Opportunities won, and lost

What to do with an opportunity? Good ones don't come along often these days, especially in Artland, where the recession has led to cutbacks in sales, exhibitions and even grants. So the nine Minnesota artists whose work is now on view in two shows are very lucky people. Chosen from many applicants, they were given potentially life-altering opportunities to develop new skills and create lively, engaging shows that -- who knows? -- might even boost their careers.

But what a difference in the results. The six artists at Minnesota Center for Book Arts did a stellar job, producing fascinating books and installations on subjects as wildly diverse as square dancing, bus riders, skin and the search for the "dark matter" left from the Big Bang.

Meanwhile over at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, three artists have wasted two beautiful galleries on a self-indulgent banality called "Semblances." Pretentiously billed as an investigation of "museum authority, public behavior, and display practices," the show fails to deliver anything but boredom.

The MCBA show followed a yearlong mentorship, funded by the Jerome Foundation, during which the artists learned all sorts of arcane book production skills, from papermaking to old-fashioned typesetting and bookbinding. Since the program is designed to be cross-disciplinary, the artists came from different fields -- filmmaking, writing, textiles, photography, dance -- and had to figure out how to adapt their ideas to book formats. Their inventive solutions are just the ticket, transforming otherwise mundane observations into compelling objects and installations. That, after all, is what art should do.

Photographer Keith Taylor plunged into "dark matter," that mysterious and still-unfound stuff that scientists are looking for via experiments conducted in an abandoned northern Minnesota mine. Taylor's dark images of the surrounding forest, overgrown rail lines and strange structure are evocative metaphors for this invisible stuff. In 20 perfectly printed photogravures, he eloquently suggests the hypnotic appeal of this strange quest to crack a cosmic mystery.

Filmmaker Rachel Perlmeter orchestrates a bevy of odd things -- glass bottles, old type cases, photos, a black-and-white film she shot in Paris --into a poetic installation about time, loss, guilt. Visitors can even dump their own sins of omission by following her advice to write them down, stuff them into a bottle and "don't look back." Highly therapeutic.

Amanda Lovelee proves to be as wholesome as her name in a charming film-performance-printing project about square dancing and strangers holding hands. Really. Besides 150 snapshots of smiling strangers, she's produced fun posters and sweet little booklets that make you wonder if more square dancing could maybe save the world. Ben Lansky's portfolio and newsprint posters -- featuring grainy, cellphone-snapshots of people riding buses -- have an elegiac poignancy that's surprisingly effective considering their modest sources.

Organized by the artist-run Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, "Semblances" consists of installations by three artists who claim an interest in how museums operate and shape public understanding of art. This is fertile territory and something museum staff fret about a lot. Any insights would doubtless be much appreciated.

So what did they do? Jennifer Danos meticulously duplicated the layout of an adjacent gallery -- same L-shaped inner wall, same plexiglass display case, same tall frames, etc. But while the gallery next door is full of contemporary prints, Danos' gallery is empty -- nothing but shadows in the frames, tape outlining where art could be, little rectangles of beige paint stuck here and there. Danos envisions this as a "critique" and "meditation" on the neighboring art but anyone who happens to note the parallels will yawn, shrug and move on.

In the second gallery Natasha Pestich has hung 27 posters announcing exhibitions spanning decades in the career of an imaginary artist, Jan Xylander, whose life is further documented by faux letters and artifacts (paint brushes, a hat). This retrospective for a fictive figure is an amusing conceit, nicely amplified by Xylander's hapless enthusiasm for potted plants, rural life, feral rabbits and obscure professional venues. It would be fun to riff on the parallels between Xylander's aspirations and those of all too many artists whose life's work is doomed to Dumpster oblivion. But it's a thin joke, wanly delivered.

The second gallery also sometimes housed Marcus Young, a performance artist who lived in the museum from Nov. 8 to 17. While there Young presented himself as an art object, sitting Buddha-like on a pillow in the corner, reading, meditating or gazing impassively at visitors. He also strolled about the museum, smiled and washed windows. "For ten days my life is an object on loan to the museum," he wrote in a plaque displayed nearby.