The Bell Museum

This weeks museum was an interesting experience. It is a place I had heard of before a long time ago, but had never had the opportunity of visiting. It is The Bell Museum of Natural History on the University of Minnesota east bank campus. This is one of the older buildings on the U of M campus and has housed the Bell Museum since 1872. This museum was very different from what we have been looking at since August as many people wouldn't necessarily look at it and see it as art.

Originally it was used as a place to store all of the specimens that were gathered by the science departments at the university. Eventually they began to have so much that they needed other places to store it. It was decided to start putting together dioramas. A man named T.S. Roberts, who was the director of the Bell Museum, opened the new museum in 1919. He had several people making the dioramas, and they made all of them. These artists were Bruce Haywood, Ruth Self, John Jarosz, Walter Breckenridge, and Dorothy Mierow. As you walk through the museum you can see that all of the dioramas were made by these people.

The idea of the diorama came about in the early 1800's when people started trying to recreate the natural environments that they were exploring. This was a way to educate people who were not able to see nature on their own. The diorama started out simply as animals that were mounted in a particular pose with some rocks or trees around them. This evolved into more elaborate backgrounds being added, then painted back grounds, and finally onto what we see today. The curved wall in the background that has been painted, and the foreground scene with the wild life in it. These dioramas were very popular in America in science museums, and particularly for those heavily involved in land preservation. Today people are still very interested in dioramas in terms of education about the natural environment. They are all so detailed that you feel as though you are right in the land scape with them.

When you enter the Bell Museum the first area that you pass by is called "Behind the diorama". This is a room dedicated to the history of the Bell museum and all the wonderful people who designed it's contents. In this room they show you how to make a diorama, the amount of time that it takes, and who built them. All of the dioramas in this building were made in the 1940's and 50's. What's amazing about looking at them is that you would never think they had been made such a long time ago. They look very fresh and new still.

The upper level of the museum holds a type of art gallery. In here are many paintings and sculptures by artists who like to do natural art. There was a variety of different types of art to look at. Oil paintings, photo prints, stencil drawings, and sculptures in clay and bronze. The paintings were all very beautiful. The depth and attention to detail was amazing. Some of them you felt like you could reach out and touch. They seemed to be coming right up off of the canvas.

The Bell Museum was an interesting place to visit, but it was not what I expected. I thought I was going to be walking into a stuffy old building with a bunch of old looking animals and that it would be very boring. Thankfully it was not. It was nice to be able to look so closely at the animals, and in reading the plaques on the wall I feel that I learned about those environments. Also, there was a separate area from all of the dioramas called the "Touch and Feel Room". In here you were able to pick up bones, watch turtles eating, see a live rain forest, and ask the worker in there many questions about what was in that room. I thought that room was the most fun and I would like to bring my son there to see everything.

I liked the Bell Museum. Again it was one of those little hidden places in the Twin Cities that I do not think many people realize is there. I will go back again.

Augsburg College Art Galleries

This week I went to the Augsburg College campus. This is not a unique place to find an art gallery, but it was a first for me. I wasn't sure what it would be like to walk around on the campus and try to find these small galleries, but it wasn't to bad at all. On this trip I needed to find two different galleries, and both were in very public areas. I had no trouble at all finding them.

The first gallery that I looked at was called Pixel and Pen. This was in the Christian Art Center and was a combination of many different artists. This exhibit focused on works of art using manipulated traditional media, computer rendered media and analog art. Most of these works of art looked very obviously digital to me, but a few of them looked like they could be an oil painting on canvas. The detail was so fine that you could not see any of the pixels that usually make up a digital photo or work of art. I was very impressed by this.

Two works in Pixel and Pen caught my eye more than the others. The first is called Barak Obama and is by James O'Brien. This is a screen print and looks a lot like the works of art that Picasso made. It looked similar in the lines and angles in the face. Also the use of colors looked similar to a Picasso painting. Blue next to brown and no blending in between them. It was an interesting piece and made Barak Obama look powerful and yet gentle.

