Artpal!

Talking about art in the Twin Cities with your pal Keith Pille. Season One is a guerrilla audioguide to some works on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Visual Arts Society & Culture Arts

Update frequency: every 2 days
Average duration: 6 minutes
Episodes: 18
Years Active: 2018 - 2019

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Ep. 2.9 The Skyway System

We wrap up Season 2 by taking a look at Minneapolis’ most distinctive architectural feature, the network of bridges connecting the buildings of downtown. With each link being different, it’s an accid…

00:07:36 | Mon 04 Mar 2019

Ep. 2.8 Everything That Needs to Be Said About US Bank Stadium

We’ve talked about good buildings. Why not check in on a bad one?

00:01:02 | Thu 28 Feb 2019

Ep. 2.7: Peavey Plaza, Parks, and Brutalism

Architecture isn’t just about buildings- it’s also about parks, places that are notably building-free. Peavey Plaza is a great park, and also a great exemplar of Brutalism, a form that sounds a lot s…

00:05:17 | Mon 25 Feb 2019

Ep. 2.6: More Semiotics- Postmodern Buildings in Gothic Drag

More gamboling in the lush fields of semiotics as we look at why the University of St. Thomas worked hard to make its downtown Minneapolis buildings, designed around the year 2000, look like parts of…

00:06:35 | Thu 21 Feb 2019

Ep. 2.5 Semiotics and the Hidden Meanings of the Guthrie Theater

Jean Nouvel’s Guthrie Theater plays a complicated double game with its appearance, lying to you and then telling the truth about what’s really going on inside. This means we need to work up the guts …

00:07:38 | Mon 18 Feb 2019

Ep. 2.4 Wells Fargo Center and Postmodernism

Wells Fargo Center looks like another Art Deco building (in more ways then one- it looks like another specific Art Deco building), but that’s not quite accurate. It’s time to get serious about this p…

00:07:08 | Thu 14 Feb 2019

Ep. 2.3: IDS Center and Modernism

Some geometric glass buildings are really boring. Phillip Johnson’s IDS Center isn’t one of them, though! It’s a great example of modernism done well. But what’s modernism, anyway? Full Show Transcri…

00:09:29 | Mon 11 Feb 2019

Ep. 2.2: The Foshay Tower, Art Deco, and Gozer the Destroyer

The Foshay Tower is a building everyone in Minneapolis seems to love. But why? And if it’s an Art Deco masterpiece, what does that mean? EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Hi there! I’m Keith Pille, your art pal. In…

00:05:39 | Thu 07 Feb 2019

Ep 2.1: Architecture in General and of the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Particular

Welcome back to Artpal! Season 2, using buildings around downtown Minneapolis to talk about architecture, kicks off with a look at the Minneapolis Institute of Art as a building. But first, there’s s…

00:08:10 | Mon 04 Feb 2019

Ep. 1.9: Art Is All Around

Keith wraps up the first season by pointing out that even though the Minneapolis Institute of Art is full of great works, one of its best artistic experiences involves looking out a window. FULL EPIS…

00:04:17 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep. 1.8: Alexa Horochowski, a Bunch of Garbage, and Centuries of Systematic Sexism

Alexa Horochowski’s Vortex Drawing 17 (2017.80.6) is a striking work of art that alludes to the problem of garbage in the oceans. The difficulty of finding a lot of other works by women is an example…

00:06:19 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep. 1.7: Honbori and Folwell, Catching You by Surprise

Yuji Honbori’s Eleven-Headed Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva (2012.68.1a,b) and Susan Folwell’s Why Does He Call Me Caitlyn? (2016.5.13) are a couple of works of art that punch back at the walls of the a…

00:06:51 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep. 1.6: The Only Question About George Morrison Is What Kind of Great Artist He Is

George Morrison wanted to be known as “a painter who happened to be an Indian.” But people always talk about him in the context of his ethnicity, even if it’s to say that he didn’t want to be talked …

00:06:06 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep 1.5: Outsider Art: Threat or Menace?

William Howard and William Edmondson were certainly not insiders to the art world. Does that make their works—a writing desk (2012.11) and a sculpture of a ram (2013.56)—pieces of outsider art, thoug…

00:06:25 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep 1.4: Kehinde Wiley and Georgia O’Keeffe Off the Beaten Track

When artists have a distinctive style, it can be jarring to look at works of theirs that come across a little differently. Keith digs into a couple of MIA pieces– Kehinde Wiley’s Santos Dumont- The F…

00:07:42 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep 1.3: Morris Kantor, His Mother, and an Art Collector

Morris Kantor painted one hell of a portrait of his mother in 1922 (MIA accession number L2014.234.53), and it’s a good example of an approach to portraiture that can really tell a story. But it’s *a…

00:06:07 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep 1.2: Chuck Close- Big Faces, Big Baggage

Keith digs into the 1969 painting Frank by Chuck Close, MIA accession number 69.137. It’s a striking work by an important American artist who, unfortunately, has been in the news lately for troubling…

00:08:43 | Mon 17 Sep 2018

Ep 1.1: What’s Up With This?

Welcome to Artpal, both the podcast in general and Season 1 in particular. Host Keith Pille lays out some background and introduces the first season, which will act as a sort of guerrilla audioguide …