Chris Mars

Chris Mars "The Relinquishing," Chris Mars' new show at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wis., may be the closest we get to a local exhibition for the ex-Replacements drummer turned nationally celebrated painter. Mars unveiled a few short films last fall at Soo VAC's gleefully morose "Non-Consensual Post Dada Constructivist Cerebral Warts" festival, but the guy hasn't had a substantial showing of his work in these parts since 2005, making the Phipps event a rare pleasure indeed. Even rarer, Mars himself will be on hand at the reception. His bejeweled compositions of the monstrous and the mutilated scream with a terrible ecstasy. Even just reprinted on a page, each is a gut-churning cocktail of morality, guilt and violence. To see 30 new originals firsthand on a gallery wall may prove to be downright religious. Photographer Sean Smuda's "Blueprint Series," with its haunting, freeze-dried meditations, shares the gallery. More event details.

  • Gregory J. Scott

Studio Furniture: The Next Generation

A table is never just a table if it comes from the studio of a hotshot young designer. Consider the "World's Longest Drawing Table," cooked up by Katie Hudnall. Eighteen feet long, it's made from salvaged wood and incorporates a roll of old adding machine paper and a pencil. Hudnall's high-concept table, of questionable functionality, will be featured in a show of studio furniture by 15 fresh talents. Organized by Minneapolis College of Art and Design furniture professor Dean Wilson, the show includes novel chairs, tables, benches, shelving and cabinets that jettison traditional notions of shape and material in favor of unconventional experiments. Think of steel, polyacrylic, recycled cork and billboard vinyl. More event details.

  • Mary Abbe

Art Shanty Projects 2010

The Art Shanty Projects, that great chest-thumping declaration of our local artists' hardiness on frozen Medicine Lake, kicked off last Saturday with appropriate fanfare -- and surprisingly mild temperatures. A mid-January thaw made the annual BIcicle race all the more treacherous, with bikes sliding around an icy track. Minneapolis postmaster Cynthia M. Larson unveiled a custom postage stamp designed by artist Will Schar as part of his ArtPost shanty, which among other activities offers free postcard-making tutorials. The makeshift community of high-concept shelters will stand through Feb. 7. Art Shanty staples such as saunas and art cars are back, along with new diversions like the Dance Shanty and some promise of a "curiously breathing sculpture." More event details.

  • Gregory J. Scott