Frida in Minneapolis: With a foot of fresh snow on the ground here, Mexico seems pretty appealing right now, but we Minnesotans will have to wait ’til fall to experience the real thing: the Walker will debut our touring exhibition Frida Kahlo. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Kahlo’s birth, the show will feature 50-some paintings, plus photographs from Kahlo’s photo albums and other artifacts. After its Minneapolis premiere in October, Frida Kahlo will travel to Philadelphia Museum of Art (February through May 2008) and SFMOMA (June through September).
(Kara) Walker Channel: The Walker Channel just added two new webcasts, Kara Walker’s discussion with artist Laylah Ali, and a conversation between Performing Arts Curator Philip Bither and jazz pianist Jason Moran on, among other topics, Moran’s recent release, Artist in Residence, featuring compositions based on works in the Walker’s collection.
Bonami on China: Curator Francesco Bonami writes a fascinating piece on Chinese artists: “In China, you don’t find a painter, and a sculptor, and a video artist, but rather one artist who is working on painting, sculpture, photography, video and (why not?) performance all at the same time. When I visited Liu Wei […], he offered me not only beautiful cityscape paintings but also architectural models of famous buildings, like St. Peter’s Cathedral and the Empire State Building, made from the same rubber used to make fake dog bones… A great chaos under the sky was supposedly an excellent sign for Chairman Mao Zedong, and the same may be true for today’s Chinese artists. Complexity and change is part of Chinese philosophy. To favor one medium over the others would be to impose a silly constraint. If all is possible in contemporary art, why limit yourself?”
Typecasting: The much-blogged filmic ode to a ubiquitous typeface is getting a Minneapolis showing–the Walker just signed on to screen Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica on May 31. Here’s the national tour. And here‘s the trailer.
Cuddly Calder? A bunch of steel “eaglets” — wee Calderesque sculptures — were found under the Olympic Scuplture Park’s Calder sculpture Eagle early this month, apparently a guerrilla intervention by Vital 5 Productions.
Quiltsrÿche: “Evil Rock Quilts“