The Minnesota "art scene" - that many unreasonably naive and senseless locals (especially the local news personalities) tend to hold in such high regard - will certainly be a much favored topic -sure to be revisited on a fairly regular basis here on MinneTOILET.
Personally, this is where much of my despisement for this state stems from being that I, myself, am an artist who wants nothing more than to engage in some kind of underground art milieu and mingle amongst like-minded folks who share a similar creative compulsion. Problem is... Minnesota doesn't have an underground art scene. It barely has a mainstream art scene. The extent of Minnesota's involvement in the arts is catering to rich old women who take up landscape painting and/or pottery while they're home all day to distract them from their daily boredom. And the beauty of it is - they're rich enough to get into the hoity-toity bullshit galleries and art institutes that desire the ceaselessly hackneyed, non-threatening greeting card-esque grade of vacuous fluff art that these rich elders mindlessly turn out. That's typically what the Minnesota-based "in crowd" sit and revel in while the one other main art-form that is celebrated to a mass degree is abstract 'modern art'. Mainly, this type of work gets a perplexing amount of attention and praise due to the fact that it's usually displayed outdoors or in a park so average people come across it while walking their dog or out with their families. That's all fine and dandy, but the fascination with this kind of "art" is generated NOT by a unanimous love of art, but for the fact that it's BIG. You know what else is big? The Jumbo-Tron at sporting events. Ooooo! Ahhhhh! Case in point, the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry "sculpture" near the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I can't begin to explain my unbridled loathing for this ridiculous eye-sore... And most recently, a large structure erected in downtown Minneapolis called "Filling the Void".
What "Filling the Void" is, in essence, is a large grid that people are wrapping in various colored bungee cords. This was recently brought to my attention after being spotlighted on the local news and I really feel like it helped to further solidify my point. From my perspective, "Filling the Void" contains no real artistic interpretation. The significance of this "art" is giving troubled inner-city youths something to do instead of getting involved with gangs, drugs, mischief, etc. That's fine. Just don't call this ART. It's just a big problem with Minnesota not taking the concept of art seriously by incessantly downplaying it and representing it as just a childhood hobby. Seriously. Usually, when art is brought up by the local media, children are involved...
From the way it looks on my depressing end, it seems that if you were to live somewhere like San Francisco or New York, you would be amidst a world of more indie art shows/galleries and comic book and subversive art conventions than an artist would know what to do with. As much as Minnesota likes to make believe like living here grants us residents the delights of EVERY possible advantage under the sun: our art scene is GREAT, we're all in such good shape because we LOVE the outdoors so much, we've got SO much sports pep (UCK!) . The only one of those that is actually true is the last one. We are a culturally deprived bunch of saps. If you are an artist who wants to do something different, you need to flee this place. Hell, if the Minnesota arts and culture scene is so thriving here, than why aren't people running away to come HERE? Hell no! You LEAVE Minnesota to pursue your creative endeavors and fulfill your dreams. "I had to get out of Hollywood. Opportunity was calling and I had a date with destiny in the only place where dreams come true. Minnesota!". Those words have never, EVER been spoken. I assure you.
-Flotsam
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