Art wears many faces; sometimes you’ll remove art’s mask and surprise, there’s another mask underneath. It can be hard to tell where art starts and stops. There’s an art to broken pianos, to rainy day gravel back lots and, of course, to communities.
Russell Jaffe
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: Takin’ text to the streets
In its 11th year, Poetry in Public continues to bring Iowa City voices to the public sphere–literally. In this UNESCO City of Literature, it’s a given that poetry talks the talk. But every April, just in time for National Poetry Month, it also walks the walk. Enter Poetry in Public (PiP); established in 2002 by […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A beginner’s guide to collecting art
For some, art collection is an economic game. For others, it’s a lifestyle veneer covering other lifestyles. Do you love art? Do you like art staring back at you? Do you like being watched sometimes? Consider being a collector.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ARTicle: These things don’t do themselves
If you’re hanging art, measure. Measure for the eyes and head like every set of eyes is an enemy sniper. Save your troops. If you have sculptures or objects, pedestals are a must. Meticulous details—like how many brown M & M’s go in the dish, and even more realistically what kind of snacks you use at all and if people besides yourself like seltzer (spoiler alert: they do)—must be paid attention to.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Soul’d Out: Public Space One’s Annual Art Auction – Opening Reception Fri. Jan 25, 6-8 p.m.
It’ll be a cold night in Iowa City, buffeted by bumps of chilled thrills in the air, as students return to campus and continue their sloppy migrations to and from downtown bars. But just below the surface—literally, in Public Space One, downstairs in the Jefferson Building (129 E. Washington), Jan. 25—begins the third Annual After […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Best Fries in Iowa City
The election is over and still we are the United States of America. Still we are united by our fundamental principles of blurting out whatever we want whenever and to whomever we want to, drinking oceans of flavored vodka and creating fake Twitter accounts of celebrities we like. Most of all, however, we are latticed […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Community: Style to Spare – UAY Clothing Drive
You’re as good as you feel. Style is everything. If you live and breathe in the gasoline-and- French-Fries-scented eddy of freedom we call America, undoubtedly you’ve heard some variation on these messages revolving through our collective consciousness like shopping mall doors equating looking stylish with self esteem. But who can’t relate to those teenage days […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ARTicle: A visit to Walnut Farms: Institute of Art. Agriculture and Burning Shopping Carts
It’s another hot Iowa City summer night and in the woods, the trees hang tired and droopy. Black leaves gently shiver against a cascade of smoke rising from a 10-foot-high bonfire. Sparks of flame jaunt into the sky and crackle alongside an endless drone of mating insects. A huge hand-painted mural covered in dreamlike poetic […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ARTicle: Art on Demand at the Iowa City Public Library
Where does art live? If you’re in the Iowa City area, can abide by some very generous checkout times and can offer it the promise of shelter for a month or so, art can live with you, thanks to the Iowa City Public Library’s Art-To-Go Collection. Also, if you’re a local artist, it might just […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ARTicle: A Little More Room for Art in Iowa
You don’t have to be a mathlete—or even a little mathletic—to know that there are multiple parts to an equation. You have the numbers of course, or parties involved. You have the function. Are they going to multiply? Divide? And what will the outcome be? For art’s sake, there’s no better illustration of this than […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Deadwood Deadzone
What you need to know is that this was not what I expected. But haunted house stories almost never are. And in the wake of Public Space One’s exciting expansion into the Wesley Center early this month, where they’re creating a free workspace for artists, filled with materials and equipment, I wondered about PS1’s historical […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
ARTicle: The Art of Hospitality: The Hotel at Kirkwood Center
Look just beyond Iowa City, a quick highway drive up 380, to The Hotel Kirkwood Center. The ambitious building is a multi-million-dollar endeavor, melding 5-star hotel swankiness with an upscale conference center, inspired restaurant, office complex and art collection. Three hundred pieces, to be exact, all procured by Arbe Bareis, Kirkwood’s Fine and Performing Arts […]
