Visual Arts
THURSDAY PICK | Minouk Lim and Emily Johnson dance the Seoul streets at the Walker Art Center
If writing about music, as Martin Mull may or may not have said, is like dancing about architecture, then what is dancing in sculpture? That's what Korean artist Minouk Lim and local performer Emily Johnson will be doing on May 31 at the Walker Art Center, "animating" Lim's wearable sculptures on the opening day of Lim's exhibit Heat of Shadows. Lim's work concerns urban alienation, a favorite theme for dancers as well, so I have a hunch we're going to be seeing a lot of come-here-come-here-come-here-come-here-get-away-get-away-get-away-get-away moments. Isn't that what life is all about?
Ice House Plaza opening marks a new era on Eat Street
Ice House Plaza, a new privately owned public green space at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in Whittier, officially opened on Friday, May 18 with a dedication that included food and beverages from the surrounding businesses (with proceeds benefitting the Whittier Alliance) and music by The New Standards. The celebration came at the heels of news the return of Azia to the corner (the restaurant will reopen as Azia Market Bar & Restaurant at 2550 Nicollet in mid-June) as well as the opening of Icehouse Restaurant. That restuarant, opening on June 7, will feature live music (a cross between the Dakota and the Turf Club, according to co-owner Brian Liebeck) and small plates dining with meats made in-house.MORE »
The view from Crystal Bridges
BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS—Surprises abound on the hills, in the gullies and across the streams of Benton County in northwestern Arkansas. Those surprises, uniquely enough, also generate whipsaw-like juxtapositions of the banal and extraordinary and challenge aesthetic compartmentalization and comprehension.MORE »
VISUAL ARTS REVIEW | Carolyn Lee Anderson's "Shijéí/My Heart" at All My Relations Gallery leaves you staring
You don’t have to know art to appreciate Carolyn Lee Anderson’s exhibit Shijéí/My Heart: Mixed Media Works. Showing now through May 31 at All My Relations Gallery, it is an intriguing experience regardless. Anderson’s images compel. Her immediacy leaves you staring. No need to know art—anyone can feel this work. Family portraits in more or less existential relief, photographs, paint and drawings in compliment to earthen images. You care about this art because you can tell how strongly the artist cared in creating it.MORE »
Most regrettable Art-a-Whirl impulse buys
Wire sculpture of R.T. Rybak's hair ($199)
1989 Buick turned into an art car by being covered with Band-Aids ($500)
Nude portrait of self, painted behind the 331 Club at 2:30 AM ($5)MORE »
Art-a-Whirl and Tough Mudder make for a hot weekend
Art-A-Whirl happens this weekend in Northeast Minneapolis. If you’ve never been, you should plan on checking it out. If you like art and/or music, you will want to head over to see some bands at Psycho Suzi’s, Grumpy’s NE, The Sample Room, and the 331 Club; and check out all the open artists; studios and galleries all over the area. There is even an Art-a-Whirl edition of the Hotpants dance party on Saturday night. Usually some of the food trucks park themselves in Northeast to feed the hungry art-lovers. I’ll be checking Art-A-Whirl out on Saturday, since Sunday I will be watching people run around in the mud.MORE »
Art-a-Whirl tips: How to get around, how to buy art, where to eat
Maybe it's the 9th or 10th year my wife and I have been the Art-A-Whirl Trolley hosts. It has been quite an experience. We have found the Trolley has given us the opportunity to talk to folks about northeast and help visitors get their arms around the whole weekend experience. We've been involved with the arts in northeast, as neighborhood supporters, from its earliest days, and continue to support the arts. One would be hard-pressed to find a similar event anywhere in the world. In fact, rumor has it, folks from the University of Minnesota are out to this year to count just how big Art-A-Whirl is.MORE »
SATURDAY PICK | May Lee-Yang, Brian Beatty, Andy Sturdevant, and others have "FLO(we){u}R Power" at the Soap Factory
I know it's petty, but as an editor, sometimes the name of an event is so obnoxious that you feel like you can hardly write about it and still take yourself seriously. Such has been the case with the Soap Factory's exhibit named—sigh—FLO(we){u}R, an installation in which artists Amber Ginsberg and Joseph Madrigal recreate a WWI bomb factory to build seed bombs. (Sometimes a concept is just too hippie even for the Daily Planet.) But Allison Morse snared me with the TalkingImageConnection (speaking of awkward names, Pat, can I buy a space?) reading scheduled for May 12 with local luminaries including irreverent Fringe favorites May Lee-Yang and Brian Beatty as well as the happily ubiquitous Andy Sturdevant. Dig out those cut-offs and paisley and groove on down to Marcy-Holmes for this free event.MORE »
SUNDAY PICK | The Yes!Lets Collective thinks it's Mom's turn to sit and listen to a story
As long as we're recommending things with names that inspire eye-rolling, let's turn to the Yes!Lets Collective. At the Bryant-Lake Bowl this Mother's Day, May 13, the multidisciplinary crew are presenting an event called 7:7:7. The show features seven performers telling seven "turning points," for seven minutes each, through six different means: dance, music, visual art, puppetry, short story, and traditional storytelling. I'm a little fuzzy on where the seventh performer fits in (I'm guessing the dance), but the point is, this is a nice thing to bring your mom to. Buy her a Bloody Mary to enjoy during the show; she may or may not need it, but she raised you, so she deserves it.
THURSDAY PICK | "Dali's Liquid Ladies" jump back into the pool at the Cedar-Riverside People's Center
It's hard to nail both entertaining and profound, and no local playwright does it better than Savannah Reich. Her play Dalí's Liquid Ladies is based on a story so strange that obviously it's true: at the 1939 New York World's Fair, Salvador Dalí installed a surrealist pavilion that you entered by walking through a woman's legs (he was way ahead of Patch Adams) and that contained a giant aquarium tank inhabited by topless women playing "mermaids." Reich's play begins as a humorous look at those women's lives, but ultimately becomes something much stranger and deeper.MORE »
We're people-powered journalism! Click on story links (below) to see more story information, and then email editor@tcdailyplanet.net if you want to report.
• 
