Ship shapes: Art of the Walker touring crate

For much of its history, the Walker has organized exhibitions that have toured to national and international venues, where more than 3.5 million people have experienced them. And this fall is a particularly auspicious time for traveling shows: next weekend, the Walker premieres the exhibition House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective before it leaves for MASSMoCA and venues in Europe and Asia; and on November 19, Walker-organized shows of work by Chuck Close and Kiki Smith open simultaneously at SFMOMA (Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980–2005, opens at the Walker in February).

But before these shows begin their flights (or floats) to world venues, they’re packed in custom-built shipping crates adorned with an original emblem designed by Walker staff. Created with stencils and on display in the stairwell of our temporary offices at One Groveland Terrace, these logos began in 1993 when the show In the Spirit of Fluxus went on tour; the crate bore a stencil playing off artist Ben Vautier‘s line “Art is easy.” Now, more than 20 touring exhibitions later, we open a show of Huang Yong Ping’s work with a tour-crate bearing the likeness of one the show’s key works, a 2,000-pound concrete elephant with a tiger on its back, called 11 June 2002–The Nightmare of George V. Installation technician Phil Docken designed the logo after receiving two drawings, sent by a registrar in Paris, on the correct and incorrect ways to lift the hulking pachyderm (the image, above, shows the wrong way to hoist the animal: “Non!”)

Other logos reference works in the exhibition, concepts of participating artists, or inside jokes among Program Services staff. (The emblem for Let’s Entertain blurts “Danger!,” the crew’s nickname for exhibition curator Philippe Vergne, and the insignia for How Latitudes Become Forms shows a globe with a snowflake marking the exhibition’s chilly starting point–hey, Minnesota is global, too!). A sampling of other crate art, with logo designer and tour duration noted:

In the Spirit of Fluxus

1993–1996

Duchamp’s Leg

1994–1996

Bruce Nauman

1993–1995

Joseph Beuys Multiples

1997–2000

Ed Ruscha: Editions, 1959–1999

1999–2001

2000BC: THE BRUCE CONNER STORY II

1999–2001

Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera, 1962–1972

2001–2003

American Tableux: Selections from the Collection of the Walker Art Center

2001–2005

How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age

2003–2005

The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960–1982

2003–2005

For more on Walker exhibitions, visit Collections + Resources or the Walker calendar.

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