Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection offers a look at the Walker’s collection through the lens of some of art’s most enduring themes: landscape, the interior scene, portraiture, still life, and abstraction. We hope you will have a chance to visit Five Ways In now that the Walker has reopened, but until then, The Great Indoors is an online companion that expands on the exhibition’s theme of interior spaces in art.
The subject of the “room”—from the artist’s studio to domestic settings to public places—has captured the interest of artists throughout history, and contemporary art is no exception. As many of us remain quarantined in our homes (or are perhaps are finally venturing outside), Walker Senior Curator Siri Engberg and Curatorial Assistant Jadine Collingwood take us on a virtual tour through a conversation about works that explore how artists convey the routines, pleasures, and complexities of our lives indoors.
Alec Soth, Ronald, Nevis, Minnesota, 2007.
This photograph by Minneapolis-based photographer Alec Soth is one that I think speaks to so much of what we are all feeling in our current moment. Soth captures many of his subjects through long road trips, often striking up conversation with strangers, then, with their consent, coming away with incredible portraits in the process. Revisiting this image today, I am struck by the sense of longing and “fear of missing out” (FOMO) felt by so many teens right now. —SE
Wing Young Huie, Young Man By Window – Frogtown, 1996, silver print, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 1996.
Wing Young Huie, another Minnesota-based artist, shows us a similar subject. His photograph comes from a series in which the artist documented St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood. Many of Huie’s images capture large outdoor gatherings of people at the heart of this vibrant community. This photo, however, has a striking intimacy—I find it poignant and timeless. —JC
Jack Beal, Nude on Sofa with Red Chair, 1968, oil on canvas, purchased with matching grant from Museum Purchase Plan/National Endowment for the Arts and Art Center Acquisition Fund, 1969.
The idea of capturing subjects in a quiet moment is something we see in this 1968 painting by Jack Beal. In the 1960s, Beal gave up abstract painting in favor of using realism to depict everyday experience. The painting has an unusual perspective that makes the floor to almost seem tilt up, as if we are entering the room. The light streaming into the space gives a sense of time of day, suggesting that the subject may be enjoying a sunny day from the comfort of the indoors. —SE
Evan Baden, Lila with Nintendo DS, 2007, chromogenic print, Butler Family Fund, 2007.
In this color photography by Evan Baden, we see what feels like a scene from a film: a young girl playing a video game under her covers, probably late into the night, with the glow of the screen lighting up her face. Even though it was made in 2007, the image seems to have foretold our current moment, where electronic devices have taken over our daily lives, and young people are now “distance learning” through their screens. —JC
Sharon Lockhart, Untitled, 1996, chromogenic print, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 1997.
This large-scale photograph by LA–based artist Sharon Lockhart also has a cinematic feel. It seems to capture a voyeuristic glance of everyday life, but Lockhart actually staged this scene at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Her use of light and shadow and carefully orchestrated reflections give this image an ethereal quality, which I think surrounds the figure not only in a physical way but also a psychological one. —JC
Jeff Wall, Morning Cleaning, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona, 1999, Cibachrome transparency, fluorescent bulbs, aluminum display case, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2000.
Let’s keep going with this idea of the window—which is a theme used throughout the history of art. I love this image by Vancouver-based artist Jeff Wall. The scene is set in the cool, minimal space of this 1929 pavilion designed by modernist architect Mies van der Rohe. Though it may seem like this quiet moment was captured spontaneously, the photograph is actually meticulously staged and lit. In person, Wall’s work, which takes the form of a huge, 7x12- foot backlit lightbox, feels immersive, and draws our attention to the behind-the-scenes labor that goes into maintaining pristine architectural icons. —SE
Paul Sietsema, Empire, 2002, 16mm film (black and white, color, silent), modified projector, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2003.
The idea of staging interior scenes made me think of this work by Paul Sietsema. This is a still from the artist’s film that depicts the living room of late art critic Clement Greenberg’s New York apartment, where paintings by the famous artists he championed—such as Barnett Newman and Kenneth Noland—hung conspicuously on the walls. As the film’s title suggests, critics like Greenberg wielded great power in the post–World War II art world. To make the film, the artist made a miniature-scale model based on a 1964 photograph that appeared in Vogue, then shot the film in red-and-white negative, which gives the film a dreamlike quality. —JC
Jason Moran, STAGED: Slugs' Saloon, 2018, Commissioned by Walker Art Center, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2018.
This work is another example of that idea of making a model, but this time at a human scale. It is by jazz pianist, composer, and visual artist Jason Moran, who has made large-scale works that reimagine the interiors of historic jazz spaces. in this case, he recreates Slugs’ Saloon, an iconic dive club in New York’s East Village that was a hub for experimental jazz in the ’60s and ’70s. When it is sanding alone in a gallery, the sculpture feels like an empty theater set that evokes a lost era, but the best part is that Moran has designed this “stage” so it can be played with live musicians channeling the past into the present. —SE
Richard Haas, Gertrude Stein in Her Living Room, n.d., Masonite, wood, paint, plexiglass, ceramic, electric lightbulb and cord, ink, graphite, paint, colored pencil, watercolor on paper and wood; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Steven Gano, 1982.
I wanted to share this work that we found while searching through the Walker’s art storage for “interior” themed works we might add to the show. It is by Richard Haas, and is really wonderful and strange. It is part of a series of illuminated dioramas the artist made in miniature, each featuring the interior space of a historical figure. This one has a small window that viewers must peer through, where one sees his imagined version of Gertrude Stein’s living room, complete with tiny collaged recreations of her art collection. If you look closely, a reproduction of a Picasso portrait of the writer hangs on the back wall, highlighting Stein’s connection to the history of art. —SE
Laurie Simmons, Woman/Purple Dress/Kitchen, 1978-1987, color photograph, Jerome Foundation Purchase Fund for Emerging Artists, 1987.
I love this example of a recreated interior by artist Laurie Simmons, who is known for arranging and photographing dollhouse figurines and furniture in imagined domestic scenes. This photograph contrasts the playfulness of the toys with a sense of loneliness and isolation; the artist once remarked, “It’s interesting for me that a picture can be so colorful and so bright and so vivacious and so lonely at the same time. Where is the rest of the world, where are the other people, where’s the rest of the family?” —JC
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