Prediction: Berlin

In February 2014, three or four weeks after I started this blog, I wrote about Berlin as an important art center. Among others, I wrote about the German painter/musician, Albert Oehlen, whose paintings and drawings were showing at Galerie Max Hetzler that Spring. I compared his process to that of Andrew Holmquist, who was painting in Chicago at that time.

Albert Oehlen at Max Hetzler, 2011

Stargazer, 2011, Andrew Holmquist

Russell, Byron, and I visited Berlin in May, 2011. Just before that, I read that Berlin was currently considered one of the world’s most influential centers of Contemporary Art. A friend said I should come back and tell her what I found there in the center of art. When I got home, I told her, “I found Minnesota.”

The award winning  Minnesota photographer, Alec Soth’s exhibition Broken Moments, was just about to open at Galerie Friedrich Loock, near the Hamburger Bahnhoff, a former railway station now functioning as a museum of contemporary art, and part of the Berlin National Gallery.  http://alecsoth.com/photography/

alec soth’s whitney biennial 2004 piece

My unread copy of Fritjof Capra’s book, The Tao of Physics, is currently lying on the kitchen floor in the pile of books headed to Half-Price Books. Years ago when I first bought it I mentioned to my friend, Chris, that I was planning to read the book because I didn’t know what that concept might mean. Chris told me, “It’s like this. I didn’t marry my husband because I met him. I met him because he was the man I was going to marry.”

Apparently, that was good enough for me. It’s about the maximum amount of information I want to keep in my mental filing cabinet from any individual piece of reading anyway. I think of that concept, the tao of physics, often, and many times I have observed the world working in exactly that way.

Now that I hear Andrew Holmquist is moving to Berlin, and because of how I think the world often works, I want to lay it out here first. Soon, if I go to Berlin, I will not only find Minnesota, but Northfield. Galerie Max Hetzler? http://andrewholmquist.com/home.html

 

Rebecca K. Tolle

Seagulls on the Hill
Rebecca K Tolle

I was having coffee with a friend recently at Tandem Bagels when I realized I was completely enchanted by the painting hanging on the facing wall, Seagulls on the Hill, by Rebecca K Tolle. Seagulls and sea water at low tide, what could be nicer? The painting evoked happy childhood memories of the Oregon Coast. Gorgeous colors in the water and sky. A host of gulls lifted off the sand, light, airy, and real, even though they were painted sparingly.

Wrong. Not the ocean. This hill is a landfill, one of the paintings from Tolle’s collection entitled, Trailings of the Land. The scenes in the collection are beautiful but also serve as a reminder of the ongoing destruction and wasteful use of this precious land that surrounds us.

Tolle finds inspiration in unusual places. Her control and use of the palette, as well as management of space on her canvases express the third dimension. In Tangle of Flowers, a small cabin is hidden in the background and only visible from a distance. Flowers in Blue and Movement in Orange both exemplify Tolle’s expressed joy in placing colors against each other, watching shapes form in a way that invites the viewer’s eye to travel around and through the canvas.

Movement in Orange
Rebecca K Tolle

When I went back for a second look at these paintings, a young mother and her daughter were sharing a muffin and cocoa while they chose their favorite painting. Tolle’s thought provoking paintings demonstrate skill, imagination, discernment, and affection. Step into Tandem Bagels if you are in Northfield, or take a look at the artist’s website: http://rebeccatolle.com/. It’s fascinating.

Through the Train Window