DAVID ASH WANTS YOU TO KNOW THAT LOVE, God, and the inscrutability of human connection are alive and well, right here in Minnesota, right now in the computer age, and ripe for some intensive filmic and theatric scrutiny. And, say, if anyone’s unsnarled the mystery of the aforesaid, please drop him a line at 355 Productions, his film production company, because Dave says he hasn’t got a clue about any of…

IF THERE IS ANY SPECIFIC CONCEPTUAL PURSUIT THAT LINKS the current McKnight Visual Arts fellows, it is their investigation of space in its many manifestations — physical and psychological, known and imagined, interior and exterior, and remembered and forgotten. In her essay on Jennifer Danos, the exhibition’s catalogue author, Dr. Jane Blocker, cites the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991…

RIGHT NOW, POP-CONCEPTUAL ART IS EXPERIENCING ITS MOMENT in Minneapolis - and the Walker Art Center’s brilliant Quick and the Deadexhibition, on view now, is the crowning jewel among such shows, notable for the lengths its curators have gone to make conceptual art accessible to the general public.  Defined one way, pop-conceptualism is distinguished by artists who employ popular culture to make…

FOR MANY THEATER ARTISTS, AUGUST BEGETS BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS. Why? The Minnesota Fringe Festival, of course. Starting July 30th, the Fringe celebrates 15 years of self-produced theatrical mayhem with eleven days of shows, shows, and more shows. What began as a homegrown experiment by a select handful of performance artists has ballooned into an entertainment smorgasbord-this year there are over 160…

ONE REASON I START LOOKING FORWARD TO MOMENTUM, as soon as commission recipients are announced in the fall, is the consistent care these artists take in creating their performances. They know this is a big debut, and you can feel their respect for the opportunity in the love they lavish on their work. This was particularly the case with this year’s second pair of choreographers, Sally Rousse and…

MOMENTUM: NEW DANCE WORKS— THE EMERGING DANCE ARTIST SERIES presented by the Walker and the Southern Theater — is here again. The Momentum commission is a coveted prize, and the resulting works are closely watched. This year, four women test their solo choreographing skills: Vanessa Voskuil and Sachiko Nishiuchi the first weekend, Sally Rousse and Megan Mayer the second. Vanessa Voskuil stimulated the…

“WHO IS GUDRUN LOCK?” This unusually existential question fell at the beginning of a short preview I read, this past May, of Minneapolis artist Gudrun Lock’s exhibition, posted on “What’s What,” l’etoile magazine’s widely read online calendar of upcoming events. It was followed by the somewhat puzzled admission, “We’re not really sure.” Of course, the existential qualities of the question are mitigated by…

ONE DAY IN LATE MARCH, WHILE WORKING AT MY TEMP JOB, I received a call from my editor at St. Martin’s Press with the news that my novel, The Suicide Collectors, had been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. He went on to tell me that there would be an Academy Award-like ceremony in Burbank, California in mid-June, where the winners would be announced. Bram Stoker Awards (or “Stokers,” if you’re a hip…

ADITI KAPIL DIDN’T INTEND TO BECOME A PLAYWRIGHT. In fact, she never intended to become involved in the theater at all. Kapil, who is of Indian and Bulgarian descent by way of Sweden, moved to Minnesota in the early ‘90s to attend Macalester College. She originally came to study journalism, but switched to an English major and took some drama classes as a “blow-off,” she says. She graduated with a dual…