Smaller Can Be Great!

A younger artist friend from back home asked about recommendations for the small or rural art gallery.  It is a difficult question to answer.  I have worked with numerous projects that denote, list and explore galleries as cultural assets in terms of tourism and media, but most often, the smaller gallery and the rural gallery seem to act as a local arts incubator, a social outreach or an artisanal display more than they do a true arts center.

    As I am trying to consistently reinforce, there is nothing wrong with the artisanal center or promotional gallery and as such, I can only recommend a strong relationship be established between the local arts community, the chamber of commerce and the local technical schools and all efforts be made to market! Market!, Market!

    On the other hand, just as a small ethnic or rural community requires a church, mosque or religious center, each should have a fine arts establishment – merely for the survival of the spiritually creative soul.

    The most common arts venue in smaller communities seems to be the theatre – Ft Peck Theatre near Glasgow, Montana, Commonweal Theatre, in Lanesboro, Minnesota, the old Baliwick Theatre in Chicago, and the Minnesota Historical Theatre in St Paul,  and numerous other examples indicate how smaller theatres have become essential venues for the arts.  My observation is that the strongest of these theatres also seem to have tendency to include both locally reflective material and one or two more challenging or experimental pieces, along with the traditional performances of traditional favorites such as the Sound of Music, Death of a Salesman, etc.  While popular films such as Please Don’t Eat the Daisies andWaiting for Guffman tend to disparage small-community efforts in this regard, I often find smaller, more local, more-budget-conscious productions to be more intimate, more approachable, often more creative, and just as interesting as Chicago’s Wolf Trap or Minneapolis’ Guthrie.  What are the popular Fringe Festivals if not groupings of the smaller theatrical and cabaret-style theatre experience?

    Art galleries that seem to do “small” well are Klondike Institute of Art & Culture in Dawson City, Yukon, the original Plug-In Gallery (now a greatly expanded enterprise) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Chateau Park Museum – Art Centre in St Catharines, Ontario, Hamond Arts Alliance in Hammond, Wisconsin, the Swedish-American Museum (SAMAC) in Chicago, Dana Gallery in Missoula, Montana, and the arts pavilion at Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town, South Africa. 

Defining Art

Aesthetics courtesy Mercedes Benz

Open Studios and Aesthetics:  

Artist versus Artisan

Have you ever gone to an art show or an open studio and been confused as to what is art and what is not, or as to who is an artist and who is merely doing craft projects?  If so, you are not alone.  While art might have been highly defined and organized at one point, it is no longer so.  Any definitions about art or as to what is art and what is not will be contradicted as quickly as they are established.

    Rather than worrying about defining art or even attempting to understand art, I find it more useful to consider developing one’s own aesthetic or appreciation of art and to then challenge oneself to find more and different types of art and artworks in which you become interested.

    For instance, I know that I really like the sculpture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.  At first, I thought that the sculptures of Ancient Egypt were weird and silly but as I learned to appreciate the relationship between Ancient Greek art and that of Ancient Egypt, I began to fully appreciate them both.

    On one of my first trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, I was amazed at how real the faces of some of the sculptures were from India and how similar they were to Greek art.  After doing some reading, I learned that much art from Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan was highly influenced by the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great.

    As I became more experienced, I learned to enjoy the differences as well as the similarities.  Viewing art is like any other activity – the more you do it, the better you become.  The better you become at viewing and interacting with art, the more you enjoy it.

    During this process, you will determine for yourself what is interesting and what is not.  This is your personal aesthetic.  

Painter Painter (2 of 3), Walker Art Center

Painter Painter

Walker Art Center

Minneapolis, Minnesota

02 Feb – 27 Oct, 2013

 

Part 2:  Context and Dialogue

 

Painter Painter has the potential of being both theoretically progressive and informative in terms of content (the works and artists displayed), and I was privileged to be attendance as Michelle Grabner, Jan Verwoert and Bruce Hainley led participating artists and the Center’s members in presentations and group discussion of the meaning behind the show.  (The following are excerpts and are incomplete and subjective, but these are the notes I was able to take and my best attempt at reconstitution.  The videos will be available at a future date from the Walker.)

 

    The context and dialogue of Painter Painter takes place in many places and in many media simultaneously.  The 02 Feb panel discussion was preluded by a revealing interview with curators Eric Crosby and Bartholomew Ryan by Cristina Travaglini in the winter issue of Kaleidoscope (www.kaleidoscope-press.com/current-issue/), on-line through individual artist blogs (http://www.walkerart.org/painter-painter-studio-sessions) and on-site via panel discussions, studio visits and personal artist interactions.

Painter Painter pt 1 of 3, Walker Art Center

Painter Painter

Walker Art Center

Minneapolis, Minnesota

02 Feb – 27 Oct, 2013

Part 1:  the process

Painter Painter has the potential of being both theoretically progressive and informative in terms of content (the works and artists displayed), and I was privileged to be attendance as Michelle Grabner, Jan Verwoert and Bruce Hainley led participating artists and the Center’s members in presentations and group discussion of the meaning behind the show. 

    For me, it was my first time in the new Walker Auditorium.  The room was cozy, intimate and perfectly theatrical – we could easily have been in any one of thousands of commercial theatre venues across America – only then we would have had sodas, popcorn and even more cushy seats.  This thought was to stay with me throughout the event – an interfering static.  The discussion resembled a business conference or trades meeting in a busy airport, complete with schedules, overhead announcements and stewardesses (my apologies to the volunteer ushers).

    The students and audience were professionally engaged and polite (and non-native), and we could leave the event with mandatory cookies and cocoa and a receipt for having attended a continuing ed seminar.  We were re-assured that our city has made its mark on the visual arts scene without forcing us to accept any major influence on our own more pedestrian life-styles.

Ed I. Koch, Mayor (1924-2013)

Ed Koch, the Man, the Myth, the Artistic Legacy 1924-2013

(edited 05 Feb 2013)

    We will all greatly miss Mayor Ed Koch – a man whose personality was as big as Manhattan – the man who probably has come closest to meeting every resident of said city and has represented the city to non-New Yorkers for decades.  He was, he always will be, bigger than life.  Even his passing, the day his autobiographical film opens to the public in theatres and the day Grand Central Station, a landmark he was instrumental, as Congressperson, in helping save from demolition, turned 100, and 11 years after the murder of Daniel Pearl, whose last words were prophetically inscribed on Koch’s tombstone, cannot but add to his personal legend.

    One of the many areas in which he had a direct impact was in the arts.  Koch was brilliant throughout his life in incorporating the media and performing arts into the life of the city and into his own publicity – creating a sort of natural cameo-style appearance genre that gave life and personality to the city through spokespersons such as him.  Koch gave many such cameo appearances including First Wives Club, Muppets Take Manhattan and Sex and the City.  Koch may not have been “mayor for life”, but he was definitely its “designated spokesperson for life.”

    Koch’s passion was seemingly for media and the performing arts.  He wrote a number of books, including a biography and is being hailed as the only mayor in America to have an off-Broadway musical biography.  An autobiographical film, Koch, opened in theatres on Friday.

    Politically, Koch took the helm of the city at a time when it was literally facing bankruptcy.  He installed affordable, responsible government and took the case for his policies directly to the people.  He turned the city around and is generally credited with helping inaugurate one of the city’s longest-running building and gentrification booms.