Here's part of the design inked by Minneapolis' Twilight Tattoo artist Shane Wallin.

​It's one thing to talk about Minnesota pride, but it's another altogether to ink it permanently to your torso. St. Paul resident Sean Kelsey is the new champion in that department with an Ork Poster-esque tribute to many of our local cultural landmarks and heroes that he can show to his friends once the temperature rises to a comfortable range that might not eat the flesh right off of him. Anyhow, Prince & the Revolution, the Replacements, Mint Condition, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and our venerable rock club First Avenue all were deemed worthy enough for inclusion in Peter Bekke's design for Burlesque Design in the shape of the North Star State. See the full tattoo below.More >>

​Bob Dylan's artwork is on display in a Lower East Side gallery in NYC this month, giving fans a chance to take "a visual journey" through Bob Dylan's life through paintings that the gallery says are inspired by Dylan's travels and provide "firsthand depictions of people, street scenes, architecture and landscape." More >>

​Before gatefolds and cut-outs and embossments and screen prints, the record was a drab little thing, wrapped in brown paper and presenting you a just-the-facts textual representation of the culture your phonograph was about to holler at you. Until, in 1939, a twenty-two-years-young man named Alex Steinweiss began working at Columbia Records.

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Karnak Gallery? More like the Great Pit of Carkoon...Gallery! This Friday the recently-opened, forward-thinking-and-still-fun space is having a blippy blowout with five electronic artists playing to a room hopefully packed with Jawas and Sith (you get $5 off the cover if you cosplay, mind) for another installment of their Videodrome series called, a-doi, STAR WARS. Scheduled to play are DJ Fuckstorm, Claps, Memoire, and special guest Solvent, with 000000000001 and Visionquest bathing the space in video spacewizardry throughout.

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The final issue of ARP!

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About two and a half years ago I came across ARP!, or Art Review and Preview, at a café and was immediately rapt; heady and sharp pieces from smart people on the macrocosm and minutiae of capital-a Art, playful and focused design, regular printings...an experiment in quality, intelligence, and not-exactly-thankless hard work that the curious and the pensive looked forward to each new season.

"It was started by Ariel [Pate] and myself. We had some grand idea about art, and art criticism, and community...so the paper was originally funded, you could say, by naïveté and enthusiasm!" says editor Tiffany Hockin, who with Ariel Pate and Troy Pieper oversaw the conceptualizing, design, printing, and distribution of (almost, Troy joined in on the third issue) every issue and associated event. And now it is time to say good-bye.

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Photo: Ted Salzman

Some of the heads behind the project

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Art-A-Whirl quickly approaches, our cities' creatives plotting their innumerable takeovers of Nordeast, that part of Minneapolis where successful artists from Uptown seem to move. For our part, we would like to direct you to two can't-miss shows on Friday and Saturday by the talented people at named Joseph Belk, Drew Peterson, Ted Quinn, and Adam Burchard, presented by Creative Electric Studios and The Sample Room. "The Slow Mirror and the Metronome" is a riverfront exhibition taking place behind The Sample Room that seeks to use Big Brown (née Mississippi) as a connective and divisive exhibition space, video projections lighting up her belly, riverbanks of well-wishers and confused onlookers, bands spread across boats and the river itself.

The music lineup is something to shake a stick at, with STNNNG, Zak Sally, Marijuana Death Squad, Bella Koshka, and Mayda all taking a different tack for their performances, coo and caterwaul in equal turns. Once you tire of viewing terrible and transcendent art: a palate cleanser, or palate recombinator.

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​In addition to playing an early slot at tomorrow night's Electric Fetus benefit at First Avenue, Cloud Cult will be taking over the VIP Room to display art by its two resident painters, Scott West and Connie Minowa. For those who are unfamiliar with Cloud Cult, their live shows are accompanied by at least one and sometimes two live painters, who complete entire works during each set and then auction them off to fans after the show.

The art show will operate separately from the Fetus benefit, so you don't need a ticket to the show to gain access to the VIP Room for the exhibit. The show runs from 4 to 9:15 p.m. tomorrow night, and access is free through the side door on 1st Ave.

​(Photo by kevindooley) More >>

Rogue Citizen

​Gearing up for Saturday's show, we thought we'd let you in on some our arty endeavors as it pertains to Gimme Shelter: A Benefit Concert For Haiti at First Avenue. We've told you about our artist marketplace, where you can buy pieces for affordable prices by talented locals, and 50 percent or more of the proceeds go to one of our two charities: The American Red Cross Haiti Relief & Development Fund or Architecture for Humanity. While our art lineup is subject to more additions, here's a few to get to know now ...

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'Monkeys Are The New People'

​Chuck U is a Twin Cities-based freelance designer and illustrator, mostly known for his album covers and show posters around town. He doesn't offer a complex examination of societal ills or provide introspective solutions to life's problems. What he does offer is something cool to look at. When was the last time you thought about "monkeys as the new people" or an "old hotdog mill (see below)?" Chuck U likes when people to make up their own stories about his work, reminding grownups in a playful way that there isn't anything wrong with using your imagination once in awhile.

After eight or so group exhibitions, Chuck finally decided to do a solo show at Nickademus Art and Framing called "Robozoology" featuring paintings and posters done over the past year (2009). We wanted to know more, so we hit him up.

CP: You have a new gallery show at Nickademus Art and Framing. Where does the title "Robozoology" come from? 

CU: I was originally going to call it "Art is None of my Business" but my brother hated that name. So we sat down and thought about it. The word cryptozoology-ish, came up a few times, but that kinda sucked, then somehow we landed on "Robozoology"  since I like to add robot parts to alot of my animals. Not sure which one of us actually coined it, but I'm going to go ahead and take credit anyway.

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