The Walker Art Center is a renowned multidisciplinary arts institution that presents, collects, and supports the creation of groundbreaking work across the visual and performing arts, moving image, and design. Guided by the belief that art has the power to bring joy and solace and the ability to unite people through dialogue and shared experiences, the Walker engages communities through a dynamic array of exhibitions, performances, events, and initiatives. Its multiacre campus includes 65,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, the state-of-the-art McGuire Theater and Walker Cinema, and ample green space that connects with the adjoining Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The Garden, a partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, is one of the first urban sculpture parks of its kind in the United States and home to the beloved Twin Cities landmark Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Recognized for its ambitious program and growing collection of more than 15,500 works, the Walker embraces emerging art forms and amplifies the work of artists from the Twin Cities and from across the country and the globe. Its broad spectrum of offerings makes it a lively and welcoming hub for artistic expression, creative innovation, and community connection.
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History
The Walker Art Center ranks among the five most-visited modern/contemporary art museums in the United States and, together with the adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, attracts more than 700,000 visitors per year. Learn more about it’s 125-year history.
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Mission
The Walker Art Center empowers people to experience the transformative possibilities of the art and ideas of our time and to imagine the world in new ways.
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Land Acknowledgment
The Walker Art Center is located on the contemporary, traditional, and ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. This site, which was once an expanse of marshland and meadow, holds meaning for Dakota, Ojibwe, and Indigenous people from other Native nations, who still live in the community today.
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Building & Campus
One of the most celebrated art museums in the country, the Walker Art Center is known for its innovative presentations and acclaimed collections of contemporary art across the spectrum of the visual, performing, and media arts. Over the course of more than 100 years, the Walker has evolved from a privately held collection into an internationally recognized institution and civic resource.
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Board of Trustees
The Walker Art Center’s Board of Trustees.
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Annual Report
The Walker Art Center’s 23-24 Fiscal Year was defined by highly anticipated exhibitions and their successful opening events, programming centered on local artists, and deep research into our collections and our audiences. These achievements allow us to better understand our bedrock and build toward a more inclusive and equitable future.
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Senior Leadership Team
The Walker Art Center’s Senior Leadership team.
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Walker Art Center Staff
The staff who make the Walker Art Center happen.
Walker Programs
The Walker’s programs chart the constantly shifting and porous boundaries of disciplines such as visual arts, moving image, and performing arts, expressed through varying media and materials. We celebrate the ambiguities and questions that interdisciplinary practices pose, and do so across our many platforms—the gallery, theater stage, garden, cinema, and even the interstitial public spaces of our building and campus.
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Architecture / Design
The Walker embodies progressive design through both the presentation of an eclectic mix of exhibitions, events, and initiatives as well as through the practice of its award-winning in-house design studio and influential fellowship and publishing programs.
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Moving Image
Widely recognized for its presentation of moving-image arts that define and influence our time, the Walker’s Moving Image program oversees a 21st-century cinema and a vast collection of global and avant-garde films, documentaries, and video works.
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Performing Arts
Presenting and commissioning innovative performances since 1940, the Performing Arts program offers a season that spans contemporary dance, experimental theater, new jazz, avant-folk, new global and alt-classical music, and the multiple hybrids of forms in between.
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Public Engagement, Learning, and Impact
Dedicated to deepening and enhancing the experience of the arts for people of all ages, the Walker offers an array of engaging education programs, community-building efforts, and interpretive projects.
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Visual Arts
The Visual Arts program illuminates the links between contemporary art and life by presenting, preserving, and commissioning the most compelling art of today. The Walker’s renowned collection and groundbreaking exhibitions engage audiences worldwide.