TC Art: Great write-up on this weekend's Heliotrope festival

As I've mentioned before that the fifth edition of Heliotrope is this weekend. The annual underground music festival got a good write-up in City Pages today, covering what I think are the best aspects of the festival: shared profits among band members; its make-up of musical "experimenters, agitators, and aesthetes"; a low-key atmosphere; and a truly DIY spirit.
Rich Barlow, co-founder of Flaneur Productions and co-curator of the festival, says, "I'd get really tired of everyone I knew saying there was nothing going on. My feeling is that you can either complain about stuff or you can change it. I don't particularly like complaining."

The story also mentions the "bittersweet return" of this year's headliner, Japan's Suishou No Fune. It will be a bittersweet return for Suishou, who became friends with the band Salamander and played a few shows with them last summer; in November, drummer/visual artist Matt Zaun passed away at age 34. Part of the Ritz's lobby will be dedicated to a small exhibition of Zaun's graphic art.

Pictured: This year's poster by Burlesque's Steven Boettcher

TC Art: The Gaards at the Phipps

Painter Frank Gaard and his wife, painter/mixed media artist Pamela Gaard, have a joint show on view at The Phipps Center for the Arts, just across the border in Hudson, WI, through June 1. We checked out the artist-curated show during the opening two weeks ago and met up with Frank and Pam; Frank had a copy of Charley 05, the newest publication on the "stray dogs" of contemporary art edited by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick. A beautiful -- and thick -- catalogue (designed by Conny Purtill, formerly of the Walker), it features an eight-page spread on Frank's work (you'll also remember Frank's contribution to the Walker's billboard project in '04 and this piece, which was published alongside an Adbusters essay I wrote in '05). Notably absent from the show: Frank's trademark x-rated comics. Probably good, considering the family-friendly atmosphere of the Phipps. See more photos here.

Walker: Best one-liner wins concert tix

This one goes out to Taylor, who's hoping to score tickets to Rock the Garden (Andrew Bird, New Pornographers, Cloud Cult, Bon Iver): The Walker's hosting a contest, in honor of artist Richard Prince's joke paintings. They're soliciting the best one-line jokes. Winner gets two tickets to the June 21 outdoor concert plus a pair of admissions to "Adventures in Mating" by Joseph Scrimshaw. (If you can't read it, the Prince painting above reads, "I met my first girl, her name was Sally. Was that a girl, was that a girl. That’s what people kept asking.”)

Flak Radio on The UnConvention

Flak Radio interviews the Walker Art Center's new media designer and, uh, polymath Justin Heideman on The UnConvention, a consortium of artists and art groups (the Walker, MCAD, U of M Design School, Intermedia Arts, among many others) who'll be organizing around creative democracy during the RNC.

Luck's Guns

During a trip to Thailand in February, I connected with Luck Maisalee, a Chiang Mai-based mixed-media artist. A prolific and playful artist, his "Shoot" series features paint-on-cloth depictions of illogical or impossible guns. More to come on Luck.

TC Art: Horochowski and Gaard

mnartists.org, a 5,000-member community of Minnesota artists, features a frank conversation between Twin Cities artists Frank Gaard (who'll be featured in the next issue of Adbusters with this work, Swan: John Kerry's Coat of Arms) and Argentina-born Alexa Horochowski. From the Whitney Biennial to the reprentation of the male member, the conversation offers glimpses into two very curious minds. More samples of their work here; see Frank's comics here.