Quodlibetica originated from the desire to write about art and visual culture in ways not confined by academic conventions or journalistic hype. Part journal, part blog, Quodlibetica fosters critical conversations about visual arts in a forum that is accessible, engaging, and committed to quality writing. Based on the Latin quodlibet, which has entered the English language as (1) a statement proposed for disputation, (2) the actual discussion, and (3) the whimsical combination of familiar elements, Quodlibetica is a space to argue eloquently and whimsically about art, find out what’s happening in the Twin Cities art scene, and engage with writers, artists, and critics, who like to think. Contact us if you want to get involved.
Constellation 19: Wildly Erika: Fun With Word Art
Proposals Due to quodlibetica@gmail.com: March 1.
From the unexpectedly profound typo to the meta-meanings of flarf, this constellation mines the spaces in between words, meanings, and typography. Wildly Erika–that is, “quodlibetica,” auto-corrected by itouch–serves as the starting point for word art: connections, connotations, and [...]
Published 2.2.2012
In Quodibetica’s eighteenth constellation, The Icy Issue, we invited our contributors to think about place: art on view here and now, but also place as landscape, concept, problem.
Lightsey Darst and the artists running One Room Schoolhouse reflect on two of this year’s Art Shanties on frozen Medicine Lake. Andy Sturdevant’s “Word on the Weather” takes [...]
Published 2.1.2012
“To the Galleries!” we called—and to the galleries you went. In this latest constellation, Quodlibetica’s seventeenth, follow Lightsey Darst and Tom Westbrook to the Walker Art Center. Darst reflects on the curious second life of the costumes, props, and backdrops of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as museum objects, while Westbrook [...]
Published 12.1.2011
On September 18, 2011, Quodlibetica co-hosted an evening of conversation with Art Of This, an artist collective currently based on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. For our October constellation, we offer statements, proposals, questions, and after-thoughts that resulted from either preparing for or reflecting on the discussion.
As Jan Estep points out in her observations of the [...]
Published 10.1.2011
In this, the summer travel issue of Quodlibetica, we go around the world to bring you art movements, experiences, and flights of fancy. A number of our authors packed their suitcases and hit art scenes outside the Twin Cities, bringing our readers a stash of souvenirs that we hope will lead to endless summer pleasure. [...]
Published 8.1.2011
The book. The page. The image. The text.
In this constellation of Quodlibetica, we contributors and editors take you beyond the line, behind the surface, and through the looking glass.
We explore the changing cultural role of the book and the lingering appeal of book arts. From book makers to book matters, from translators to [...]
Published 6.1.2011
I often tell students about my high school English teacher, Donna Nordaune. The sassy, middle-aged, sexually-charged Mrs. Nordaune would pause whenever she’d show us a portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne (“Pretty cute, eh”) or discuss the illustrations in Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Telltale Heart” (“I thought they’d be scarier. The guy was a freak after all.”). [...]
Published 4.1.2011
In our most eclectic constellation to date, we begin the new year with an exploration of art’s outsides: the ambivalent relationship the art world continues to have with outsiders, art’s life outside the white cube, and the various exclusions upon which our culture’s definition of art depends.
While “Outsider art” has, of course, been admitted into [...]
Published 2.1.2011
Someone — no one knows who, really — once said, “writing about art is a bit like dancing about architecture.” The expression seems oddly apropos given the role that space plays in this constellation on public art. After all, isn’t dancing without space a bit like art without thinking?
And think about [...]
Published 12.1.2010
Kunyo Wanguo Quantu, Detail. Currently on display at the James Ford Bell Library.
“[T]he boat is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea … In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes [...]
Published 10.1.2010