The roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis deflated early Sunday morning, leaving a scheduled football game between the Vikings and Giants in further limbo.

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Metrodome Roof Deflates Under Weight of Snow

The Minneapolis Metrodome, where the Minnesota Vikings play, has sagged under the weight of snow after a storm.

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Roof Sags on Minneapolis Metrodome

In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 opinion last June read more

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Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law Targeting Activists

Freezing rain and ice-covered roads made for a treacherous Saturday night in Minnesota, where more than 370 crashes were reported, most of them in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, officials said Sunday. One person was killed.

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Snow turns Minnesota into crash state

A Minneapolis production company by day and art gallery by night Runner Runner Gallery , a new art space within a production studio, will open its second show, featuring the recent work of Minneapolis-based artists Brian Lesteberg and James Holmberg . In the heart of the warehouse district, the interdisciplinary venue is a welcomed gesture in the Minneapolis art scene. Next Thursday’s opening for the show, inviting likeminded students and professionals from the film, advertising, and music industries to come together, embodies the ethos of the project. “It’s sort of a party for art,” describes jMatt Keil, Runner Runner’s vice president of business development. “We’re really excited to show our support and to put on a night of great entertainment.” The show itself positions Holmberg’s large-scale dreamy photographs against selections from Lesteberg’s most recent project, Raised To Hunt , a document of the journey of hunters through northern Minnesota. Many of the photographs show vast expanses of frozen landscape but after a closer look, an impression of either the killer or the killed— whether drops of blood or a silhouetted parka—emerges. Jarring, intentional violence brings with it a deep sense of natural validation for Lesteberg’s hunters. The extreme photographic detail brings to life even the most banal parts of the killing process, a startling honesty that has something in common with fellow Minnesotan Alec Soth’s 8 x 10 field format. Like Lesterberg’s photographs, Holmberg’s massive canvases take up the entire field of vision, but that’s where the similarity ends. Holmberg’s paintings confront the viewer with a vast wash of minimal color textured with abstract blobs of pigment. Immediately recalling the softly-focus drive-by shots of “Taxi Driver,” Holmberg’s cinematic style makes the production company/gallery venue all the more appropriate. Runner Runner Gallery’s high ceilings and cement floors, don’t hurt either artists’ works either. Runner Runner shares the space with affiliate companies Fischer Edit/FX and Modern Music . All three post-production companies thrive together within this collaborative workspace. “In some ways,” explains curator Luke Erickson, “Runner Runner seems like a healthier gallery space, not to mention a model for the business of exhibition, than many I’ve visited.” “It’s not surprising that it would start here,” says Ian Bearce, executive producer at Runner Runner. “When we’re not in the office, we’re deejaying, playing in touring bands, painting, making films. We’re thrilled to find another way to participate in the local scene.” The show opens this Thursday, November 18 from 6-9pm and runs through the next few months.

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Runner Runner Gallery

Mysticism and blue in a sweeping Yves Klein retrospective At age 19 Yves Klein stood in the backyard of his parents’ home in Nice and pointed a camera up at the open sky. This photograph of endless blue was his first monochrome work, setting the stage for hundreds more created during the artist’s short yet profound career. Exploring this approach in both his groundless, brilliant blue canvases, along with films, sculptures, and architecture, I recently had the chance to preview the final leg of the ballyhooed Klein retrospective ” With The Void, Full Powers ” at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center. The show makes the case that Klein’s single-hued work defined his aesthetic not just because he “owned blue” (as some like to quip), but because of his clever pursuit of suspending everyday perceptions to create a heightened reality, or what he called immaterial sensibility . To imagine these hyper-realities, risk was essential to Klein’s process. His proposal for a new architecture arose out of his propensity to rethink the world in spiritual and aesthetic terms. Renderings and blueprints shown in a 1961 L.A. exhibit “Air Architecture” depict a future built environment created only using the elements of fire, water and air. That same year also saw Klein return to his search for pure color, painting “Blue Monochrome.” Working with a chemist to create his own hue of blue, he created the renowned pigment “International Klein Blue,” which he used to indicate his ethereal view of world. Furthering this concept, in his notorious “Anthropometries of the Blue Epoch,” Klein used blue-painted women as his brushes, moving them across the canvas to create abstract disembodied images. “Into the Void, Full Powers” is co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , and is on view from 23 October 2010 to 13 February 2011.

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With The Void, Full Power

Five shows reinventing puppetry at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center From Jason Segel’s to the Internet sensation-turned-IFC show Food Party , puppetry endures as a medium that brings the absurd and fantastical to life. To celebrate the ancient art form, the Twin Cities’ Walker Art Center kickd off the performing arts season with five distinct shows under the banner Adventures in New Puppetry . ” Dark Matters ” is a puppetry/dance hybrid fable by the Canadian dancer and choreographer Crystal Pite and her company, Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM . After the show, the company will lead a dance improvisation workshop . The Twin Cities-based Open Eye Figure Theater will co-present Toy Theater After Dark , a modern take on old-world toy puppetry. A collaboration between the avant-garde Slovene theater troupe Betontanc and Latvian object theater masters, Umka.lv , ” Show Your Face! ” is the dark story of an empty snowsuit brought to life by seven actors and live musicians. Woyzeck on the Highveld is a mixed-media adaptation of Georg Buchner’s play. Director William Kentridge collaborated with the Handspring Puppet Company for this synthesis of animated film, puppets and actors. The Devil and Mister Punch is a work-in-progress from the irreverent British theater company, Improbable . To find tickets and specific show dates visit the Walker Calendar .

