There’s something immediately disarming about a diorama — engagement comes so naturally. You have lean in, maybe even pick up a magnifying glass, to see all the detail properly; it’s impossible to remain aloof and passive when you look one over. And seen up close, a diorama offers a distinctly nostalgic, familiar pleasure. The visual [...]
One thing that’s struck me, writing on the St. Paul beat for Knight Arts, is that “Twin” Cities or no, there really is something quite distinct about the arts and cultural scenes on the Capitol City side of the Mississippi River. Consider the visual arts: While we have a handful of notable independent exhibition spaces, [...]
Minnesota Opera, a Knight Arts grantee, celebrated the launch of its 50th-anniversary season with a spectacular iteration of Giuseppe Verdi’s seldom-staged third opera, “Nabucco,” comprised of four tableaux loosely rooted in the biblical tale of the Babylonian conquest of Judah – the sacking of Jerusalem and destruction of the Hebrew nation’s First Temple. Verdi’s “Nabucco” [...]
When photographer and filmmaker Mike Hazard (a.k.a. “Media Mike”) moved to Lowertown in 1999, his new place was less than a block from the downtown St. Paul Farmer’s Market, so it was natural to incorporate a stop there into his routine. With all its townie charm, bustle and sheer vitality, he’s found documenting the market’s [...]
Park Square Theatre (a Knight Arts grantee) has opened its new season with John Logan’s 2010 Tony Award-winning play, “Red.” The story takes place in 1958, inside the close quarters of painter Mark Rothko’s Bronx studio. By this point, the abstract expressionist has come into his own: respected if not rich, in late middle age, [...]
Bethel University’s Olson Gallery is an airy, sunlit space situated on the second floor of the school’s student center; the exhibition space is one generous room fronted by a bank of windows, looking out onto woods and water. The current group show of work by six Swiss artists, appropriately titled “Swiss Bliss” and curated by [...]
If you’re in the mood for some thoughtful conversation on arts and letters, get out your calendars: There are three notable talks coming up this week you should make note of. For all of us who came of age in the 1980s, Molly Ringwald needs little introduction. These days, in addition to taking on acting [...]
With the start of a new arts season, my inbox is just stuffed with press releases for festivals and public art projects, various and sundry launches and shows around town. With all that’s going on, don’t let this weekend’s Western Sculpture Park Festival pass you by. Western Sculpture Park’s annual festival is modest, relative to [...]
When I moved to the Twin Cities, my first job here was as a bookseller at the Hungry Mind bookstore (later known as Ruminator Books) in St. Paul, where I worked for several years until it shuttered in 2004. Hungry Mind was one of those truly charmed bookshops, known — not just here in Minnesota, [...]
St. Paul music lovers are spoiled for choice in the summer months, particularly when you consider that much of this season’s live performances are not only plentiful, but free, in the form of outdoor concerts: Minnesota History Center has “Nine Nights of Music;” there’s the Twin Cities Jazz Fest and Ordway’s Summer Dance series, not [...]
