Wit in Wood: Carving Vision in Castle Stone
By Thomas O. Haakenson
Works by master carvers and whittlers act as testaments to a seemingly forgotten past in the current exhibit, Wit in Wood: Nordic Figure Carving, on view through April 29, 2012, at the American Swedish Institute (ASI) in Minneapolis. Curated by one of the most accomplished Scandinavian-style figure carvers in the United States, Harley Refsal, the exhibition is worth a visit, perhaps in spite of itself.
Let me explain.
Many of the roughly foot-high sculptures are displayed in clustered groupings, either on freestanding, encased pedestals or on large, round tables. The latter strategy seems especially appropriate for these works, allowing visitors the opportunity to see the painstaking details and delicate turns of blade that otherwise might go unseen. One might think that these pieces are testaments to a domestic craft of a seemingly bygone area. But as the collective and collected imaginings of makers such as Emil Janel, Axel Petersson, H.S. “Andy” Anderson, Herman Rosell, and Urban Gunnarsson attest, Wit in Wood muses that this tradition still lives—vibrantly, humorously.
And Wit in Wood reveals that this tradition is not always a small-scale affair. Large-scale carvings, some of which are displayed on the Turnblad Mansion’s ornate tables and in the building’s lush Library, prove size-appropriate and ideal companions to the castle’s own ornate wooden moldings and arabesque-filled walls.
Yet while signature large-scale pieces in Wit in Wood rightfully are given prominent positions, a large number of smaller carving pieces are crowded together and displayed in dense groupings. The display strategy is no doubt the result of spatial limitations. The crowding renders some of the most interesting physical remnants of the carving process less visible, less significant. A missed opportunity.
But many of the pieces in Wit in Wood speak for themselves. Faces abound with narrative inspiration, and frozen postures reveal the workings of fate. To its credit, the ASI provides significant cultural programming to support the exhibit, including wood carving demonstrations and the kooky, fun “Dalapalooza” events in March, events which take their name from the Dala, a carved horse which individuals paint and finish to their liking. On this latter point, one of the highlights of Wit in Wood is the impressive display of the once-unfinished Dala horses that have been returned to Refsal, each of which has been beautifully, amusingly, or painstakingly finished—and sometimes all-of-the-above—to represent the personality of the artist and her or his culture.
Yet Wit in Wood must try to compete with the space in which it finds itself: the Turnblad Mansion. And this competition is weighted to the wealthy. The exhibit becomes almost second fiddle – or is it second whittle? – to the overpowering venue, a venue that speaks more to Downton Abbey rather than domestic craft access.
The works in Wit in Wood, part of a tradition generated by long, Nordic winters endured by Scandinavian peasants, provide implicitly insightful backdrops to the excesses of the Mansion’s original residents, Swan, Christina, and Lilian Turnblad, whose wealth came from Swan’s role in the newspaper publishing industry, and in particular the Minneapolis-based Swedish-language newspaper Svenska Amerikanska Posten. All humor aside, however, even the impressive, collective artistry of master carvers in Wit in Wood are no match for Indianapolis limestone, painted ceramic tiles, and mammoth wooden chimneys for which the newspaper baron paid a reported one million dollars in 1929.
One of the most significant challenges Wit in Wood faces, and it really is a splendid display of Scandinavian carving culture, is garnering as much attention from the visitor as does the sheer splendor of the exhibition space. Despite its best efforts, Wit in Wood remains marginalized, insignificant, past in the Turnblad Mansion. Despite masterful craft and meticulous placement, the smaller pieces in the show are subsumed by the incredible carvings and ceramic art that the ASI has painstakingly maintained or restored in the Turnblad’s early-twentieth-century home.
Wit in Wood, which becomes a kind of ornamentation to an already very-ornate space, may have found a better, more prominent voice in a display venue that allowed the viewer to focus on the individual pieces, the master craftsmanship, the playful history behind the whittling.
According to the ASI, the Nelson Cultural Center, designed by HGA Architects and Engineers of Minneapolis and set to open in June 2012, reflects contemporary and traditional Swedish aesthetics. In anticipation of the Center’s opening, the ASI has masterfully incorporated the new building’s architectural features, specifically the slanted, asymmetrical roof, into the organization’s new brand, which also features a tower that reflects the Turnblad Mansion’s French Chateauesque leanings. Taken together, the ASI’s revamped logo reflects a promising marriage of traditional and modern, historical and contemporary. The gift shop, which seems a lush hybrid of Ikea, Ingebretsen’s, and Design Within Reach, speaks to these ends as well. So all is not lost. But waiting to use the ASI’s expanded campus spaces may have made for a better Wit in Wood exhibition.
Visitors currently tour the Turnblad Mansion in groups with the help of exceptionally knowledgeable guides. Yet even in the roughly one-hour tour in which I participated, very little mention was made of the Wit in Wood exhibit; there is simply too much to see in the Turnblad Mansion itself. The tour guide, who provided a rich and detailed history of the building, sheepishly apologized at the end of the tour for the fact that we walked right by, and almost through, the Wit in Wood exhibit. There was simply too much history about the building and artistry within it, he noted, to share space with such an amusing albeit culturally significant exhibition.
The Turnblad Mansion itself could not have said it better. Or maybe it already did.
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