Remember in grade school when everyone got a "participant" ribbon just for showing up at the sack races? The same spirit of inclusive banality animates the State Fair art show this year. There are prize winners and some very good art, indeed, but the competition is so lackluster that the show is an embarrassment in a state that once mustered up real talent every August.
Nine judges, including several museum curators, picked the 413 pieces on display -- paintings, photos, sculpture and six other categories including jewelry, a new genre -- from 2,157 entries. Without seeing the rejects, it's impossible to know how ably they did their job, but an experienced eye will tell you that many Twin Cities galleries regularly display more dynamic, original and engaging items. The judges' choices are big on cute and cozy stuff -- kids and barnyard animals, drowsy landscapes, boating interludes, pictures of fish, flowers and veggies. These noble and much-loved themes are best sampled with restraint. Rounding a corner and finding a whole wall of Holstein cows and Hampshire hogs is a bit much, even for fans of black-and-white, cross-species design.
The jurors' penchant for fair critters and scenes may well mirror the preoccupations of the entrants, but the result is a clichéd and condescending exhibit. Surely the Robbinsdale artist who called himself Mr. Cow was testing the judges when he submitted "Friends," a posterish painting of a grinning Chester White in sunglasses nosing up to a worm, also wearing shades, perched on a purple rock watched by a bluebird in a sunlit meadow under puffy lavender clouds. Perhaps that sweetie merited its "honorable mention" as a satire on fair art, but cute jokes about silly art still occupy space that could have been taken by good art. Ditto for Kate Renee Johnson's big pink hippo sticking out its turquoise tongue.
Art is a big tent these days, but the inclusion of folk craft in the fine art show compounds the muddle. Zina Emanuele Balbo's detailed cross-section of a tooth rendered in bitsy little beads and seeds is a dubious cultural crossover. Likewise, the bas relief version of Leonardo's "Last Supper" that Jim Jewell of Long Prairie pieced together from wood is an eye-catching curio that suffers a severe deficit of originality.
Happy talk
But let's accentuate the positive. The show opens with "Fair and Fowl," a prize-winning photo by Nathan Viste-Ross of Minneapolis, who captured a straw-hatted woman gazing dolefully at an amazing rooster. A truly magnificent creature, the caged bird appears to be at least 3 feet tall with sharp eyes, a flaming comb and wattles, golden feet and glorious russet wings tinged with blue and black. By chance the woman's blue shift and long reddish hair are the same hue as the bird's plumage, enhancing the sympathetic aura that seems to surround them. In "Winners," John Gregor Mihelic, also of Minneapolis, shot a tender and genuinely winning image of a sleeping teen nestled into the warm shoulder of his Holstein.
While many of the landscapes seem generic, Brian Stewart of St. Paul conveyed the distinctive urban bustle and the otherworldly tranquility of "The Peace Gardens," as he called his impressionistic painting of the lush plots that perch improbably at the juncture of Interstate 94 and Hiawatha Avenue southeast of downtown Minneapolis.
Watercolors are always a strong suit in Minnesota, and John Salminen of Duluth rightly took first prize for his "North Beach Hotel," with its subtle juxtaposition of seedy buildings and modern urban architecture. Janet Flom of Moorhead effectively portrayed a moody musician slumped at the piano, and Heide Nelson of White Bear Lake essayed a delightfully lively portrait of "Jessie." With its light, shadows, crystal bowl and rainbow of colored pencils, "Studio Bouquet," by Catherine Hearding of Lake Elmo, is another watercolor masterpiece.
