Pacita Abad Walker Art Center
Jacques Cousteau described coral reefs as “a living kaleidoscope of lilac flecks, splashes of gold, reddish streaks, and yellows, all tinged by the familiar transparent blue of the sea.” To experience this on land, one needs only to visit the current exhibit at the Walker Art Center. Standing in the center of the Perlman Gallery, the viewer is transported to and underwater paradise, surrounded by fish, coral reefs, and seaweed.
Approaching the walls, one is amazed by the unusual techniques that Pacita Abad employed to create this watery world, which she fell in love with as a scuba diver. Her large painted quilts are adorned with mirrors, buttons, Ric Rac and fabric appliqué. The quilts become three-dimensional through Abad’s use of trapunto, a method of quilting in which the material is stuffed with cloth or feathers creating a raised surface. Abad taught herself trapunto as well as many other techniques in her world travels.
Abad was born in the Philippines in 1946 and emigrated to America in 1970 after protesting against the Marcos regime. She became an American citizen in 1994 and died in Washington in 2004. During her too-short life, she traveled to places including Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, Singapore and Sudan to acquire new art techniques as well as give a voice to oppressed people.
Her prolific work, which shares the stories of the people she met and studied with, is highly relevant today. In the four galleries, there are works that have never been seen before in the United States. Along with her quilts, there are other textiles, works on paper, costumes and ceramics. The exhibit is excellently curated by Victoria Sung and Matthew Villar Miranda, who also contributed to the exhibit publication, the most extensive documentation of Abad’s work.
Pacita Abad runs through September 3.
Doug Argue Weisman Art Museum
“It seemed to me as if I were separated from all my fellows, not by a quite short stretch, but by an infinite distance, and as if I would die less of hunger than of neglect.” Franz Kafka wrote this in his short story, “Investigations of a Dog,” and inspired Doug Argue’s dizzying artwork “Untitled,” familiarly called the Chicken Painting. On a 12’ x 18’ canvas, hundreds of chickens, each one an individual, occupy a dystopian chicken coop that might or might not end at the central vanishing point. The viewer feels surrounded by the cages and that there are even caged chickens behind him. The 198 square feet of chickens engulfs the viewer into an unforgettable artistic experience.
Similarly, in the next gallery, “Genesis,” on loan from the Freedom Tower in New York, is another large canvas containing both the Big Bang and the Old Testament creation story. The letters that tumble out from the center are all from the Book of Genesis and become part of a cosmos only Argue could create.
“Letters to the Future” contains artworks that share the Minnesota artist’s personal journey: death of a brother, birth of his son and interest in botany and philosophy to name a few. Argue says, “I'm really honored to team up again with Elizabeth Armstrong, who curated my first exhibition at the Walker Art Center in 1985, almost 40 years later.
“To have this exhibition showing works I've done through all these years at the Weisman Art Museum in my hometown is very, very special to me. I hope people will see the exhibition and find each work compelling but also take note of the changes I made from one work to the next and hopefully find it mysterious and interesting and reflective of a life being lived.”
Doug Argue: Letters to the Future runs through September 10.
ReVisión: Art in the Americas Mia
Valéria Piccoli, the new Ken and Linda Cutler Chair of the Arts of the Americas and curator of Latin American Art at Mia, has arrived! Her first exhibit is an engaging experience that combines the Denver Art Museum's collections of ancient art of American and Latin American civilizations with wonderful pieces from Mia’s own collection. Although the 130 objects dating from 100 BC to today are compelling in themselves, it is the structure of the exhibit that elevates the visitor’s experience.
Revisión is divided into three main sections: Connections to the Land, Riches of this Place, and Organizing Our World. The artworks are in dialogue with each other and provoke the viewer to think of the connections that permeate the centuries. “Water Goddess Chalchiuhtlicue” (1500), an Aztec sculpture, is juxtaposed with “The Virgin of Valvanera” (about 1710) attributed to Cristobal de Villalpando to highlight the appropriation of the Indigenous pantheon by Catholic missionaries.
Rafael Ochoa’s “Portrait of Don José Bernardo de Asteguieta y Díaz de Sarralde” (1793) and Wilfredo Lam’s “Les Bras Sur La Tête [The Arms Over the Head]” share the often- ignored Black experience in the Americas. Luis Gonzales Palma’s stunning photograph “Hija de la Vida,” (2019), is a simply adorned goddess who challenges the bishop with his many objects of power and status in “Portrait of Don Francisco Jose Perez de Lanciego y Eguilaz” (1714) by Juan Rodriguez Juarez.
Piccoli stresses that the show begins and ends in the same place because these overlapping artworks “address political and social issues at the core of the cultural heritage of the Americas” and keep the audience circling back to these powerful themes that have faced this region for over 2,000 years.
Revisión runs through September 17. Public tours offered at 2 p.m. daily.
The Minneapolis arts community supported Doug Argue at an opening receptions hosted by author Josie Owens and her husband Brian Owens in Lowry Hill (Photos Craig Wilson)
