Arts annual: City Pages concludes 2007 with a look at the artists of the year. This edition features offerings by the Walker’s assistant film/video curator, Dean Otto, who in an homage to Sen. Larry Craig’s “wide stance” selected L.A.-based filmmaker William E. Jones, who’ll next be showing his work Tearoom, a found film about gay sex in bathrooms, at the Whitney Biennial. Assistant visual arts curator Doryun Chong picked Minneapolis artist Ernest A. Bryant III, maker of mixed-media 2D works as well as a piece called “BBQ potlatch” — in which “he served people cooked chickens and collected leftover bones that he fashioned into a suit.” [Bryant’s 2005 work untitled, biggieman, power figure is pictured above.]
Prime performers: City Pages‘ best-in-theater included Michael Sommers’ Walker-commissioned puppetry work A Prelude to Faust in its year’s-best, remounted to christen the new Open Eye Figure Theater, and former Walker staffer Jim Bovino tied for best actor in Lavender magazine’s annual rundown, for Flaneur Productions‘ rendition of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
Warhol’s staying power: Vita.mn, the Star Tribune‘s free entertainment weekly, released its best-of list, too, and the Walker’s Picasso and Kahlo exhibitions took the top two spots in the “best art events” category. More impressive was the Walker’s Andy Warhol show. How good was it? It ranked sixth best art event of the year — despite opening in 2005 and closing in 2006.
Sound-art radio’s finest: Some Assembly Required compiles the year’s list of interviews, conducted by creator (and former Walker employee) Jon Nelson. It’s a remarkable list of artists, including Steev Hise, Rob Swift, The Tape-beatles and other audio collage artists I don’t know but soon will.
A post I wish I wrote: Regine Debatty at the unrivaled We Make Money Not Art writes what is luckily part one of a continuing series — Ecological Strategies in Today’s Art.