MSCED - Brock Davis at Creative Electric

If an artist has a successful enough career, at some point people start to look through everything they did: Notes, sketches for ideas, unfinished projects, etc. I tend to really appreciate the fragments and pieces found on the side roads of an artist’s life and work even though it’s possible the artist never intended to share them. It feels like I can get closer to a body of work. I’m also a big believer that the failures in life and work generally teach us more than the successes.

On January 1st 2009, Minneapolis artist/designer Brock Davis started a project called “Make Something Cool Everyday”, which he did, for the whole year. Starting May 1st, you can see all 365 pieces of art on display at Creative Electric Studios in NE Minneapolis. Some are awesome, some probably not fully developed; some probably wouldn’t have made the cut in a different context. Seeing all the pieces together reminds me of what the work of an artist is really about: to see or imagine the world differently. And that’s a process, not a single act.



Brock was kind enough to answer a few questions about this project and his work.

Matt Olson - Can you talk a little bit about this project/show “Make Something Cool Everyday? “ What went into deciding to approach your work this way?

Brock Davis - I’m excited about the show. It took a couple of months of planning to figure out how best to present the work. I wanted viewers to get a sense of the timeline of the work, so that walking through the exhibit is like going through each day. All 365 pieces are going to be arranged in the geometric shapes of the calendar months of 2009. I then chose some standout pieces from each month and those pieces will be arranged around the 12 calendar cubes throughout the gallery.

MO - Do you see this year long project as one single work? Or are the individual pieces important to you as single works? Or both?

BD - I see it as both. There were some pieces that developed through the process that could stand on their own, but those pieces were birthed from the overall project, so I keep them attached. Whenever I would stumble upon something that was extendable, it was a good feeling as it gave me an idea of what the next few days would bring. Then those pieces would run their course and it was time for something new. The toughest part was thinking of a new idea. There were many times where I would look at the clock and I would only have an hour left in the day and I still had no idea what I was going to make. I always try to seek something original, which is almost impossible, but just trying to come up with something original can lead to some interesting ideas.

MO - How did this or might this project affect your practice in the future?

BD - A project like this shows all your sides, your consistencies, strengths, weaknesses. It pushed me into media I don’t usually work in, like sculpture and collage. It brought me back to media I haven’t done in a while, like sketching and painting. But I think the most important thing I learned was to pay more attention to my immediate surroundings and realize the creative potential in everyday, ordinary objects and situations. Most of the works in this project are pieces created in my house based on daily observations. Whether I was shaving, staring at a dead fly in a spider’s web or looking at a garden hose in the back yard. This project also taught me to work more efficiently and quickly. I tend to be obsessive-compulsive when it comes to execution, and in the past I would toil for longer periods of time over ideas and executions. This project was kind of like having a job. I would punch in every day and have to have something made (hopefully something interesting) by the end of the day. That pressure and schedule helped me to work more quickly and efficiently.



MO - Who are some of your favorite artists? Architects?

BD - Thomas Heatherwick is probably one of my favorite modern day inspirations...I also like Kim Hiorthoy, Brian Wilson, Stefan Sagmeister, Charley Harper, Paul Rand...and many more.

You can see the all the work created in this year long project here, but I recommend seeing the show for real:

“Make Something Cool Everyday” by Brock Davis - Presented by Creative Electric Studios at the California Buliding Gallery, 2205 NE California Street, Mpls MN

Saturday May 1st Through May 22nd Saturdays 10am-2pm or by Appointment
Opening Reception Saturday May 1st from 6:30 - 11pm Read More......

Exploded View: Opposing Thumbs at Art Of This

I’m kind of surprised and even a bit baffled that David Bohm, the quantum physicist, keeps coming to mind in relation to the current show at the Art Of This gallery in Minneapolis. Why? Well it’s probably because I don’t really know much about him or quantum physics. I’m not sure but I’m guessing it’s the little bit I know about his beliefs in the interconnectedness of all things, and what that means in terms of relationships and communication between people.

The show, Opposing Thumbs, is a mixed media installation that fills the entire gallery. It is the first collaborative work between the gallery’s co-directors, artists David Petersen and John Marks. For four years, the two have worked together to create one of Minneapolis’s best spaces for contemporary work, with a tendency towards social practice and conceptual art.

The show’s press release describes Petersen and Marks journey together with words like “discord” and “economic strife.” It speaks of “disagreements regarding aesthetic, conceptual, political and philosophical concerns”, even calling out each of their “distinctive self-destructive behaviors”. Even though there was a tone of humor to it all, on the drive over I couldn’t help but develop a romanticized vision of their relationship, and from that, develop a sense of what I thought the work I was about to encounter might feel like. I half expected a series of works that were cathartic, complicated and dark. Of course, I could not have been more wrong.



