THE NEWS SOURCE FOR DOWNTOWN & NORTHEAST MINNEAPOLIS RESIDENTS XXXXXXXXXTHE NEWS SOURCE FOR DOWNTOWN & NORTHEAST MINNEAPOLIS RESIDENTS XXXXXXXXX
Eric Best / [email protected]
While he’s not performing, Bob Dylan has quite an audience in downtown Minneapolis.
A five-story mural detailing Bob Dylan’s legendary persona throughout his career has gone up on a nondescript wall at 5th & Hennepin. Internationally renowned Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra along with a team of artists painted the five-story mural in just two weeks, completing the public
art project on Sept. 7.The mural of the Minnesota icon
has gone up on the west side of the 15 Building, which is owned by R2 Cos. and AIMS Real Estate, a division of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. It is home to office spaces for creative tenants.
The building owners made the deci-sion to feature Dylan in collaboration with
Kobra and the Hennepin Theatre Trust, the project’s manager. The project is the largest he’s done outside of his home country.
The artist, who doesn’t speak English, told the Journal Aug. 26 that the mural features a timeline with different phases of Dylan’s life. Karen Nelson, the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s communications director,
THE NEWS SOURCE FOR DOWNTOWN & NORTHEAST MINNEAPOLIS RESIDENTS SEPT. 10–23, 2015
Downtown goes electric with a five-story mural at 5th & Hennepin paying tribute to Bob Dylan
By Sarah McKenzie / [email protected]
Several property owners in the Holland neighborhood of Northeast have found themselves in the crosshairs of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway track extension project.
BNSF is moving ahead with the project to ease rail congestion, said BNSF spokeswoman Amy McBeth. Crews will be adding a fifth track to the line and building a retaining wall for the embankment on the west side of the rail tracks from Lowry Avenue to Wash-ington Street and Washington to 22nd Ave, she said.
McBeth said the railroad company has been talking with six property owners near the project area and done surveys showing several structures encroaching on railroad property.
“We have said any structure on our
property will not be impacted — garages and sheds can stay in the current loca-tion,” McBeth said, adding that the railroad company will continue to work with resi-dents to minimize the impact of construction and make arrangements for using rail prop-erty moving forward.
McBeth said BNSF decided to pursue the Northeast track extension project after state leaders passed legislation last session that blocked plans for a new connection track in Crystal. Construction of the new track and retaining wall is expected to be completed by winter.
“There will be no new train traffic moving through the area,” she said. “Those same trains already move through there on another track near where the new track will be built.”
RAIL PROJECT ROILS NORTHEAST NEIGHBORS
Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Al Franken discuss rail safety issues Sept. 2 in Northeast. Photo by Sarah McKenzie
SEE DYLAN MURAL / PAGE 12
SEE RAIL PROJECT / PAGE 20
PAGE 16
Market trends, insights from real estate veterans and more
MARKET UPDATE
Real estate guide
▲ The artist team led by Brazilian muralistEduardo Kobra completed the mural Sept. 7.Photo by Donner Humenberger
A DYLAN MASTERPIECE
INSIDE
translated. As time went on during the two weeks, the mural came to life with several faces forming one after another.
Kobra, who has painted all over the world, is known for painting bright and lively murals of noted personalities in a kaleidoscope of colors, including rappers Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac, Russian dancer Maya Plisetskaya, Malala Yousafzai and the “V-J Day in Times Square” photo-graph, showing the iconic kiss.
Dylan is a larger than life figure for him, so he hopes Dylan likes it, Kobra joked.
The folk music figure and Hibbing, Minn. native is an ideal figure to paint because of his popularity and approach-ability, a key tenet of Kobra’s work, he said. Instead of galleries and museums, the artist’s first mediums were the walls of Sao Paulo, where Kobra began tagging with a graffiti crew called “Hip Hop.”
Now, with iconic murals around the world, the artist still creates public art grounded in the aesthetic and history of their locale. He painted the Dylan mural in full public view, captured by Twin Cities photographer Bill Hickey, above a surface parking lot not owned by the 15 Building’s owners. The 15 Building is a historic Art Deco office tower constructed in the 1920s.
Rather than using stencils or tracing the mural first, Kobra’s creative process involves a methodical-grid plan-ning system. Despite the mural’s size — about 60 feet tall and 150 feet wide — Joan Vorderbruggen, the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s Cultural Arts District coor-dinator, said he first lays down a photo-real portrait and then color blocks his murals.
“This is such an amazing feat, and the answer is that his team is that talented. That’s why he’s world renowned,” she said.
His artist team for the Minneapolis project includes three Brazilian artists who have worked under him for 15 years. Two local artists, Erin Sayer and Yuya Negishi,
FROM DYLAN MURAL / PAGE 1
Joan Vorderbruggen, the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s Cultural Arts District coordinator, with members of the mural artist team. Photos courtesy of the Hennepin Theatre Trust
(Upper right) Muralist Eduardo Kobra with a book about Bob Dylan. (Top and above) Artists work on the five-story mural at 5th & Hennepin.
12 September 10–23, 2015 / journalmpls.com
LEARN MORE
To learn more about muralist Eduaro Kobra, go to eduardokobra.com.
are assisting Kobra with the Dylan mural. Tom Hoch, president and CEO of the
Hennepin Theatre Trust, said Kobra’s mural will “add an invigorating and colorful international artwork to the downtown Cultural District and Hennepin Avenue.”
“At the same time, it celebrates Bob Dylan who is not only one of Minne-sota’s most admired native sons, but also a former owner of the Trust’s Orpheum Theatre,” he said.
Save for Prince — who was also in contention for the mural, Vorderbruggen said — Dylan is Minnesota’s most well known musical icon. The folk artist, who fi rst achieved fame with protest anthems like “The Times They Are A-Changin” in the 1960s, got his start in Dinkytown as a student at the University of Minnesota.
Downtown Minneapolis is home to a couple similarly sized murals above surface parking lots, such as the fi ve-story musical notes mural painted on the side of the former Schmitt Music’s building near 10th and Marquette in the 1970s and a mural on the side of Gluek’s Bar and Restaurant that depicts Venice, Italy.
“We want to do more walls,” Vorder-bruggen said. “Expect to begin seeing more and more art and culture public art proj-ects in [Downtown West].”
Aft er completing the Dylan mural, Kobra will be heading to Haiti and then Russia for other projects.
The massive mural features three faces of Bob Dylan at various stages in his life. Photo by Donner Humenberger
journalmpls.com / September 10–23, 2015 13
Our golf may be mini, but the fun is BIG
Call 612-861-9348 for more information 6335 Portland Ave S, Richfield, MN
Grilled CheeseBuild your own sandwich
NewItem!
Malt ShopMalts • Floats • Cones
Frozen Yogurt
Mini Golf for the whole family
Includes waterfall, lavish gardens & beautiful landscape
18holes
Wheel Fun Rentals - Malt-T-Melt DTJ 070215 9.indd 1 6/17/15 12:54 PM
Recommended
