“We’ve been waiting for master Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron to leave their mark on an American city. The place: Minneapolis. The time: very definitely now.” —Newsweek
The Walker Art Center opens its expanded facility and the Twin Cities’ newest cultural icon on Sunday, April 17, 2005. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron, the new Walker significantly enhances the Walker’s ability to commission and present today’s most innovative visual, performing, and media artists from around the globe. Giving physical form to a unique multidisciplinary model and doubling the Walker’s size, the expansion includes gallery space; the region’s largest library of contemporary art; new interactive educational lounges; an intimate 385-seat theater; a refurbished Cinema; street-level and roof-top terraces and plazas; lounges for both small and large groups to gather; 20.21, a fine-dining restaurant, and Gallery 8 Café, operated by internationally acclaimed chef Wolfgang Puck; and underground parking. In addition, a new skyspace by James Turrell, sited on greenspace that will become a new four-acre park in the project’s second phase, complements the Walker’s 11-acre Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Opening-weekend festivities feature an exclusive
Members’ Preview Party
from 8 pm–1 am, Saturday, April 16, and a daylong
Grand-opening Celebration
, open to the public, from 9 am–9 pm Sunday, April 17. On Saturday, Walker members will be among the first to see seven new exhibitions showcasing the collection; the first music and dance performances in the William and Nadine McGuire Theater; and screenings in the Walker Cinema. In addition, building tours will take place and visitors will enjoy food and drink by Wolfgang Puck. Sunday’s Grand-opening features art-making in the new Art Lab; performances beginning with a solo piano concert by Philip Glass and concluding with the mesmerizing ensemble Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali from Pakistan; and ongoing screenings highlighting cinema from the past century. A complete schedule of opening-day events follows.
Design for the New Walker
The design for the new Walker integrates its existing building with an expanded campus, both respecting the integrity of architect Edward Larrabee Barnes’ original design and engaging the surrounding neighborhood. The new Walker links distinct areas of the city—natural, residential, and metropolitan—physically and metaphorically connecting the urban downtown with Minneapolis’ Uptown communities and neighborhoods. Along Hennepin Avenue, the city’s most active thoroughfare, the grade of the street is mirrored by the slope of the Walker’s new General Mills Hennepin Lounge, blurring the distinction between inside and out. The new Walker creates a civic and social gathering space, drawing visitors not only for presentations, educational events, and community activities, but also discussion and relaxation. Architects Herzog & de Meuron, and the Minneapolis-based architectural firm Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc., collaborated with the Walker on the site plan and design. Landscape architect Michel Desvigne, known for his innovative landscape designs throughout Europe, is designing a new four-acre public park that in the project’s second phase will link the Walker with the existing Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Noted lighting designer Arnold Chan, founder of Isometrix Lighting + Design, is part of the project team.
A striking element of the new design is a 130,000-square-foot south wing, which houses the Walker’s new William and Nadine McGuire Theater, as well as a new Walker Shop, event space, and Wolfgang Puck-operated restaurant. The exterior of the south wing is covered with embossed aluminum mesh panels that reflect natural light, actively mirroring changing weather conditions and shifting appearance as visitors, pedestrians, and drivers travel past the building. Asymmetric windows punctuate the new building’s façade, revealing activity inside the Walker to passersby and connecting visitors to the life of the street. A 60-foot-long dynamic video projection on the etched-glass portion of the Hennepin façade heralds the Walker’s exhibitions and programs. A new entrance plaza to the east, along Hennepin Avenue, opens the Walker to the city and yields dramatic vistas onto the downtown skyline.
Grand-opening Celebration
Sunday, April 17, 9 am-9 pm
Admission $5 (free for members and children 12 and under). Special admission available on day of event only.
Events marked (*) require a separate $5 ticket for admission (available online at walkerart.org/tickets or by calling 612.375.7600).
In the Galleries
The Walker’s decades-long emphasis on commissioning and collecting innovative works by artists from around the world, along with its exceptional record of supporting and acquiring emerging and mid-career artists, distinguishes its collections from those of other institutions. The Walker’s collection has increased dramatically since it moved to its current site in 1971, and has grown 40 percent in the last decade alone.
The inaugural installations in the new Walker highlight this remarkable collection and include pieces that have rarely or never been exhibited. Among the inaugural installations are exhibitions that provide a chronological perspective on the artistic developments of the last 60 years, as well as galleries that explore evolving ideas, themes, and practices in contemporary art.
The installation of the Walker Art Center’s collection is made possible by
The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.
Walker Collection – Inaugural Exhibitions
All inaugural exhibitions will be on view on April 17 when the new Walker opens to the public.
Quartet: Johns, Kelly, Mitchell, Motherwell
Through July 3, 2005
Four artists who share a long history with the Walker—Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Joan Mitchell, and Robert Motherwell—are featured in an exhibition of their paintings, sculptures, drawings, and editions from the Walker’s collection.
Quartet: Barney, Gober, Levine, Walker
Through November 13, 2005
Four artists with whom the Walker has developed long-term relationships—Matthew Barney, Robert Gober, Sherrie Levine, and Kara Walker—have designed installations of their works drawn from the Walker’s collection.
Shadowland: An Exhibition as a Film
Through September 11, 2005
This installation of works from the Walker’s collection looks at how photographic and moving images have radically affected the nature of making art and exhibitions. Included are works by Doug Aitken, Chantal Akerman, Rineke Dijkstra, Fischli and Weiss, Felix Gonzalex-Torres, Craigie Horsfield, Derek Jarman, Bruce Nauman, Philippe Parreno, and Gerhard Richter.
Major support for Shadowland: An Exhibition as a Film has been provided by Atari and Best Buy.
