Art That’s More than Just Pretty

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.  —Ernst Fischer

On a good day in North Minneapolis, it’s feasible to conclude that this part of town gets a bad rap. There are arts organizations, community events, and commissioned sculptures and graffiti art. The ambitious Lowry Avenue Corridor Project promises to add landscaped boulevards and retail shops. There are even kids on bicycles. On a bad day, however, it’s a different story. The Northside, after all, helped earn Minneapolis nationwide notoriety as “Murderapolis.” Violent crime and poverty are worse here than anywhere else in the city. Those kids really shouldn’t be on the streets.

Keeping them away from trouble is the goal at Juxtaposition Arts, where a thirteen-year-old can walk into the studio, grab a can of spray paint and decorate a pair of sneakers, then sell them online to make money to buy new clothes, take his family out to dinner, or start saving for college. He could also work on his portfolio, which he might later submit to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design, or another top-tier art school. In the summer, he could work on community mural projects with Ernest Bryant, a Bush Fellow, and other local visual artists.

Roger Cummings is the cofounder (with visual artist Peyton) and artistic director of Juxtaposition, which occupies a small building on the corner of Broadway and Emerson. Juxtaposition offers art instruction for kids up to twenty-one years of age, as well as college-level classes on art interpretation and art history. Cummings grew up in inner-city south Minneapolis and knows it’s crucial for kids to find appropriate emotional outlets. As a kid, he used aerosol art, painting, and graphic design to express himself and help avoid “a lot of the gang and drug stuff” that many of his peers were getting into, he says. When the mid-1980s crack boom rolled around, his sights were set on a future that involved college, not quick cash.

All the classes offered at Juxtaposition are free, and most culminate in a public showing, during which students are encouraged to sell their work. The teachers, all of whom are successful visual artists in their own right, help students prepare portfolios and price their work. The young artists pocket 75 percent of their sales; the rest helps cover operating costs.

Cummings does not emphasize developing great artists, though some of Juxtaposition’s former students have attended art school (one went to Harvard, then Parsons). What he’s most interested in is using art to foster innovative thinking and financial independence. He encourages the kids to develop what he calls “microbusinesses”—sole proprietorships they can operate in their bedroom or on the Internet. One of the youngsters supplements his family’s income by selling his aerosol-painted sneakers on his MySpace page. “I want them to be the boss of themselves,” says Cummings. “If they choose to work for somebody, they’re doing it for knowledge and experience, not a paycheck. They have the tools to choose an independent path.” Creation, in this sense, goes beyond sculpting, drawing, and decorating textiles. Juxtaposition is teaching young people how to craft their lives.

“It’s important to connect with people through the gifts you have and be able to engage them with what they’re concerned with,” says Cummings. “That’s the strength of art. It can have some function like a bench, a chair, a landscape, or something with solar panels, or a well-designed sidewalk. That’s cool. Stuff that hangs on walls that speaks to a struggle that you would like to address”—Cummings pauses—“these are my ranting and ramblings on what I do. For me, in the social situation I’m in now and the neighborhood I’m in, art can’t afford to just be pretty.”