Opposing Thumbs was, in part, born of the recent home improvement projects both artists have been struggling with in their own dwellings. Most of the materials are either remnants of, or reflect Home Depot style remodeling projects, that is to say, textiles of the lowest order. Right at eye level, where many galleries might hang framed paintings, two foot strips of differently patterned wallpaper connect to form a continuous band around the gallery, no doubt a commentary on painting itself. While there is a certain momentum to the patterns as they make their way around the room, where they connect, they almost feel randomly chosen. Two jagged sculptures in the middle of the room, the same color as the floor, lean towards what the eye can’t help but gravitate to, a large colorful and busy, but still gentle video projection. The reflection it makes in the window seems to take the space of the gallery almost to the street. Two opposing ramps covered in carpet are centered by gilt framed video pieces. The room feels light, but dense. There is a narrative present, but it might be different to anyone who experiences it. I was absolutely struck by the smart, playful and esoteric tone of the room. I loved being in the space and can’t recommend it enough.



Upon reflection though, it might be the sound piece and Petersen’s admission that he didn’t really like it, fearing that it was “maybe too reverent”, that is most interesting to me. They came to a perfect compromise with it. The four minute audio of what sounds like a vague, ethereal, distorted choir is followed by four minutes of silence. It becomes the perfect anchor to my memories of a room filled with geometry that seemed to answer and mirror itself in abstract ways all over the place, as with the fake painted lattice adjoined to real lattice… a strange balance exists.



Maybe that’s where David Bohm comes in. The writer Jim Belderis said of Bohm “His realizations give intimations of an infinite hierarchy of ever deeper implicate and superimplicate orders, each one enfolded in the level that underlies it. And these flow endlessly into the unknowable ground of being.” It makes me think of the didactic for Opposing Thumbs, which concludes with the sentence “Because if there is a goal, it would be not to conclude and resolve, but rather to continue with the challenge that is continuing. “ And thus by continuing, each “answer” that Petersen and Marks arrive at only creates more questions. Which is just like great art.

Opposing Thumbs closing reception happens Saturday March 6th 7-11pm.
Art Of This gallery is located at 3506 Nicollet Ave, S. Minneapolis MN Read More......

Exploded View: David Lefkowitz

We all have some guilty pleasures, right? One of mine is the wish that someday I'll be an art tourist: those folks who jet around on a whim to see art wherever it may be. Sadly, the closest I'll probably get to that lifestyle is my recent drive to the Rochester Art Center to see the fantastic David Lefkowitz exhibit Other Positioning Systems. Lefkowitz's work investigates the relationship between our direct experience of the world and the systems and structures we've constructed and use to make sense of it.

I first encountered the work of David Lefkowitz in the "Recent Acquisitions" show at the Walker Art Center a couple years ago, six small architectural drawings on cardboard from a series called "Improvised Structures." I was struck by their ambiguous relationship to space and scale, and their juxtaposition of material and theme.

Other Positioning Systems (now closed) was a retrospective and included works that played with security cameras, exposed what occurs behind the walls of a gallery, and displayed paintings of scenes from Lefkowitz's auto commute seen from the perspective of MNDOT camera views. There was a room full of "actual sized" paintings of very small things... and finally, the show culminated in a large gallery, where, in a series of works, the materials themselves become the most expressive part; a painting on wallboard in sheetrock compound, a large mural line drawing on wall where the lines were all made from sticks and branch twigs, a Styrofoam city.

Lefkowitz was kind enough to answer a few general questions about his work. Since I’m a novice at conducting interviews, I read a few conducted with artists I like. I was particularly taken by an interview with John Baldessari, whose work I feel has a conceptual link to Lefkowitz’s. [Read that interview here].

Because Lefkowitz explores perception, and asks us to question whether we're really seeing what we're seeing (or hearing), I asked him if I could copy some of the same questions from the Baldessari interview as an amusing conceptual frame. He was intrigued. Here's how it went.

Matt Olson - What led you to become an artist?

David Lefkowitz - Two things: 1. A Romantic ideal of the Artist as autonomous creative tinkerer- as someone who gets to spend a lot of time playing with ideas and experimenting with ways to give those thoughts concrete form. The reality isn’t quite so idyllic, but remarkably, it is part of the equation 2. A giddy skepticism about the truth/validity/authenticity of any representational image.



MO - I'm sorry, I hate to interject, but how tall are you?

DL - Not as tall as John Baldessari.

MO - You're so tall! It's amazing!

