During a random bike ride, I found myself at the Walker Art Center and stopped for a tasty lunch. Afterward, I sat alone in James Turrell’s Sky Pesher, feeling calm under the opening in the ceiling that frames the sky. It brought back memories of another Turrell room in Kanazawa, Japan, at the lovely 21st Century Museum of Modern Art—where, come to think of it, I also had a fine lunch back in April. Happy thoughts.
Category: Create
A sad day in Minnesota
The Minnesota Orchestra’s season finale began with reflective words, Elgar’s deeply emotional “Nimrod,” and a moment of silence.
Reimagining tree stumps
My friend and I stopped to check out the newly sharpened Loti Pencil, which is basically a 180-year-old bur oak stump in the front yard of a Lake of the Isles home. It had just gotten its yearly “shave” with a giant pencil sharpener a few days prior. A passer-by asked if we’d seen “the giraffe.” We hadn’t, so we cycled a few blocks, and there it was!
Don’t judge a book by its cover
Led my friend visiting from the UK along a dirt path, past abandoned grain elevators to the seemingly dilapidated Harris Machinery Company building. Closer inspection reveals thorough stabilization. The rebuilt first floor now hosts The Market at Malcolm Yards, a food hall where my friend chose Argentinian cuisine and I, Korean.
Debutantes and the civil rights movement
Walked past the Guthrie, where we’re seeing The Nacirema Society tonight. It’s a comedy set in 1964 Montgomery, Alabama, in the home of a wealthy Black family focused on an upcoming debutante ball. A comedy set during the Freedom Struggle should be interesting. My only experience of Montgomery was on business in 1977, where I witnessed blatant racism and de facto segregation.
Walk, lunch, art
Walk along Minnehaha Creek, lunch at Wise Acre Eatery, then the Museum of Russian Art with a visiting friend from the UK. The museum offered a powerful contrast: downstairs, Socialist Realism depicting happy workers; upstairs, nonconformist abstract art suppressed by Soviet authorities.
From flour to art
Artists were setting up displays for a weekend art show in the former Pillsbury A Mill. The front door was unlocked, so I wandered in and headed down into subterranean levels. Eventually I was caught, but they were pleasant about it. The building has been thoughtfully repurposed to a high standard as affordable artist lofts. Here, a mural and a control panel for the former mill face off.
Turandot in concert
Tonight: Puccini’s Turandot, performed in concert by the Minnesota Orchestra, two choirs, and eight soloists. A much richer sound than a pit orchestra and a smaller chorus could ever achieve, even at the Met. Much like so many operas, the plot of Turandot is daft, but that isn’t the point.
An artist making Japan great again
After a late night arrival home I took it easy today by finishing a biography of the Japanese artist Foujita. In the 1930s he embraced the influence of the fascist regime and later became Japan’s top official war artist during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. Postwar there was an almost immediate backlash from fellow artists and the public against his propagandist work.
Walking the Grand Ring at Expo 2025 in Osaka
Walked the paths atop the beautiful 2-kilometer structure encircling Osaka’s Expo 2025. Up close, the amazing workmanship features traditional joints reminiscent of temple construction. The laminated wooden beams are meticulously finished and appear suitable for interior work. Its theme, “unity in diversity,” is something most would surely support.