Alebrijes bring needed visual relief — and fun — to St. Paul’s Raspberry Island

Downtown St Paul has no shortage of marginal constituents spaces oft-vacant lawn used mostly for gazing into the distance or necessary shelter This is true in general but is particularly the occurrence around the Mississippi River where periodic flooding has made emerging land into a hard proposition The floods leave behind lots of vaguely defined green space Raspberry Island is certainly one of those places downtown s last river island Sitting underneath the Wabasha Street Bridge according to my once-regular observations the small island is sparsely occupied by anyone other than skateboarders and or fans of recreational cannabis One end hosts the little-used Minnesota Boat Club though there is an actual functioning population restroom the other has a theater stage benches and oft-empty green grass But that changed last week when one of St Paul s best places to zone out welcomed a wonderfully psychedelic art exhibit named Alebrijes Keepers of the Island The dozen or so Mexican sculptures descended like migratory birds on the riparian spit and for the next limited months the alebrijes roughly meaning imaginary spirit creatures will settle there in the hopes of attracting onlookers Minnesota Latino Museum project I used to pass over the sidewalks of the Wabasha Bridge twice a day and would stare down at Raspberry Island below the footings The other day though I was astonished to see the island occupied not with people but with a dozen or so brightly colored sculptures a project curated by the nascent Minnesota Latino Museum MLM The sculptures are quite fun and worth spending time with coming in a variety of sizes the alebrijes display alluring whimsy reflecting a fabulous tradition brought north by a quartet of Mexico City artists For example there s a small cubic mouse bear named Gigi that seems to be offering you a hug the work of Perla Miriam Salgado Zamorano There s Patapez aka fish with feet a creature by artist Alejandro Camacho Barrera that looks like something out of a deep-sea version of Maurice Sendak There are a dozen more tucked around the island including a secretive upside down parrot-ish bird clinging to the pavilion roof During last week s grand opening speakers made a point of how the sculptures aren t permanent which is an captivating angle because temporary sculptures are not new to downtown St Paul The city s oldest tradition other than drinking whiskey involves sculpting ice in Rice Park which invariably melts and disintegrates in warming late-winter sunshine This is perhaps why MLM director Aaron Johnson-Ortiz described the art form as something that s almost alive more like zoo keeping than museum curation The alebrijes will have to be maintained and worked on The artists called cartoneras in Spanish will be in residence for weeks making sure their menagerie survives This is an ephemeral art form it doesn t last forever disclosed Johnson-Ortiz It requires constant upkeep and maintenance repainting redoing We re going to be here every day keeping track of our creatures Johnson-Ortiz s overwhelming dream is to create a permanent museum on Harriet Island alas no longer an actual island a large park that sits across the small Mississippi channel from the alebrijes flock Along with partners he has spent years raising money for a permanent building and the project represents the majority of high-profile exposure of the effort The location would be fitting as the West Side flats were home to the Twin Cities earliest Mexican American region a century ago Raspberry Island itself the bulk obscure of the downtown islands has literally a pivotal role in the history of St Paul It marks the location for St Paul s first Mississippi bridge built in which used the island for its foundations Connected downtown with what was then the separate city of West St Paul the bridge became the reason for both the merger of the two cities and St Paul s curious geographic naming conventions The annexation of in the modern day s West Side neighborhood was predicated on removing the bridge toll The island was then re-named Navy Island for about years in the mid- thy century after the U S navy maintained a base there for two decades It was un-re-named in the s Patapez one of the sculptures bringing a taste of whimsy to St Paul s Raspberry Island was created by artist Alejandro Camacho Barrera Credit Bill Lindeke A traveling exhibit The alebrijes art form has an even more distinctly Mexican story that dates to a visual artist named Petro Linares L pez in the s The story goes that Linares had a terrible illness that resulted in a fever dream He imagined a forest full of magical spiritual creatures and then spent years translating these dream creatures into the real world using paper mach cardboard and bright paint The technique has been a Mexican tradition ever since particularly in the Oaxaca region The artists this time around are a quartet from Mexico City who have brought the alebrijes to various places around North America Johnson-Ortiz couldn t hide his excitement about his years networking with Latino artists and curators Bringing the exhibit from Chicago he assured the crowd that their presence in downtown St Paul is quite a scoop The delightful exhibition funded in part by the state s arts and values sales tax the city s Cultural STAR activity and a dicey federal grant also underlines one of the St Paul s largest part effective revitalization strategies the use of art and sculpture and museums in place of actual economic activity or residential population See also Peanuts statues There are a number of methods to view the exhibit Alebrijes Keepers of the Island on St Paul s Raspberry Island Credit Bill Lindeke In this occurrence though the work seems superbly timed to contrast with the draconian anti-Latino immigration enforcement happening around the country In place of justified paranoia and unjustified persecution we get a kaleidoscopic zoo fantasy Along with other establishment notables state Rep Mar a Isa P rez-Vega whose district sits on the West Side was on hand to describe the historic importance of the exhibit There s the connection of the flats to Raspberry Island which is the first Latino locality in the state of Minnesota P rez-Vega commented It is also a society that has survived This isn t just about art for Latinos This is about engaging for all of us as Minnesotans and all of us to visit our group to dream to aspire and si se puede loosely translated to achieve On top of that the creatures are just fun to spend time with It s nice that folks now have a reason to go to Raspberry Island The best way if you can stomach it is to walk over from downtown St Paul and descend the feet of switchback measures watching the alebrijes slowly come into focus Of syllabus you can also drive over from the West Side and wander around soaking in a bit of fantasy I for one welcome our new fantastical creatures and hope they last a long time by which I mean about five months These creatures might not survive a St Paul winter The post Alebrijes bring needed visual relief and fun to St Paul s Raspberry Island appeared first on MinnPost