Campus Renovation Update: Seeding and Siting
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Campus Renovation Update: Seeding and Siting

Alexander Calder's Octopus (1964) being installed in the Wurtele Upper Garden, August 23, 2016. Photo: Paul Schmelzer
bg2016msg0823_Calder Building & Grounds, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and Walker Campus Renovation. Installation of Alexander Calder's Octopus (Accession number 1968.1) on the hillside, August 23, 2016. Rocket Crane hoists the sculpture past the recent plantings on the hill. Photo by Paul Schmelzer.
Alexander Calder’s Octopus (1964) being installed in the Wurtele Upper Garden, August 23, 2016. Photo: Paul Schmelzer

From the hydroseed that’s painted the hillside blue-green to the newly planted grove of honey locust trees near the Walker entrance to the daily appearance of new sculptures, our campus renovation project is truly ramping up. Updates this month: a visit with sculptor Kinji Akagawa, a spate of new arrivals, and a narrowing of a busy street.

A glimpse of how Alexander Calder’s Octopus (1964) made it’s way into the Upper Garden of the #WalkerCampus yesterday.

A video posted by Walker Art Center (@walkerartcenter) on

August 23 was a momentous day here at the Walker: the first sculpture of our redevelopment project was installed. Alexander Calder’s Octopus (1964) was placed on a newly poured concrete pad in the Wurtele Upper Garden, near James Turrell’s underground Sky Pesher, 2005 (2005). It was soon joined by other favorites, including Scott Burton’s Seat-Leg Table (1986/1991) and Kinji Akagawa’s Garden Seating, Reading, Thinking (1987), both situated in groves of conifers in the southwest corner of the Walker hillside.

Curatorial Assistant with Kinji Akagawa in his Afton, Minn., studio. Photo:
Victoria Sung with Kinji Akagawa. Photo: Andy Underwood-Bultmann

Commissioned for the 1988 opening of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Akagawa’s bench/sculpture was designed to offer respite. “I made the piece, but not just as a bench for physical rest,” he told us in 2006. “Intellectually, you have to rest within that kind of context; emotionally, you have to rest looking at all the sculpture. I included a reading lectern and used familiar, Midwestern materials: fieldstone and basalt from St. Croix. The bench provides psychological rest, intellectual rest, and physical rest.”

Nearly 30 years since its garden debut, the work will undergo some restoration before it opens to the public, says Visual Arts Curatorial Assistant Victoria Sung, who recently visited Akagawa at his Afton, Minnesota studio. “The wood has decayed over time, so we’ve sourced new wood—red cedar—and he will be hand hewing it once it arrives.”

bg2016msg0829_Akagawa Building & Grounds; Minneapolis Sculpture Garden; installaing Kinji Akagawa bench on hillside, August 29, 2016. Walker Campus Renovation; Rocket Crane; crew.
Siting Kinji Akagawa’s Garden Seating, Reading, Thinking (1987), August 29, 2016. Photo: Gene Pittman

In main garden, Jim Hodges’s steel-clad boulders (2011) and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Sagacious Head 6 (1989–1990) are now in place:

bg2016msg0915_Hodges Building & Grounds; Minneapolis Sculpture Garden; installaing Hodges boulders in the garden, September 15, 2016. Walker Campus Renovation; Cowles Conservatory; Barnes Building; Rocket Crane; crew.
Jim Hodges’s steel-clad boulders, installed September 15, 2016. Photo: Gene Pittman
bg2016msg0901_Abakanowicz Building & Grounds; Minneapolis Sculpture Garden; WAC Campus Renovation. Installation of Magdalena Abakanowicz sculptures, Sagacious Head 6 and Sagacious Head 7, Accession numbers 1992.157 and 1992.158, in the garden, September 1, 2016. Rocket Cranne; crew.
Magdalena Abakonowicz’s pair of giant, bronze “heads,” installed beyond the “lilypads” on the northeast edge of the Garden. Photo: Gene Pittman

The Wurtele Upper Garden got a surreal transformation on September 20, as umpteen gallons of “hydroseed,” a liquid mixture of grass seed and mulch, were applied. In the photo below, the seeded section abuts the wheelchair-accessible pathway that winds up the hill from the restaurant and new entryway. At left, a ventilation duct is newly planted (and soon to be obscured by) native perennials.

Seeding the hillside offers a surreal scene, September 20, 2016. Photo: Paul Schmelzer
Seeding the hillside offers a surreal scene, September 20. Bottom left: an air vent bordered by perennial plantings. Center right: ADA pathway. 2016. Photo: Paul Schmelzer

Renovation of the Cowles Conservatory is well under way: glass walls have been removed in the first step to converting it to an open-air pavilion that will offer shelter for Garden visitors and a unique setting for weddings and events.

conservatory2
Photo: Paul Schmelzer

Meanwhile, Vineland Place is undergoing a facelift of its own: it’s being narrowed to slow traffic, ensure safer passage for pedestrians, and provide a stronger visual connection between the Wurtele Upper Garden and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

Vineland Place as seen from the Walker’s rooftop terrace, Septemer 22, 2016. Photo: Paul Schmelzer

Scheduled to be completed on October 10, the new street will feature a single lane of traffic in each direction, with turn lanes at the intersection of Vineland and Hennepin/Lyndale and westbound on Vineland at the Walker parking ramp.

View more updates on the Walker/Minneapolis Sculpture Garden renovation.

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