Friday, June 29, 2012
Diego Movilla –Artiste
Diego is another interesting artist from Tours, working in many mediums: http://diegomovilla.net/index.php?page=actus&hl=en_US. Like many French artists, once they have been invited to do a residency the French government will offer a little assistance to make it possible. He has expressed interest in doing a month in Minneapolis, depending on accommodations and studio space. Perhaps you have a spare room?
Radio Béton/Concrete Radio
This is an interview I did on Radio Béton in 2011, wherein we compare and contrast it with KFAI and talk about Little House on the Prairie and Hüsker Dü. Enjoy! Béton sparked the magazine Les Inrockuptibles which is basically like a French version of Rolling Stone, politics and culture abound within it. KFAI programmers, will you please make a show for Tours, showcasing Mpls locals? I'll translate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZP6sjvIN2I&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZP6sjvIN2I&feature=youtu.be
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Sammy Engramer: Artiste, Chanteur
In this love song for America, Sammy exposes his/the raw French soul for all Pilgrims to see. Please let us not be too harsh. It can only be a matter of time until he wins the hearts, minds and wall spaces of Minneapolitans. His art may be found at: http://sammy.engramer.free.fr/Page1.html
Monday, June 25, 2012
Joris Drylewicz: Galeriste et le Marché d'Art
Article in La Nouvelle République:http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/Toute-zone/Loisirs/Expos-musees/n/Contenus/Articles/2012/06/24/Sean-Smuda-l-oeil-de-Minneapolis
On French TV with Bon Iver in the background. Maybe I should call myself Bon Été?
On French TV with Bon Iver in the background. Maybe I should call myself Bon Été?
L'artiste Yveline Bouquard
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Pneu à Tours/Pneu in Tours
Monday, May 28, 2012
Musics/Musiques
The Tours/Mpls scenes of the moment with our local bands like the Sex Rays and the Goondas and Tours's band The Finkielkrauts (named after their philosophy professor) are digging roots to the 50's and it sounds great and RAW. By contrast the Heliotrope Festival has come every Spring for the last 9 years and nods to standard song structure only to stretch and bend these roots, with 30 bands in three days this year. And not to ignore Jazz and Folk, Tours's equivalent of the Cedar Cultural Center is Le Petit Faucheux which does for jazz what the former does for world music.There are always too many more to go into and the below list awaits your contributions.
http://flaneurproductions.com/heliotrope.html
http://www.citypages.com/2012-05-23/music/heliotrope-9-at-lab-theater/
http://thegoondas.bandcamp.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thesexrays
http://pneu.bandcamp.com/
http://thefinkielkrauts.bandcamp.com/album/smog-ep
http://www.myspace.com/cheveu
http://www.myspace.com/heliotropefestival
http://www.thecedar.org/
http://www.petitfaucheux.fr/
http://www.myspace.com/jelloslave
http://www.myspace.com/skoalkodiak
Pamela and Frank Gaard need no introduction if you saw their show at the Walker Art Center recently or perhaps picked up a copy of the Art Police somewhere, sometime in Paris. I am hoping to pair them with one Rémy Chabréyrou in Tours a young icono-clusterer of pant depicting America more rigorously than most Americans. Their similarities of place and culture may make one question what is the there there or anywhere for that mater.
http://frankgaard.com/
http://emyr.ultra-book.com/portfolio
https://picasaweb.google.com/117747621002829922098
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The Bodycartography Project
http://www.bodycartography.org/
The Critics' Show, Hopkins, MN
As Cultural Liaison I am forever thinking of collaborative shows between artists from the two cites. Recently I was asked to be one of four curators of a group show at the Hopkins Art Center called "The Critics' show, Artists Seeing Artists" which took place from April 19- May20, 2012. Many of the artists included are in mind for a Mpls/Tours exchange. To this end and to stimulate interest of artists and organizers in Tours as well, I interviewed show organizer Jim Clark. Enjoy!
To understand the city one must also understand its suburbs. Tours is in a way a long continuous chain of them from beautiful Saint Cyr to industrial Saint Pierre de Corps. Minneapolis's first 'burb Hopkins is a time tunnel to the 1950's when buildings were two stories maximum and cars cruised main street to show off their American splendor. The video will speak for itself. The artists and news links will take you deeper:
http://hopkins.patch.com/articles/the-critics-show-introduces-underexposed-artists-to-community
http://jennackerman.com/
http://allenbrewer.com/home.html
http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?action=list&rid=211113
http://ryutanakajima.com/#
http://www.shannynjoypotter.com
http://seansmuda.com/
http://pamelavalfer.com/home.html
http://nateyoungart.com/nateyoungart/home.html
Welcome Bienvenue to Minneapolis and Tours
. . . a blog started to stimulate cultural exchange between the two American and French sister cities. Organizing official collaborative efforts is long term and costly, but here's to the viral!
NB Il y a une fonction de traduction automatique qui traduira toute la texte en Français!
In 2011, I was appointed Cultural Liaison by the Mpls/Tours Sister Cities organization for the task of identifying and encouraging artistic exchanges. My blogs about this, for Metro Magazine, may be read: here. While there, I was offered a show by Tours' OZ'Art Gallery, which I am going back for in June 2012.
My background as a francophone started as an exchange student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium. After various academic endeavors around the states I settled back in Minneapolis in the 80's where I experienced a true synaesthesia of Art, Music, Film and Dance, etc. I was hooked into remaining. I regularly exhibit my art, run the Shoebox Gallery, have served as panelist on the Minneapolis Institute of Art's Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, and have been the Minnesota State Fair Photography judge.
On these screens will be published interviews from both cities in order to tempt you to go further by visiting the sites of their artists, dancers, musicians... and perhaps fomenting your own exchange.
-Sean Smuda, Cultural Liaison for Mpls/Tours Sister Cities
NB Il y a une fonction de traduction automatique qui traduira toute la texte en Français!
In 2011, I was appointed Cultural Liaison by the Mpls/Tours Sister Cities organization for the task of identifying and encouraging artistic exchanges. My blogs about this, for Metro Magazine, may be read: here. While there, I was offered a show by Tours' OZ'Art Gallery, which I am going back for in June 2012.
My background as a francophone started as an exchange student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium. After various academic endeavors around the states I settled back in Minneapolis in the 80's where I experienced a true synaesthesia of Art, Music, Film and Dance, etc. I was hooked into remaining. I regularly exhibit my art, run the Shoebox Gallery, have served as panelist on the Minneapolis Institute of Art's Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, and have been the Minnesota State Fair Photography judge.
On these screens will be published interviews from both cities in order to tempt you to go further by visiting the sites of their artists, dancers, musicians... and perhaps fomenting your own exchange.
-Sean Smuda, Cultural Liaison for Mpls/Tours Sister Cities
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