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Feed30 Top Tickets
The fall Events you need to see — by any means necessary
By Tim Gihring and Courtney Lewis
Photo by David J. Turner
(page 1 of 4)
Stash the Speedo, mop the barbecue sauce off your mug, and savor the memory of how your Jet Ski landed in Lord Fletcher’s salad bar. Summer’s over. But the fun needn’t stop—we’ve selected 30 of the season’s most promising performances and exhibitions, from hot jazz acts to showcases of legendary artists. Take notes. Take your mother. Just don’t take our seat.** Visual Arts **
New Work by John Alspach and Terrence Payne
September 4 – 30Rosalux Gallery
WHAT TO EXPECT: Don’t blame us if you come away with a sudden urge to buy a warehouse condominium and fill it with these artists’ works. Alspach and Payne are the reigning kings of condo art; their bold, iconic paintings hang in the hippest rehabs. It makes sense, given that Alspach creates his works from salvaged construction debris, discarded billboards, and metal signs—perfect for that industrial ethos. Payne’s portraits of his youthful peers are similarly striking, evoking both coolness and vulnerability.
WHY GO: You can’t buy hipster cred like this. Oh wait, actually it’s all for sale.
WHERE: Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Mpls., 612-747-3942
Jon Langford
September 7 – October 14Rogue Buddha Gallery
WHAT TO EXPECT: Jon Langford may have labored in the noisy, broken-bottle-filled trenches of punk rock (as a founder of the Mekons, the Waco Brothers, and other bands), but his paintings pay tribute to old-fashioned country music. Folksy at first glance, his portraits of Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and other country heroes are encircled with chalk-like imagery—of flowers, stars, and sometimes skulls—that give the images an edgy tattoo-art-meets-twang feel.
WHY GO: He may be a Welshman, but Langford captures the spirit of honky-tonk with such reverence and gritty élan your belt buckle will suddenly seem three sizes too small and your headgear about 10 gallons short.
WHERE: Rogue Buddha Gallery, 357 13th Ave. NE, Mpls., 612-331-3889
Documenting China: Contemporary Photography and Social Change
September 8 – November 25Weisman Art Museum
WHAT TO EXPECT: These stunning images cover three decades of unprecedented industrialization and migration—farmers heading to city factories; urban districts sprawling across open country; the haphazard accommodation of a billion-plus population.
WHY GO: Praised by the New York Times as “profound” and “heroic,” this traveling Smithsonian exhibit comes to the Weisman after a warm reception in San Francisco.
WHERE: Weisman Art Museum, 333 E. River Rd., Mpls., 612-625-9494
Host
September 8 – October 21Soap Factory
WHAT TO EXPECT: The Soap Factory has the area’s largest gallery space outside the Cities’ major institutions, and it’s making full use of it with this showcase of funky, kinetic sculptures—often interactive—from around the country. Some of the pieces are oblique (you can use a stationary bicycle to inflate an enormous egg-like balloon—which is somehow emblematic of Cold War scarcity). But all of the works describe the impact of a place on our perception and behavior.
WHY GO: The show was curated by Elizabeth Grady of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, known for her exuberant, engaging shows.
WHERE: Soap Factory, 518 Second St. SE, Mpls., 612-623-9176
Raising the Banner: The Art of Geli Korzhev
September 10 – January 5The Museum of Russian Art
WHAT TO EXPECT: Geli Korzhev is an unrepentant Communist—let’s just get that out there. He has been since Stalin’s reign, emerging as the leader of the Socialist-Realist painters to portray Soviet life with a majesty and symbolism well beyond mere hammers and sickles—all with government approval, of course. But that hasn’t prevented Korzhev’s work—most recently of Don Quixote, a nostalgic reference to the failed dream of a Soviet worker’s paradise—from attaining the critical acclaim withheld from other Russian artists who were more overtly propagandist.
WHY GO: This is Korzhev’s first solo show outside Russia, and the hype (museum officials have compared it to the first foreign exhibitions of Van Gogh or Picasso) makes it seem like the greatest Russian triumph since Sputnik.
WHERE: The Museum of Russian Art, 5500 Stevens Ave. S., Mpls., 612-821-9045
The Dream Girl: Classic American Illustration
September 13 – October 22Red Wing Framing Gallery
WHAT TO EXPECT: Dan Murphy, the guitarist for Soul Asylum, has a thing for shallow girls. In fact, he prefers them two-dimensional—the kind that illustrators used to draw for calendars and pulp magazines—and which Murphy collected while on tour, rocking by night, sifting through antique stores and art shops by day. His collection of early and mid-20th-century American illustration is now one of the country’s finest, and has never previously been exhibited.
WHY GO: Illustration-art prices have been skyrocketing recently, making these women even more unobtainable.
INFO: Red Wing Framing Gallery, 419 Main St., Red Wing, 651-385-0500
