Gallery Hopping

The Cargill gallery, off the lobby at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is just my size–that is to say, small. The items on display are usually new and invariably devoted to a single artist or theme. Last Friday Hilary spent an hour or two at the Institute with a friend, and when she got home she suggested we go back. She’d be happy to take a second look and thought I’d like some of the pieces. I did.

On exhibit were the pots of Santa Clara potter Jody Folwell, which have assumed many forms over her five decades of work at the wheel. I tended to like the early, naturalistic ones more than those that were covered with decorative representations of fish and mammals, but I also found it easy to admire her skills as a draftsman. 

I also liked the title of the exhibit,  “O’ Powa O’ Meng.” Translated from Folwell’s native tongue, it means “I came here, I got here, I’m still going.” Sort of like “Veni,vidi, vici” only a lot more humane.

We next visited a small exhibit on the third floor devoted to a few paintings and posters by Toulouse-Lautrec and his contemporaries. The man’s work is easy to pass over in the midst of any major impressionist exhibit; In this context it held up much better.

Back on the second floor, in one of the period rooms behind the theater, we finally found the newly assembled Tibetan temple. We sat on a bench against the back wall admiring the textiles, examined the gold votaries and icons, and soaking up the vibe while listening to an almost subliminal recording of chant-like vocal sounds. The room stands in dramatic contrast to the austere, nature-based elegance of the Japanese rooms just down the hall, and it occurred to me that its “tastefully” gaudy interior might have provided the kind of visual stimulation required to counterbalance a life spent largely on a barren, windswept, Tibetan plateau.

Out in the gallery a docent shared a few details about the sand painting hanging on the wall behind her, which a crew of Tibetan monks had been created 1991. She perked up when I mentioned that we’d been there at the time and had watched the monks doing the work.

"Oh, really? Which gallery were they in?” she asked. Alas, neither of us could remember. Warming to her topic, the woman went on to divulge numerous unusual details about how the collector had come upon the artifacts in the shrine and why the Institute had been chosen to house it. 

Making our way out of the labyrinthine building through the Asian collections we passed a gallery housing a few choice woodblock prints by Yoshida Hiroshi. A parting touch to a narrowly focused but memorable visit.  

With the weather warming, it might have been a good weekend for skiing, but the next morning, as we approached the Wirth Park Trailhead in the pre-dawn light, it was clear that something was afoot. We pulled into the parking lot alongside the striped wooden barrier and I rolled down the window.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The man tending the entry leaned into the window. “The junior championships. But they’ll be over this afternoon at two. They’ve been grooming like mad so the skiing should still be excellent.”

 “Maybe we’ll just go out now and do a spin around the front nine,” I said.

“That’s a good idea,” the man agreed, as cordial as ever. “But you can’t park here. Just pull in and circle on around. This is the only way in or out.”

“Got it.”

So we retraced our route to the chalet, parked, walked across the road, and shuffled our way out across the snow and grass, watching the sky turn pink above the skyline. We had the place to ourselves.

Inspired by the previous day’s visit to MIA, we decided to visit the Cafesjian Museum on Highway 96, off amid the rolling hills of the northern suburb of Shoreview. It’s located in a low, one-story warehouse in a former industrial park. Founded by local connoisseur and collector Gerard Cafesjian, it’s best known for its collection of art glass, but the current exhibit is devoted mostly to an eclectic mix of representational paintings—landscapes, homey British interiors, cluttered still-lifes, city parks.

The gallery itself is modest in size, which is fine by me. Standing in silence in such an uncluttered space, proceeding slowly from one rendering to the next, instills a feeling of peace and reverence that often seems to be in short supply these days.

We had made our way almost around the second gallery when a docent passed by, and she shared a number of interesting details about Cafesjian himself. He may be best known to the general public for preserving the wooden-horse merry-go-round at the Como Zoo, but he’s also distinguished within the arts community by his long-standing interest in buying the work of local artists.

An oval-shaped room in the center of the warehouse, just beyond the lobby, serves as a small, airy  library of coffee-table books devoted to various artists and historical subjects. An elaborate arrangement of Chihuly’s famous marine art glass has been installed in the ceiling of a nearby side-gallery, a miniature replica of Tacoma’s Glass Bridge.

As we left the museum a question presented itself: Where were we going to eat lunch? Curious to explore the neighborhood further, we drove south on Lexington, crossed the freeway on an overpass, and grabbed a booth at a strip-mall Indian restaurant called Namaste India Grill and Brewhouse. Rich hot flavors for a chilly winter day, and the color palette bears a certain resemblance to blown glass.  

You might think we'd had enough, but we were just getting started. The next morning we paid a visit to the Minnesota Museum of Art, located in the Endecott Building in downtown St. Paul. They've recently expanded, and the two new galleries now exhibit a fine collection of painting, photos, and prints by artists well-known to locals, from Clement Hoppers to Wanda Gag, Mike Hazard to Dougie Padilla, George Morrison to Paul Manship, along with plenty of artists I've never heard of. I found the arrangement of portraits in the first gallery especially appealing. It encouraged us to admire the diversity of the styles and subjects first, then consult the labels identifying the artists and subjects that were grouped together over to one side.

Among the classic twentieth century works I took a liking to a painting by Cameron booth of a farmer, some horses, and some hills. Everything seemed just right spatially, while nothing was excessively stylized in the manner of Thomas Hart Benton or Grant Wood.

After enjoying our stroll through the galleries, we headed down to the train depot a few blocks to the east. I had remembered the lobby there as vast and drafty, but the restaurant that opened there recently was filling fast, and in the concourse leading to the railway platforms at least 200 people--children and adults--were engaged in a lively jigsaw puzzle competition. 

 

Considered in retrospect,  I was less impressed during our weekend of gallery-hopping by the genius of any individual artist or work than by the celebration of humanity exhibited throughout, and the desire of the artists involved, beyond matters of self-expression, to direct our attention in that direction. Bravo!  

I also remain confirmed in my opinion that the artwork being chosen for jigsaw puzzles has really gone downhill in recent decades. Ugh!