The Walker and Minneapolis Sculpture campus renovation will be completed with the reopening of the Garden on June 3, 2017, created an integrated 19-acre campus. Numerous changes—the addition of 18 new artworks and more than 300 new trees, eco-friendly landscape features, and a water reuse system—will improve the Garden’s aesthetics, accessibility, and long-term stability. As spring haltingly arrives in Minneapolis, installation of returning works, as well as those newly commissioned or acquired, continues apace. While we look forward to welcoming more than 30 artworks back to the Garden, there will be some familiar faces missing.
Nearly all the previous Minneapolis Sculpture Garden artworks were placed in storage during construction. Leveraging innovative partnerships across Minneapolis with the Gold Medal Park Conservancy Fund, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), and the Weisman Art Museum, the Walker relocated several of the most beloved sculptures through long-term loans, allowing the works to remain accessible to the public. The loans are renewable each year and partnering organizations have agreed to the arrangement for up to five years, after which time the loans will be reevaluated.
Brower Hatcher’s Prophecy of the Ancients (1988), Mark di Suvero’s Molecule (1977–1983), and Tony Cragg’s Ordovician Pore (1989) were loaned to Gold Medal Park, which sits adjacent to the Guthrie Theater, the Walker’s former neighbor, along the Mississippi Riverfront.Jacques Lipchitz’s Prometheus Strangling the Vulture II (1944/1953) was loaned to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, aligning with the institution’s robust bronze collection. Frank Gehry’s Standing Glass Fish (1986) is on loan to the Weisman Art Museum, housed in the iconic Gehry–designed building on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.
