Febuary 2018
 
 
Welcome to In the District: news from the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. 


Icebox Gallery at 30 years
By Margo Ashmore

Icebox 30 years
Icebox, the first fine arts gallery in Northeast turns 30 this year, and owner Howard M. Christopherson is going to have some fun with his next show, opening Saturday, Feb. 17 with a reception from 7-11 p.m., continuing through May 5 
The show looks at Christopherson's early work juxtaposed with recent work; detailed and psychedelic drawings, mirror distorted photography, pre-Photoshop manipulations, mixed media sculptures and never-before-exhibited surprises.
Ten years before the first Art-A-Whirl®, what is now Icebox Quality Framing and Gallery hatched at 29 Glenwood Ave., the old Century Camera building. Christopherson and a studio mate adorned the old their old refrigerator or "icebox" with a multitude of invitations, magazine clippings and bizarre pictures. When the building was bulldozed for the Target Center parking lot, the artists it accommodated scattered, the Icebox duo discovering a dusty basement on Central Avenue, an area they knew nothing about. It was affordable and unusual, and 3,000 square feet.  
The first show, Crystallized Phantoms, opened January, 1988, exploring a variety of spiritual inspirations by eleven artists. Christopherson suggested making a group collaboration as a show centerpiece. Soon a mysterious, visually splendid chessboard evolved as each artist made three  pieces depicting a personal "phantom." It later won a First Place at the Minnesota State Fair.
This success encouraged Christopherson to go into business as a gallery, which in its 139 exhibits has had many firsts and featured some of the most creative artists and photographers from the region and from around the world.

Past Exhibits
Christopherson's personal work has been exhibited locally and in far away places like Japan, Italy and Hungary. He has received a few grants, but mostly he creates art and enhances other people's art as a quality custom picture framer.
He was one of the first organizers of Art-A-Whirl®, recruiting a friend, R.W. Scholes, to design the original tornado art in 1996. 
Fifteen years ago, Icebox moved out into the sky, to the 4th floor of the Northrup King Building. 
Howard
Howard Christopherson

Reflecting on the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District's development and future, Christopherson said "Northeast has become the home to many young people, creative people, immigrants, music makers, liquor makers and cultural rebels. Eats and drinks have vastly improved over the years. Thanks to the early years of hard working visual artists and art lovers Northeast Minneapolis  has become the hippest, creative, and most 
diverse place in the city. I am looking forward to the future, and of course the next Art-A-Whirl®.
Regular gallery hours: Thurs. and Fri. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sat. 12-5 and by appointment. Icebox Gallery is at  1500 Jackson St. NE #443 in the Northrup King Building  612-788-1790.
-Edited by Margo Ashmore, from www.iceboxminnesota.com & Howard Christopherson.
Tessellated Transistors
Tessellated Transistors Congratulations to Kimberlee Roth working out of Studio Number: 431 in the Northrup King Building for her new public art installation at Augsburg in The Hagfors Center for Science, Business and Religion at 606 21st Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55454. The piece "Tessellated Transistors" is located on the first floor in the physics study area, tucked in the farthest North-West corner.
 
Tessellated Transistors_ Kim said that all the artwork commissioned for the building needed to be relevant to its location within the building. I worked with one of the physics professors to design an abstraction of the transistor layout for an n-and-gate for the physics study area. I knew the size of the wall in the space and designed the work to fit that wall.
 
Tessellated Transistors, 2017
porcelain - ∆9, luster - ∆018
The repetitive, stacked and offset motif in this work mimics the silicon atom arrangement in a silicon crystal. Yellow and green elements represent the positively and negatively doped areas of the silicon that form transistors. Orange and blue linear elements outlined with gold and white gold respectively, represent the metal connections between transistors.
Mold of tile
Mold of tile



Wrench Bench
Kyle Fokken_s Wrench Bench
Kyle Fokken was one of four emerging artists selected to create designs for public artworks to be integrated into West 29th Street (Lyndale to Bryant Avenues South). He has completed the first part of the project. " Wrench Bench" is made of stainless steel 'diamond plate,' polished stainless steel plates and tubes combined with Corten 'weathering' steel. It's permanently affixed to the sidewalk near 29th Street and Bryant Ave S in Minneapolis.

The bench consists of a curved double headed wrench in between two 'bolts' which form the supports for the bench. The piece is a bit of a paradox since it looks like the wrench is tightening the bolts, but since each bolt blocks the movement of the wrench, the 'tightening' of either bolt will never happen. There's a 'tension' or even 'stasis' that exists between the two. With all the changes that have happened to the neighborhood since the railroads (and Minneapolis) were built, there is an irony in that the railroad that is no longer present but the current gentrification of the neighborhood illustrates that change is inevitable. A wrench that is in conflict with itself is in some ways an admission of how history is never static and is always changing. The cleanliness of the the stainless steel and the rustiness of the undercarriage - the 'shiny new' is supported by the 'rusty historical' parts.

"I designed this 'curved locomotive wrench' styled bench as an homage to all the people who worked on the Milwaukee Road Railroad system. This is one of the railroads that built Minneapolis and St. Paul by providing transportation of Midwestern passengers, culture and goods to the rest of the world."  -- Kyle Fokken
This is the first of two pieces Kyle will be installing on 29th Street and are his first public art pieces for the City of Minneapolis. All works are located between Bryant and Lyndale Avenues on 29th Street South.
Special thanks to the Fabulous Fabrication Folks at SIGNMINDS AND SOLID METAL ARTS, the City of Minneapolis Public Art, it's Public Works Department, and of course, Mary Altman and Ann Godfrey.
Kyle studio is the the Casket Arts Building CA120 open by appointment. Contact Kyle  
 
Three Main Goals 
of  Arts District Planning

1. Continue to discuss who we are as a community. 
2. Continue to define the v ision of the next 10 to 15 years, in order to drive the decision making.
3. Start a framework on how we can finance the goals of the district. This goal is only possible to discuss if the other two goals can be met.
    
Recent studies to consider reading: 


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The Northeast Minneapolis Arts District & the Arts District Committee is an outcome
of the Arts Action Plan.

"The Northeast Minneapolis Arts District Committee is comprised of interested volunteer community members, and is fiscally managed by the Northeast Community Development Corporation (NECDC). Additional support has been provided by Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA), Clay Squared to Infinity."
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