Minnesota Center for Book Art and Rosalux Gallery

The exhibition “None of the Above” at Minnesota Center for Book Arts was designed like a collection of mail arts from various artists. On the walls, had lines of mail art bagged and hung on strings. In the middle, sides, and corners of the exhibition had the mail arts of various artists inside glassed cases and glassed shelves. There were mini booklets made out of toilet paper, rubber stamping, postal stamping, trading cards, bookmarks, photos, comics, postal cards, and homage or tribute arts to influential artists. On the right of the exhibition, was a store with colorful patterned papers, artwork, and cards. To the left of the store was a place where artists work to make prints. I saw work tables, printing presses, rollers, paints, inks, tools, chemical solvents, wooden frames, and more.

Most of the artworks are assemblings of mail art. The mail art are collections of postal mail, rubber stamping, trading cards, concrete poetry, and visual poetry. The mail art collections were small like the size of Hallmark cards and 8.5X11 inches letter paper size. All of the artwork was very colorful in color and each had its own different look especially the artworks that are hanging on the walls. Interestingly, when I looked closely at each artwork I saw the different printing press processes in relief, intaglio, lithography, and screenprinting. I have never seen this kind of work and I thought they were neat because they had more texture and I could see how much detail there was in the pictures. The rest of the artworks had photos, drawings, rubber stamps in wooden boxes, pictures from magazine, cardboard boxes, collages, currency, and artistic handwritings or letters in them.

I thought the exhibition was unique because the viewer can see a variety of mail art next to a printing press work setting. The artworks are on the left side and the printing press work room on the right side. Having both visuals gave me a more understanding knowledge of how the assembling of mail art was done in a printing press type of environment.

The exhibition “Praise and Punishment” at the Rosalux Gallery was behind the cafeteria. There was a second level where more paintings and art were. Some of the art were large size paintings. Others were large drawings right on the wall with cassette tape strings used as part of the art. A few of the art were cassette tape strings glued into small frames and white background board.
Most of the artwork’s titles seemed to tell what the art was trying to portray.
The painting called “Spotlight” by the artist Toni Galio had a girl with her face, nose, and chin pointed rather high up. On the floor, the spot where she stands is a white circle of light. The way she is posing with her left hand on her hip behind her and right arm and foot is in front seems to portray that she feels proud. There are men dressed in suits behind her. Two of the men has their backs turned to her and one man looks like he is going to walk pass her with his head looking down to the floor looking rather sad. His right hand is in his right pants pocket and the colors in the background are black. The men look disappointed. According to the title of the painting and the way the painting is portrayed tells me that the girl feels special or has a proud authority over the men behind her.
The painting called “Praise and Punishment” by the artist Toni Galio had a girl with a smiling face holding a bouquet of white flowers looking at us. A few white flowers and petals fell to the ground by her feet. Behind her there is a boy sitting in a wooden brown chair in a black background with his right elbow resting on the arm of the chair. His head is looking down to the floor and with his cheek resting on his right hand. According to the art title and the painting, it showing me that the girl is happy and holding white flowers because she is praised for being good. The boy is looking very sad in a blacker background behind the girl because he is being punished for being bad. I believe that the title of the paintings by Toni Galio, portrays how the person in the painting feels or thinks.
I liked both exhibits at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the Rosalux Gallery. The artworks I saw were new to me and I learned that there are many different types and styles of art.