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
In spring 2010, I was invited to contribute an essay on Baden’s work to Foam magazine. The essay, “The Art of the Double Take,” allowed me to revisit Baden’s series Technically Intimate, which I first wrote about in “License to Look,” originally published in fall 2009.
Ever since the telephone started its long ascent to the [...]
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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Attracted to Controversy: Barb Claussen
“Don’t believe them,” the voice whispers before a male baritone decisively states, “there will be consequences.” Another voice loudly exhorts the values of loyalty, allegiance, and obedience, while slyly promising prosperity in between. Then, a barely audible whisper: “Be careful.” Pitting these utterances against each other serves as the soundtrack to Barb Claussen’s most recent [...]
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The Art of the Game: Benjamin Reed
On June 24, 2009, the U.S. men’s soccer team shocked the sports world by winning 2:0 over Spain’s national team. Soccer, a sport that usually does not garner the brightest spotlight in the U.S. media, suddenly rose to headline status on front pages; winning will do that, especially in a country whose competitive culture hardly [...]
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A Post-Apocalyptic Imagination: Lindsay Smith
Games of make believe have long propelled the human imagination and given rise to a unique genre of literature: speculative fiction. Of particular interest in this wide-ranging genre is the kind of speculation rooted in contemporary reality and, more often than not, current anxieties and hopes. When pursued into possible futures, these scenarios become all [...]
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Tourists, Travelers, Vagabonds
Summer and travel. For those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford to get out of the Cities, to the cabin or up north, summer and travel make an unbeatable combination. Of course, camera phones and digital cameras come along for the ride. Looking at the Museum of Russian Art’s current show on [...]
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