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Adventures in New Puppetry

Large-format photography of contemporary Americana in Alec Soth’s retrospective Likening his process to “web surfing in the real world,” photographer Alec Soth spent the past 15 years traversing the U.S. with an 8×10 field camera, quietly composing narratives of subjects he finds on his travels. While projects have taken the Twin Cities native down the Mississippi, to Bogota and back across the vast Midwest, Soth’s career retrospective ” From Here To There: Alec Soth’s America ” falls closer to home at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center. The photographer’s vision of the U.S. is a lonely portrait of the American road. Using a free-associative method, Soth links the runaways and vagabonds he often depicts by allowing one person’s story to lead to the next, in a style similar to Robert Frank and William Eggleston. Stylistically, Soth’s use of the large-format camera captures exquisite details, documenting each of his subjects down to tattoos and paint-splattered clothes. The cumbersome camera takes time to set up, but arguably its this time he spends with each person that makes for the disarming intimacy of each image. While the feeling of displacement runs throughout the survey of his work, it’s clear he has given each of his subjects a home among each other. “From Here To There: Alec Soth’s America” includes new works as well as previous projects and is up through through 16 January 2011. Also on Cool Hunting: Fashion Magazine by Alec Soth

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From Here To There: Alec Soth’s America

Art meets putt-putt in Bruce Stillman’s multi-purpose park A longtime fan of landscape sculpture, artist Bruce Stillman decided to turn his Minnetrista, MN farm into a functioning putt-putt course—with his works standing in as the props. We recently had a chance to check out the organic forms of his sculptures that populate the 12-hole Big Stone Mini Golf course, an experience that was both surprising and surreal. While you play, animals from Stillman’s adjacent farmland sometimes wander over, adding to the creative chaos. Additionally, Stillman built massive tables for chess or checkers, and a large fire pit for social gatherings. While his personal fantasyland is the largest display of his works, Stillman’s sculptures have shown all over the U.S., and his piece “Perpetual Motion” is a permanent fixture at the entrance of the Palm Desert Public Library . Both entertaining and enlightening, the sculpture park is perfect for all ages, and serves as a great reminder that art is everywhere.

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Big Stone Mini Golf

One man bean-to-bar chocolate making in Minneapolis At a mere 24-years-old, Colin Gasko is fervently bringing the fine art of bean-to-bar chocolate making to the Midwest. Over the past few years, the Minneapolis-based Rogue Chocolatier has experimented with techniques and flavors for a well-crafted assortment of small batch, single origin chocolate bars. Gasko sources his own cocoa and oversees the entire three-day-long production process—from cleaning and roasting the cocoa beans to molding and packaging the chocolates in letterpress-printed paper. Gasko offers four different flavors of chocolate created from beans around the world, as well as the occasional limited edition. Nearly every recipe is a simple combination of chocolate and sugar, with nothing else added. We recently put two bars to the test—the Hispaniola and Rio Caribe. The Hispaniola, sourced from the Dominican Republic, is a smooth chocolate with the right balance of acidity and fruity notes. The intensely flavored Rio Caribe adds even more intrigue, comprised of fully fermented Trinitario cacao sourced from Venezuela’s Paria Peninsula. According to Gasko, Rogue Chocolatier is the first company stateside to produce a single origin bar from Rio Caribe and possibly one of the only two in the world, with Domori the other. Other flavors include Piura from Peru—a distinct floral aroma with a buttery flavor of nuts, cocoa and raspberries—and the Sambriano from Madagascar—a bar packing plum, citrus, berry and cedar tones. Rogue Chocolatier bars sell for $7-$9 a bar from his online shop or at select stores around Minneapolis, such as Rustica (a CH favorite offering delicious coffees and sandwiches).

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Rogue Chocolatier

Minnesota’s family-friendly outdoor venue offers large-scale installations, art festivals and residency programs Open year round, Minnesota’s Franconia Sculpture Farm features a perpetually rotating cast of contemporary works from emerging American artists. The 20-acre wide outdoor park also offers an artist in residency program, where both interns or more established artists can utilize the space to create installations and sculptures. Construction on new projects takes place every year between April and November, and visitors are encouraged to probe and converse with the working artists. During the summer the park also hosts the 3-D Music Festival, inviting musicians to perform family-friendly shows and increasing the community’s exposure to different forms of art. Empowerment through exposure to the arts is one of the founding traditions of the park, and is kept alive today through programs for children and at-risk teens. Franconia has collaborated with the Minneapolis programs Kulture Klub and Projects Offstreets in the past, as well as Native American organizations such as Ain Dah Yung and Dream of Wild Health in order to promote teenage participation in the arts. Just 45 minutes northeast of the Twin Cities, the Franconia Sculpture Park is a must-see for art lovers, children and travelers alike. Some of their more popular events (such as the Kids Make Sculpture workshops or the Hot Metal Pour) recommend reservations, but the park is open to the public and always free of charge. photos by Josh Rubin

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Franconia Sculpture Farm