Painting the Place Between

from the collection …

Painting the Place Between

(01 Dec, 2012 – 17 Feb, 2013)

Minnesota Museum of American Art

30 Nov 2012, St Paul, MN

    I have not attended MMAA’s programming events for several years due to having moved to Chicago for school.  Let me say, their new Project Space at 4^th and Robert Street in downtown St Paul is exceptionally light and approachable, and the same artistic community I have grown to love and value over the years, was in appearance at the event celebrating core holdings representing Minnesota’s regional artistic heritage.  The theme of the show seemed to focus on a sense of place – an odd but fitting theme for a city celebrating the 150^th Anniversary of its rather dark history in removing Native American tribes from their homes along the Mississippi River and resorting to armed force to evict many of them from the state entirely.  The background cultural context is the approaching anniversary of the hanging of 38 (of 300 sentenced) Siouan patriots as traitors, the day after Christmas, and a growing sense of and appreciation for the presumed unrealistic goal presented by many Native American Minnesotans that the historic Fort Snelling be razed, its removal reopening emotional and cultural access by the Native American community to that area which had once been a cultural heartland for their civilization.

    Not since my time spent in Cape Town, South Africa, or more precisely, Tshwane, fka Pretoria, and Mbombela, fka Nelspruit, have I sensed such a salient, if silent, contestation of the sense of place in a wider, post-colonial geography. 

Song Yer Thao Field (2012)

    While the curatorial staff intended the show to “shape a vision of our natural space as mediated by the artist’s subjective experience and the shared legacy and aura of painting on canvas… offer[ing] up evidence of the role the painter plays in how we view and interpret our landscapes as common ground and shared legacy,” the question on everyone’s mind is by what right and to what extent is this legacy truly shared, to what extent is this legacy contested, and how do the arts impact or facilitate either geographic appropriation or multi-cultural resistance.  While the works by Betsy Byers, Bette Carlon, Jil Evangs, Andrew Wykes, and Phyllis Wiener definitely are in dialogue with the Western cultural canons, they are also dialoguing with American imperialist art traditions dating back to Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, and even Ansel Adams.  All of the artists are perceived to be white Minnesotans, with the exception of Hmong artist Song Yer Thao whose Field (2012), rather than contrasting with the other works, lends stylistic support to that of Jil Evans, Phyllis Wiener and Holly Swift.  Still, one to left to ponder whether Fort Snelling has given up its cannon for the canon.

Peanuts on Parade

Gimmick or Art?

(original 01 Sept 2001; current rev from draft 26 Sept 2012)

    Marketing gimmicks or public art?  What are we to make of the waves of cattle invading downtown Chicago, moose in Toronto, or cartoon characters holding down street corners in St Paul?  These fiberglass sculptures seem to be quite successful examples of the former while being not altogether unworthy of the latter designation as art.

    It would seem a bit preposterous to label the individual units of these events as objects of fine art; yet, perhaps their true artistic merit lies in the effect of the pieces as a whole.  Each of these sidewalk invasions has been labeled, with the full complicity of the local arts community, as public art events, yet each has also been criticized as mere marketing gimmicks.

    What is it then that might qualify these objects as art?  Perhaps we need to examine these events not as potential “gallery” exhibitions, but rather as designators of place and evocative emotional agents, i.e. art.