The next piece I saw that I really liked was called Lake by Mick Wiggins and was a digital print. This was an image of a woman standing near a lake. Just near her there is a fire burning. Like the Barak Obama print that I really liked, Lake was very detailed. It really didn't look like a digital work of art at all. It looked more like a painting on canvas. I think it is really neat what can be done with computer images now. The clarity is amazing to the point that you don't realize it's not a real image.

The second gallery I needed to visit at Augsburg was called Lucia Hwang: Whats Up. This was in the Gage Family Art Gallery in the Oren Gateway Center. This was an interesting exhibit that was a four part instillation. It was all by one artist, Lucia Hwang, and she was trying to express her view of love, hate, pride and humility. What she did was interesting as she took common items and put a twist on them with a designer print. She used a trash barrel, rolls of toilet paper, egg cartons, and an image of a body on the floor. The print that she made looks like what you would see on a designer hand bag. It seems that she is trying to portray how silly we are about needing to only buy things that have a designer logo of some sort on them. I really liked this exhibit for that reason. It brings to light just how much meaning we put into things that probably don't mean much at all.

I liked these two galleries that I visited. They are both small, but hold exhibits that have a big message. They are both assessable to many people but mostly the college students who are on campus each day. It's a great thing that they are able to see good art on a daily basis.

The Precious Object

This week I took a trip to the new Minneapolis library. It is downtown Minneapolis, very near where Nicolette Ave and Washington Ave cross. This is a beautiful building and is a piece of art unto itself. It is four stories tall and is made mostly of glass.

You would never think that a library would have an art gallery inside of it, but this one does. They have an area set aside called Cargill Hall. The exhibit that I visited was held in this area and was called The Precious Object. From what I could see this was a collection of local artists who were basing their art off of the things that you could find in your home. Also, very few of the works are what you would call traditional. They are put together from all sorts of different mediums. Cloth, metal, paper, string are all things that are used to make the various pieces of art in this exhibit.

There were four pieces of art that I liked the most when I was in there. My favorite was called Painting Painting (with van der Weyden) by Margaret Wall-Romana. This was a large painting that looks like the forest on a spring day. Cool greens and dark browns, flowers, trees, and fog are all the things that make up this painting. There is nothing clearly distinct in this painting, but you can find meaning in it. It is very lovely.

Next I looked at a piece that was hanging from the ceiling. This was called 54847 and was by Ginny Maki. What she did was go and visit a small town with the zip code 54847. She had the people in the town draw pictures of all the buildings they were most familiar with. She then took these drawings and put them together into her view of the town. She made houses, stores, schools, and churches which she held together with many pieces of thread. This whole thing was strung up to the ceiling and was hanging right at eye level. It was neat to read about the history behind this piece and it became one of my favorites based simply on that.

The next piece I saw I liked because of how much work it looked like it took to make. This was Implosion by Beth Burron. Basically it was a quilt, but with very tiny pieces of fabric. I would describe it as a fabric mosaic. Also, the fabric was tie dyed. Anyone who has ever done any quilting or tie dying knows how much work both of those are to do. So to see something that has both, plus the pieces of fabric are very small, to me is impressive and artistic.

The last one that caught my eye was It could have happened yesterday or it could have happened today by Andy Ducett. It looked like he took everything that was just laying around in his bedroom, or some kids bedroom, and glued it all together. It was the most random piece of "art" that I have ever seen. I don't think I would really classify it as art, but each artist has their own vision for things so who am I to say it's not art. It was strange to say the least.

So as I was leaving the gallery and walking back through the library I couldn't help but notice, as I was saying above, how beautiful the building is. It's size is immense and the amount of glass in there makes you feel like you are walking through a big window. Even though it is so large and tall, all the light streaming through the windows make it feel light and airy. Another cool feature is the way they have the walk-ways set up. The glass goes right down to the part you walk on, so when you see people walking up there it looks like they are walking on air.

