The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Images above are of (a) Dresden in the winter of 1945, after the Allied firebombing of the city, and (b) Dresden today, as exemplified by its Palace of Dreams

Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters' children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another.

–Stanza 45 from the Eddic poem Völva

WHAT WITH ALL THE WAGNERIAN DOOM and drang of recent economic news, and all the attendant fear, panic, and despair, I've begun to wonder just how great is the human capacity for revival. Are we always able to rekindle our fires once they've been snuffed out? Can we reasonably expect we can restock our larders after they've been proverbially stripped bare?

In the Norse myth of the Ragnarök ("Final destiny of the gods," on which Wagner based his opera "Götterdämmerung"), a great culminating battle leads to the demise of many of the gods, as well as to various major natural disasters and the submersion of the entire planet under floodwaters. Yet after all of this, the world does resurface. The few surviving gods meet up, even though Asgard is no more, and unsteadily shake hands. And as the sun shines over sprouting fields, the two last human survivors get to the business of repopulating the world. It's clear that even after the greatest calamities, life, in some inexplicable way, goes on.

This urge to outlast times of collapse and dissolution, to prevail after the deluge, is obvious every time we reach a societal nadir. Change and constriction, in fact, seem to bring out the spirit of enterprise in this country. This is especially true in the cultural realm. For example, the popular and enduring board game Monopoly first appeared during the depths of the Great Depression. The WPA and the FAP helped establish the careers of numerous important artists. Hollywood, too, was at its best in the 1930s, as upwards of 70 million Americans packed into theaters each week to see the latest gangster thriller or soppy Fred-and-Ginger musical. And then there was baseball. The Depression saw the prime years of Babe Ruth, the emergence of the "live ball" era, and ascendency the fabled Yankees franchise, as well as the first All-Star Game and the founding of the Baseball Hall of Fame. All of these small victories, while they might be deemed insignificant in the face of the nation's suffering, were crucial bits of sweet bread for the masses. They helped people find reasons to cheer, have fun, forget their daily crap-sandwich diet, and fantasize about, or begin to strive toward, better times.

Considering this human urge to lift ourselves up whenever our collective asses hit the solid bedrock bottom floor, it's no surprise that, today, Minnesota's artists and arts organizers—who have been coping with a wind age since at least 2003, and for whom the current economic unraveling has meant a kind of local art end times since this past spring/summer—are already hard at work, hatching schemes to rebuild the culture and lead our community upward and out of our current funk.

Below I describe three such newly emerging arts-related community-building endeavors—led by artists or arts organizers—that may offer a psychic safe-harbor to anyone seeking to escape the rising muck that threatens to engulf us. In these three new local cultural enterprises, we may just see-writ large—the human compulsion to survive and thrive even in the worst of times.

 

Artist League (Opened Oct 9, 2008)

The Artist League is the strangest and rarest sort of art-world endeavor, especially locally: a for-profit company trying to make its money off art. Founded by a local abstract painter, Edward Lentsch, its stated purpose is to create "a new breed of artist—skillful in their field, self-reliant, and better prepared to establish their career." Lentsch himself sees the League as the "ultimate think-tank and workshop for the advancement of art professionals," and with his new company he proposes to connect the tools with the talent by providing "high-quality products and services, marketing support, education and mentoring programs to the local and international art community."

The key to the Artist League's vision of money-for-art is likely its facility, a 10,000-square-foot sixth-floor space located in a Washington Avenue warehouse building in Minneapolis. Among the features of this space are: an "exclusive" designer showroom exhibiting Lentsch's original artwork and his Asian and African artifacts and furnishings; a conference space for "corporate luncheons, seminars, cocktail parties, non-profit fundraisers and political gatherings"; and an "idea incubator and forum offering intern-apprenticeships, scholarships and mentoring programs for aspiring young talent."

While studio complexes of all sorts abide here on both sides of the Twin Cities, Lentsch's notion seems to be creating a venue for artists to get a professional handle on their own careers. He promises after all, through the Artist League to use his thirty years of knowledge and professional resources to "assist other artists in pursuing successful and financially viable careers in the arts." If any of this sounds at all hopeful to you, Contact the Artist League at info@artistleague.com or via its website.

 

Highpoint Center for Printmaking—HP2 (Opening May 2009?)