DL - As I said before, pictures can be deceiving.

MO - Who would you consider to be some breakthrough artists within the last decade?

DL - Was this a question to Baldessari too?

“Breakthrough” is a curious term to use here. It implies there was a barrier to certain artists/types of artwork that has recently been challenged, broken, circumvented. Now we’re in a really weird place/time-In a culture obsessed with novelty and spectacle, its hard to tell the difference between trendy and innovative. When ‘blurring boundaries’ is the normative strategy for artists, stubbornly conservative approaches can seem radical (though I am not convinced they really are). Given that caveat, If I extend the time constraint back to a couple decades, two relatively recent projects stand out for me as mind –expanding ventures.

First is Komar and Melamid’s efforts to determine the most and least wanted paintings in different countries. They hired a market research firm to conduct a survey about people’s aesthetic tastes, then made hilarious paintings based on the results. The project was simultaneously a critique of a corporate marketing approach to culture, and a paradoxically revealing picture of national character. You can read all about it here.

I also continue to marvel at the work of J.S.G. Boggs, who, beginning in the mid-‘80’s, would make meticulous drawings of U.S. and other currencies, and then proceed to try to ‘spend’ his drawings, always making clear that these were not actual bills, but drawings that he assigned the face value of the depicted money. The convoluted transactions themselves were the artwork, and they sharply revealed the way our whole economy is based on a consensus of faith in the value of scraps of paper (and now on digitized bits of financial information- which reminds me, I need to log on to Wells Fargo to ‘move money’ from savings to checking- see what I mean?). The creative non-fiction master Lawrence Weschler wrote a fantastic book about his exploits. It’s definitely worth checking out.



MO - Could you talk a bit about the "Improvised Structure" series of drawings the Walker Art Center acquired?

DL - Sure, they are watercolor drawings of structures made of cardboard boxes depicted on scrap cardboard. The images refer to utopian architecture- they exist only as plans, but they lack a connection to a grand plan, an overarching ideology. (Can one develop a planned unplanned-ness, an anti-Haussmann utopia?) The central organizing principle is formal and mundane- I depict a single structure, or small group of structures in linear perspective, usually seen at street level. Because they lack any surrounding context, they read as specimens- isolated examples of a form. Thus, attention is focused on their singularity.

They are “improvised” in that I draw them pretty much from scratch. I draw a lot of quick studies that function as general sources, but I am making them up as I go along. I like that something that seems as definitive as an architectural rendering can really be a quick notation of an idea. It contradicts standard assumptions about what improvisation means. I like using watercolor ’cause it’s fugitive, hard-to-control nature adds an element of happenstance to an otherwise rigid structure. I like that they embody two poles of the spirit of resourcefulness-using what’s available, plentiful, right in front of you. They suggest both an architecture of possibility: children’s forts- cardboard box as basic unit for play, invention, and an architecture of necessity: cardboard box as rudimentary shelter for the homeless.



MO - What architects or areas of architecture are you interested in and how do they relate to your work?

DL - Like lots of folks I know, I have an ambivalent reaction to the legacy of Modernism- I love the spirit of experimentation and the attention to the properties of specific materials you find in Mies’ structures (steel, glass) or Eero Saarinen buildings (poured concrete), but I’m not so fond of arrogant social engineering like Corbu’s Plan Voisin, and the zillions of cheap, alienating structures partially justified by their superficial resemblance to ideal Modernist forms. I ‘d make a case that that ambivalence is actually the subject of a number of things I’ve done, from the Improvised Structures I mentioned above, to Plan, the Styrofoam city model in Other Positioning Systems. I also really respond to architects who use unconventional, often throwaway materials, like Shigeru Ban, who has used sonotubes (not the concrete they’re usually filled with) as structural elements, and landscape architects who transform abandoned industrial sites like Peter Latz, who designed an amazing park in Germany that incorporates derelict blast furnaces. Locally, I love the way MS&R used the ruins of the Washburn A Mill to create the Mill City Museum. It’s not hard to see how these examples of repurposing materials and spaces most people would consider garbage relate to my work.



The Rochester Art Center show has closed, but Lefkowitz will have another solo show in May at Thomas Berry Fine Arts in Minneapolis, and will participate in group shows this spring and summer at the Phipps Center for the Arts In Hudson, the Bloomington Art Center, and the Weisman Art Museum. Read More......

Exploded View - Matt Olson "Scattered Light "

If you've been following along with my Exploded View posts here, you may have noticed how much I talk about cross disciplinary actions. I think it's so important for designers, architects and other creative professionals to wander into art, music, fashion etc. to broaden and inform their context. I thought I should share an example of what that means to me and how I've built that into my life this winter.

