What in the World is a TuckUnder?

Have you heard of TuckUnder?

Since you clicked on our headline, we should probably tell you what it is. But we can’t. Not really. This is partly because it is new, partly because we have not yet visited it, and partly because the “activist creative startup”—one of many labels TuckUnder affixes to itself—takes the dreamy stance that fixed definition is a killer of all things art. Just check out the earnest grant-speak of its “about” webpage.

But here’s what we can tell you: TuckUnder’s an art space (of sorts). It is located at 5120 York Avenue. And this weekend, it is unveiling an outdoor art installation in a raspberry patch—the second exhibition in its inaugural season of indoor/outdoor programming.

(The first exhibition, by the way, was a major coup: portraits by the iconoclastic painter Frank Gaard, who just wrapped a career retrospective at the Walker.)

We can also tell you this: sometime in 2011, local artist Pete Driessen, a Northeast fav, was enduring the triple tragedies of a 50th birthday, the death of his father, and the dissolution of his marriage. He found a kitschy, 1950s-era, “Archie Bunker-style” house in the Fulton neighborhood of south Minneapolis, moved in, and began fantasizing about converting the space—”a unique sculpture site with campy preexisting yard ornaments and architectural quirks”—into a venue for conceptual projects. Artists would engage with the house itself; the retro, “tuck-under” garage; the garden; the water pump; and, yes, the on-site raspberry patch.

Dude got a grant, and soon the city’s most mysterious art incubator was on.  

So what’s happening this weekend? The Raspberry Patch Residency.

Sara Wolbert, a career architect-turned-multimedia-artist and sustainable-design goofball genius, has converted the patch into an explorable art environment. She’s built small rooms and structures out of raspberry canes, tucking hidden nooks into the brambly flora. The whole thing is intended to be a mediation on urban agriculture and an aesthetic inspiration for other artists. But it’s also a tasting—Driessen’s apparently going to have some jam on hand to sample.

Curious? Of course you are. Here’s your hand-drawn map to the place.

Tn’T: Tunnels & Trellis
Opening reception Saturday, July 28
7–9 p.m.
TuckUnder, 5120 York Ave. S., Mpls.
tuckunder.org