Art and the ‘experimental geography’ of Minnesota

Today, a curious art exhibition opened at the Rochester (Minn.) Art Center called “Experimental Geography.” A traveling show organized by New York’s iCI, it features art that uses “experimental methods for understanding space itself,” as curator Nato Thompson said in a recent interview. Art by the likes of Trevor Paglen, whose investigations into the U.S. government’s “black world” of covert operations I’ve been following lately. And Francis Alÿs, who during a visit to the Walker Art Center a few years ago “mapped” the neighborhood around the museum by puncturing a paint can and drizzling paint as he walked the sidewalks, finally ending up back in the gallery, where he nailed the empty can to the wall.

But the best local angle to the exhibition comes from Los Angeles’ Center for Land Use Interpretation, which researches land-use and landscape issues. I’m not sure if it’s in the show, but a fascinating resource for your own experimental geography is CLUI’s “land use database” of “unusual and exemplary sites” in every state. Minnesota “geography,” the entries suggest, is the physical and psychic space that exists somewhere between Edina’s headquarters for munitions manufacturer ATK and Bob Dylan’s childhood home on the Range, the Hull Rust Mine overlook north of Hibbing (pictured) and the Mall of America.

“Experimental Geography” is on view at the Rochester Art Center through April 19.