ROLU, the design studio I co-founded six years ago, recently commissioned a work by ASDF, a collaboration between the artists Mylinh Trieu Nguyen and David Horvitz. Having been inspired by my own involvement with their work, the studio asked them to create something with a strong element of participation, involving anyone who was interested. We asked that the work encourage people to think about space and their surroundings in a new, broader way. They came up with Scattered Light: a participation based poster project and attendant photo exhibition (follow link for full description). The project culminates next spring with a show at Art Of This gallery in Minneapolis.

So with this post, besides my usual refrain encouraging you to try new things, get involved, see things differently, dod something you might not normally do... I'm giving you an opportunity to do just that, as you are invited and encouraged to participate in Scattered Light.

I really hope you do. Read More......

Exploded View - Matt Olson: Radical Art/chitecture - Gianni Pettena

Ice House I (1972 Mpls) Gianni Pettena - phot FRAC Centre

"Are you making something or destroying something?"

That was the question posed by a kid who stopped to watch Italian artist/architect Gianni Pettena work on Clay House: Situation #4, a work described in an Artforum article from 1972 as a "common frame house in Minneapolis (that) was completely covered in clay." I'm not sure if the kid knew it, but it was a perfect and somewhat profound question; and one that would have applied to other works that Pettena did while he was here in Minneapolis in 1971-72 as a visiting professor of design at MCAD, which was then part of the MIA.

Gianni Pettena was a key figure in the radical architecture and anti-design movement that happened during the sixties and early seventies. Along with Italians like Superstudio, Archizoom and Ugo La Pietra, as well as collectives like Archigram in England and Haus Rucker Co in Germany, Pettena created works that challenged what architecture's role was. Their work crossed boundaries into other areas of avant-garde culture, music and art. Ultimately, the movement would end up influencing many of today's most heralded architects like Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas.

Ice House II (1972 Mpls) - Gianni Pettena photo FRAC Centre

A lot of the work created by these radical art/chitecture groups was theoretical and informed by a post-pop art, political and social take on emerging technology and often contained a sense of the youthful violence that was also present in Futurism, another avant-garde movement that was largely Italian. Pettena's work seems a little different though, more abstract, playful and poetic. He was most interested in the boundaries between art and architecture and stated once that "artists build and architects draw", believing that it's usually artists that propose visual languages directed at the transformation of space rather than architects. Pettena was trained as an architect but his actual building has been very limited, preferring in his early years to use the language of conceptual and environmental art, and in later years to work as a teacher and prolific critic.

The work Pettena did while he was in Minneapolis is some of his best. Ice House I was a former school that was turned into a giant block of ice, in Ice House II, a house gets the same treatment.

His installations at the MIA were brilliant. His Wearable Chair was a fantastic, playful piece that involved Pettena and his students taking a directed walk to and from downtown Minneapolis all wearing their chairs. While the piece was mocked in a Star Tribune review at the time, it looks more like an early example of 'experientialist art' rather than furniture design now.

Wearable Chair (1972) - Gianni Pettena

Gianni Pettena is one of my favorite figures in art and architecture because his work while being dense and deeply interesting, both philosophically and intellectually, is also filled with poetry and immediate intuitive possibility.

It's that sense of poetry and possibility that makes me wonder if the kid who asked him "Are you making something or destroying something?" really "got" the work on a deep level.

I highly encourage you to look in to Gianni Pettena's whole career, but especially the work he created here in 1971-72. Also check out some posts at the ROLU studio blog written by last year's winter intern, Nicolas Allinder, here, here and here.

Read More......

Exploded View | Matt Olson "Dan Graham: Beyond"

Photo: Annick Herbert/Herbert Collection

When asked recently who his least favorite person in the world is, the artist Dan Graham responded "It's a tie between George W. Bush and Rem Koolhaas." I can't say for sure what this means but, after seeing the fantastic and exhausting retrospective "Dan Graham: Beyond" currently up at the Walker Art Center, it somehow seems like the perfect answer. The same playful, contrarian, punk rock-ish, smart alec tone and spirit is present almost everywhere in the exhibit.



Photo: Dan Graham


Dan Graham isn't a household name but probably should be. Former Walker Art Center curator Philippe Vergne, now the Director of the Dia Art Foundation describes Graham's work as "elitism for everyone." He's often described as an artists artist. Artforum magazine recently wrote about what an admired figure he is amongst young practitioners, and it's easy to see why after taking in the show. Even as he's aged, he's stayed actively involved in the youth based underground DIY scene and punk rock art culture. Maybe it's some youthful restlessness that helped him be at the forefront of just about every art movement that's happened since Minimalism. He really sets a good example as he wanders from exploration to exploration.



