]
Tilting the World
Grace, MN. — Preparations for the annual celebration of wish-making are well under way in Grace, MN. In the fair weeks of spring, residents and visitors of the small town prepare for the event by exercising particular mindfulness, consideration, and care for each other and the place they inhabit. Spontaneous acts of kindness, gift giving, [...]
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The Art of Returning
By Christina Schmid
At the heart of each return lies an absence undone.
On a bright day in December, I stand inside the white cube of the Leopold Museum in Vienna’s museum quarter and furtively dab at my eyes.
Caution: Art can cause public displays of emotion and embarrassment.
A man and a woman stretch across the canvas in [...]
Death on the Road: Rob Fischer at Franklin Artworks
“You’re dying now. Get used to it!”
- Jim Crace, Being Dead
Death is an odd subject. It is everywhere, happens all the time, and yet we go to elaborate lengths to pretend it doesn’t affect us. Perhaps it takes a fictitious doctor of zoology, courtesy of Jim Crace, to state the obvious. Perhaps it [...]
Pop Culture’s Cauldron: Angels at form + content
In case you have not yet noticed, angels are all the rage. Long gone are the days of Wim Wenders’ gloomy, alienated voyeurs stalking unsuspecting Berliners in Wings of Desire (1987). The angels of counter-culture, most famously Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1993), have gone mainstream: think of Emma Thompson’s imposing, majestic, [...]
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A Wild State of Mind
Reflections on paintings by Barbara Kreft and Jil Evans
By Christina Schmid
As night falls, a blue flame emerges from the canvas, dancing in the fading light. Composed almost entirely of small squares that range from pale to deep blue, Nightshades glows in the growing darkness with a ghostly, refracted light, as if Barbara Kreft had somehow [...]
Five Minnesota Visual Artists Receive Jerome Fellowships 2008-09
Official Press Release, October 29, 2008
MINNEAPOLIS—The Minneapolis College of Art and Design is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2008–09 MCAD/Jerome Fellowships for Emerging Artists. They are Evan Baden, Barbara Claussen, Kirsten Peterson,
Benjamin Reed and Lindsay Smith. The MCAD/Jerome Fellowship Program provides each recipient with a $10,000
stipend and opportunities to discuss their work with [...]
A Preoccupation with Distraction
In October of 2008, five Minnesota artists were notified that they had been selected from a pool of 317 applicants to receive the Jerome Foundation’s fellowship for the visual arts. The jurors who chose these five artists were Paul Ha, Director of the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, Sara Krajewski, Associate Curator at the [...]
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License to Look: Evan Baden
Ever since the telephone started its long ascent to the apex of cultural commodities doubling as fashion accessories, its rise has been greeted with a mix of scorn and delight. In The Telephone Book, Avital Ronell relates a New England incident, in which Puritans fought to have the domestic location of the telephone legally restricted. [...]
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A Technophile Dreams of Disaster: Kirsten Peterson
You do not have to identify as a technophile to be in awe of what technology has allowed us to see. From distant galaxies to intracellular activity, liquid crystal displays and imaging techniques based on magnetic resonance, the field of visibility has expanded exponentially as a result of technological progress. Much still remains invisible, though, [...]
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