The Highpoint Center for Printmaking, a local nonprofit treasure, opened its doors in the fall of 2001, in the midst of the sudden post-9/11 retail and economic shock. Whereas most arts organizations in town have struggled since the pre-Al Qaeda highwater mark, Highpoint has deservedly grown and thrived. There are two reasons for this. The first is most evident in the Highpoint Editions project. This high-profile program of collaborative print editions was built along the lines of the oft-lamented Vermillion Editions, which printed editions by noted artists, many with a local connection. The difference between that enterprise, which failed in 1992, and Highpoint's reveals everything: Whereas Vermillion was led by noted prima donna and psychic tyrant Steve Anderson, about whom few collaborators have a kind word, Highpoint's projects make use of the master skills of a straight-shooting, easy-going-but-exacting, flexible-but-skillful, universally admired artistic director Cole Rogers. Never let it be said that kindness, collegiality, and mutual respect are necessarily a weakness in art.

The second, and perhaps larger, factor may have to do with ED Carla McGrath's outwardly calm leadership in focusing on slowly growing membership and support and always keeping the organization within its means. This is not as easy as it sounds, as a number of local arts organizations managed to outgrow themselves during the recent extended period of expansion in the arts. In its seven years, Highpoint has slowly grown to serve about 5,000 constituents each year. However, in a case of be careful what you wish for, the Center's widening slate of membership benefits, classes, open studio/cooperative opportunities, exhibitions, lectures, school partnerships, residencies, and other programs has now created a dilemma. That is, Highpoint has reached the physical capacity of its current space and is now seeing increasing scheduling conflicts and challenges for staff and visitors. According to David Moore, the Center's current Board Chair, Highpoint is at a "signal moment in its developmental life. Its success has driven the need to establish a permanent home and expand its programs, making them available to an even greater constituency of all ages."

HP2: The Campaign for a Permanent Home, then, is a plan to purchase and renovate a 10,000-square-foot building not far away on Lake Street, just a half-block from the Midtown Greenway, where the Center's programs can continue to thrive in its own space (rather than renting space from another organization, the Soo Visual Art Center). The new Highpoint facility intends to be dynamic, connecting the interior to the street via its large gallery windows while providing a secure escape with a private courtyard, designed by artist Kinji Akagawa, that overlooks the Greenway. The studio inside will feature large skylights, large garage doors between spaces (allowing flexibility and movement), and various interactive, intermingled spaces—a professional studio, a Co-op Studio, a resource center, and classrooms. The overall goal is to create a wide-open, collaborative, free-flowing educational atmosphere for printmaking.

You can find out more information about this project, including further details of the plan, here. At the end of August, the $3,000,000 campaign (which is slated to end in May 2009) had raised about half of the necessary funds. If you're interested in contributing to the cause, visit here.

 

Chicago Ave Fire Arts Center (Opening TBD?)

The Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC) is intended to fill a "unique niche" in local arts programming. It proposes to be a home for fine and industrial art forms that are produced by "heat, spark, or flame." This includes sculptural fabrication (welding), blacksmithing, glass work, jewelry-making, electronics, and so on. The umbrella term for these forms is, according the CAFAC website, "fire arts." The Center will provide an array of classes in these arts for youths and adults of all levels and will offer studio rental facilities to artists. It will also house a storefront gallery space to exhibit and sell art work.

The proposed home for the CAFAC was a building originally known as the Nokomis Theater. It was built in 1915 as a silent moving picture theater at the small commercial intersection of 38th and Chicago Avenue. In the early 1950s, when the Chicago Avenue streetcar shut down, the Nokomis Theater was shuttered, and in late 1952 the building's interior was converted into a retail store, and later into an auto body shop.

CAFAC's vision today includes the preservation, restoration, and adaptive reuse of this once "vibrant artistic and social amenity" to create a new "hub for creativity, culture, and community." Much of the original exterior detail and brickwork is still intact beneath an added false façade. A thoughtful preservation and restoration of the Nokomis Theater into the home of CAFAC will unearth original architectural details and include a re-building of the marquee. The results will serve as a model for future preservation of other similar buildings.

CAFAC's immediate goal is to raise $50,000 to provide earnest money, pay for inspections and environmental assessments, and then eventually to close on the building. There is currently no specific timeline for when the Center might open. However, if you would like to offer a donation to help ignite the flame of this exciting new facility, which will serve as a catalyst for the economic and cultural revitalization of the 38th Street and Chicago Avenue area even as it offers a space for "fire artists" to work, please visit the CAFAC website.

A Final Note to the World-Weary

If you remain recalcitrantly dismayed even after all of this hopeful news about the forward thinking artistic sorts among us, and you still find yourself still reeling from the shock and awe of recent economic policy here in Bailout Nation, not to worry. There are other ways to gain hope, however fleeting. For instance, you can always join with your fellow artists for a full-bore, fret-free, forget-your-problems (at full discount) art happy hour. Yes, come and drink your concerns into artistic oblivion this Sunday evening, October 19, starting at 9 pm, at the Red Stag Supper Club in Nordeast. I guarantee you won't regret it. (At least not until the next day...)