Photo: Anabela Rosas Trindade/Fundação Serralves


If you've ever been to the Walker Art Center's Sculpture Garden you'll no doubt remember Graham's Two Way Mirror Punched Steel Hedge Labyrinth (1994). It seems like whenever I'm there, children are busy getting lost in their ghost-like reflections, laughing and learning about perception in a way that's truly joyful to watch. The piece in the Garden is typical of his so called "Pavilions", of which there are many in the exhibit. They are architectural sculptural installations that at first glance call to mind the stripped down "object for object's sake" stance of Minimalism. Graham's statement that all his work is a critique of Minimal art starts to make sense when the viewer approaches one and the sculpture is suddenly filled with motion. Made of mirrors, chrome and steel, they can be as stunningly beautiful as they are disorienting. They're like visual echo chambers that put the viewer in several different places at once, sometimes eliminating the possibility of any sense of self in space.

The retrospective "Dan Graham: Beyond" spans forty some years and includes early experiments with language and the page as a space, his work with video / film, performance based work, conceptual art, and even a charming piece where he simply shows slides of work by artists and architects who have influenced and inspired him. I'm surprised I'm using the word charming here but I think you'll see what I mean. It's a good thing there's a little charm, too, as Graham's work can, on a certain level, be intimidatingly complex, narrow and intense.

So as I found myself being drawn into heavy philosophical questions about perception and analysis, I kept thinking about kids and how they react to these pieces. Children don't think about these things, they experience these things, they participate, they experiment... and I encourage you to do the same thing.

I can not recommend this show strongly enough.

Dan Graham: Beyond
October 31, 2009 - January 24th 2010
Walker Art Center Read More......

Exploded View | Matt Olson: "Momentary Performances and Things That Last Longer"

Lee Walton's Momentary Performances will take place around the Twin Cities from Sept-Nov. Each performance is a simple action that in everyday life would normally be overlooked. By giving this action or performance a time, date and location, Walton's intention is to highlight the subtleties and beauties of everyday people and actions. - from the show's program

A couple months back after spending the afternoon at the Walker Art Center in "The Quick and the Dead" exhibit, my friend David Hamlow and I stood stunned in the underground parking garage talking about how overwhelming the show was. One of the museum guards told us about an unlisted work in the show by the artist Trisha Donnelly, a car parked in the garage with California plates that read 666. We found it and we loved it. Just as we were about to leave we noticed a series of large pipes running along the wall that reached a point where they were all disconnected, so that any fluid running through them would've just spilled out on the ground. It almost looked like art; needing only a conceptual context to frame it with. We talked about how, with the right mindset, anything can be art, an idea that is always exciting to think about.

Lee Walton's work often explores this concept. He's currently got a solo show up here in Minneapolis at the Olson Gallery called "Momentary Performances and Things That Last Longer". If you are able to attend, it is a highly recommended show.

Walton's work playfully explores how relatively minor changes to things, like relocating things, slightly altering spaces, reenacting mundane things can become thought provoking and occasionally profoundly beautiful.

Having read about Walton's work a lot in the last few years, I've been interested in the word "experientialism" which is almost always used to describe it. Lately I've seen it used to describe other artists work as well. So I asked Lee about it and he was nice enough to answer...

Me: Could you talk a bit about what "experientialism" is and what it means to you? Is it actually a movement? Did you coin this term?

Lee Walton: This is a tough question really. I did coin the term back in 2001. It was more a negation of other terms, rather, than anything else. I've been labeled a performance artist, a conceptual artist, or (the newest one) social practice artist. All are good and it's all connected. But I felt if I latched on to one of these and accepted it fully, I'd be filling a role of some kind. I am more interested in an open-ended situation - such as being an Eperientialist - whatever that is. Also, as a young artist, trying to coin a movement was the LAST thing you were supposed to do. So it seemed appropriate to do it right away.

There is a thrill when I see the word used to describe my work or others. Especially whe its an art paper or public press. It's like "sneaking" something into the vernacular and just seeing if it floats.

Experentialism... hmmm... Experiential Practice? I still like it!



As a creative professional, I'm always trying to broaden my view of where life, art and work intersect. It always makes all three things better. Walton's work is a great place to start thinking about these things and I can't recommend looking into his work enough. And if you live in the Twin Cities, don't miss this show.

Lee Walton "Momentary Performances and Things that Last Longer"
Bethel University - Olson Gallery
Sept 18 - Dec 13, 2009

The last opportunity to experience a "Momentary Performance" is coming up on Nov 5th. Details here. Read More......