I actually liked being in the library better than the gallery. The architecture, the people watching, the cup of coffee I got from Dunn Bros all made me really like just being in there. I felt relaxed and was contemplating how I could work that place into my normal study routine. I think it would be great to go there and do school work.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts

At long last we were assigned one of the large museums in the Twin Cities to visit. This week I was able to enjoy The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. This is a very large museum in south Minneapolis which is free to the public. The only time you will have to pay is if they have a special exhibit on show. Currently they have an exhibit which is showing many different pieces of art from the Louvre in Paris, France. I was able to look through the Louvre exhibit because if you show them a school ID they will let you in for free. I was very excited to see that they had two of my favorite artists on display there. Those two were The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer and Virgin and Child with Saint Anne by Michaelangelo. I was so excited to see these priceless works of art, I know it will be a long time until I am able to experience the Louvre in Paris, so being there was very special to me.

While at the institute I needed to look for many different things. First on the list, I needed to find five different works of art that I really liked, so I will list those off.
1. The Doryphoros is a Roman piece from between 120-50 BC. This is a large statue of a man made of marble. I choose this one because I liked how large and powerful it looked. I could imagine it standing in the middle of a town square looking over all the people who were walking around it.
2. Lan T'ing Su is a very large sculpted piece of jade which is in the shape of mountains with several small villages on it. This is an Asian sculpture made in 1784. There is an ancient poem carved into it which is from the year 353. I like the intricate detail in this sculpture. It is something large, but carved so that it looks very delicate.
3. Elephant Attacking a Feline is a mosaic in earthen colors. This is from Turkey and made during the late 4th -mid 5th century. I liked seeing something that was this detailed from such a long time ago.
4. Dance Blanket is a large dark blue blanket that was used during tribal dances. This is from between 1840-1850 and was made by the Great Lakes/Woodland tribes of Native Americans. On the blanket were very intricate designs in threads that were red, gold, and light blue. I imagined people dancing around a fire while wearing this. Perhaps celebrating a major holiday or a wedding.
5. Sunburst was my favorite. This is a very large blown glass sculpture which looks like the sun. It was made in 1999 by Dale Chihuly and is around 3000 pounds. This was the first thing I saw when I got to the museum. I like how cheery it looks. The day I went was rainy and dreary and it cheered me up just looking at it glowing there.

There were three different exhibits that I looked at while there, besides the Louvre. The first one that I looked at was Dia de los Muertos ofrendas. This is an exhibit where teenagers in Minneapolis and in Mexico made alters to honor the dead in celebration of Day of the Dead. They make the these for family, friends and other people who they feel are important. I was surprised to see one honoring Michael Jackson. I guess if you look up to someone, no matter who they are, they will make an alter to that person. These little alters can be very artistic and really show how a person feels about the one they lost. Many different items are used to make an alter but usually include fruit. I liked looking at these as they were all so different and colorful.

The second exhibit that I walked through was called From Towers to Tea Kettles. This exhibit was showing the works of Michael Graves. He is an architect and a designer from the Midwest who is very well known around the country, but especially the Midwest, for his building designs. However, he has also done some kitchen items for Target stores, most specifically tea kettles. Michael Graves started designing buildings in the 60's. He liked to do traditional buildings, but then add bits of contemporary to it. According to the plaque on the wall at the museum he liked them to look classical with sense and order but to also look fresh and modern. He uses many colors and also adds many columns, portico's and rotundas. The museum had many of his designs on display and also paintings of buildings he has designed. It is fun to look at his work. Something that you could see in the Twin Cities that he has designed is the band shell on Harriet Island. It's not a building, but you can see how he likes to put a twist on something classical.

The last exhibit that I looked at was called Word Art. This was an exhibit done by many different artists. It was each person putting a twist on modern words. They can be very artistic and beautiful. Our language has been around for centuries. The scripting of it can be beautiful. Also, what was interesting about this exhibit was how the words were displayed. It was like a silent voice was speaking and trying to convey a message.

Going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was a good experience. The size was intimidating compared to all of the other places I have visited this fall. I really liked that though. They had it organized into different regions of the world. Within those regions were different time periods. I also like that this museum is free. Makes it easier to go back to. The fact that something this big, and so rich in art history is right in my city is amazing. I really felt like I was in a big city in a very famous museum. I'm excited to go and see other large art museums in other cities around the world.