Urban Cocktail
Through July 17, 2005
Focusing on an international and multigenerational roster of artists, including John Bock, Sheela Gowda, Thomas Hirschhorn, Mike Kelley, Jac Leirner, Mark Luyten, Kerry James Marshall, Rivane Neuenschwander, and Nari Ward, this exhibition features sculptures, collages, drawings, and photographs from the Walker’s collection that parallel the tension and the sensuality of street and urban culture.
The Shape of Time
Through August 3, 2008
A suite of three contiguous galleries unfolds a history of postwar modernism and its alternatives—among them Fluxus, Gutai, Viennese Actionism, and Arte Povera—with works from the Walker’s collection. The Walker has been actively collecting artists that represent “alternatives” to classic modernism; many of these works will be displayed for the first time in this exhibition. Artists represented include Bruce Conner, Lucio Fontana, Robert Gober, Yves Klein, Mario Merz, Barnett Newman, Yoko Ono, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Hannah Wilke, and Christopher Wool. The installation also includes an Andy Warhol painting and examples of all of his handpainted grocery carton boxes.
Mythologies
Through February 10, 2008
Keynote paintings, sculptures, photographs, and drawings from the Walker’s collection reveal how works by such artists as Joseph Beuys, Mary Esch, Katharina Fritsch, Anselm Kiefer, Paul McCarthy, Julie Mehretu, Sigmar Polke, Charles Ray, and Paul Thek, evoke and question historical and contemporary mythologies.
Elemental
Through July 9, 2006
Minimalism, one of the strongest areas of the Walker’s collection, will be showcased in an installation of works spanning its very early antecedents to works by artists who have opened up the discourse surrounding the movement. Artists represented include Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and Frank Stella.
New Outdoor Sculpture by James Turrell
Commissioned by the Walker, artist James Turrell’s skyspace work, Sky Pesher, is sited outdoors on greenspace that will become a new four-acre park in the project’s second phase. This 23-foot-square underground room features seating for 30 people to view the changing sky and atmospheric changes through an 11-foot-square opening in the ceiling. Viewed from above ground, the piece resembles a spare, minimalist cube resting on the landscape.
Performances in the William and Nadine McGuire Theater
Opening-day Performances
Events marked (*) require a separate $5 ticket for admission.
Music
Philip Glass, Etudes*
11 am, McGuire Theater
America’s best known living classical composer comes full circle with the Walker: in 1970, his Minneapolis performance celebrated the new building, and he now inaugurates the McGuire Theater with a solo piano concert of his own Etudes.
Dance
Mugiyono Kasido: Bagaspati (From the Soul of the Sun) (U.S. debut)
1 pm, McGuire Theater
Originally trained as a classical Javanese court dancer, Mugiyono has emerged as one of the most powerful new voices in Asian contemporary dance. He performs his singular solo work Bagaspati, an intense, ritualistic piece of swirling movement and sonic ambience.
Performance
Meredith Monk with Theo Bleckmann*
3 pm, McGuire Theater
For 40 years Meredith Monk’s perception-shifting works of theater, shining compositions, films, and extraordinary singing have redefined the notion of the multidisciplinary artist. Her long relationship with the Walker is celebrated for this historic opening in a performance featuring selections from Facing North. Monk will be joined by longtime collaborator Theo Bleckmann.
Music/Performance
New Humans
4 pm and 7 pm, Skyline Room
New York City’s New Humans collective perform living installations combining avant-rock, experimental noise, and minimalist, op-art graphics that translate visual patterns into sound.
Music
Steve Tibbetts and Choying Drolma with guest percussionist Marc Anderson*
6 pm, McGuire Theater
Minnesota electric guitarist Steve Tibbetts beautifully complements Tibetan Buddhist nun Choying Drolma’s haunting chants to create works of ethereal power and spiritual grace.
Music
Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali*
8 pm, McGuire Theater
A memorable and mesmerizing close to the weekend with this 12-member ensemble of singers and percussionists from Pakistan who perform an enrapturing form of Islamic sufi music called Qawwali. Originally popularized in the West by the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, today it is carried forth by his proud torch-bearing nephews Rizwan and Muazzam Ali Khan.
Film/Video Screenings in the Walker Cinema
Opening-day Screenings
A Century of Film from the Edmond R. Ruben Film and Video Study Collection
9 am to 9 pm, Walker Cinema
All screenings are free with gallery admission, no screening tickets required.
A condensed history of cinema will unfurl during this daylong screening featuring highlights of cinema, drawn from the Edmond R. Ruben Film and Video Study Collection. On view will be silent films, including early Soviet-era classics, French Surrealist films, and key American experimental works.
9 am: Lumiére Program, directed by Auguste and Louis Lumiére, 10 minutes, 1895
9:10 am: A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune), directed by George Méliès, 14 minutes, 1902
9:24 am: The Revenge of a Kinematograph Cameraman (Miest kinooperatora), directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz, 12 minutes, 1912
9:36 am: Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin), directed by Sergei Eisenstein, 67 minutes, 1925
10:43 am: The Blood of a Poet (Le sang d’un poète), directed by Jean Cocteau, 51 minutes, 1930
11:34 am: Zero for Conduct (Zéro de Conduite), directed by Jean Vigo, 44 minutes, 1933
12:20 pm: L’Atalante, directed by Jean Vigo, 89 minutes, 1934
1:49 pm: Meshes of the Afternoon, directed by Maya Deren, 18 minutes, 1943
2:07 pm: Open City (Roma, città a perta), directed by Roberto Rossellini, 103 minutes, 1945
3:50 pm: In the Street, directed by Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee, 12 minutes, 1948
4:02 pm: Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (Les vacances de M. Hulot), directed by Jacques Tati, 85 minutes, 1953
5:27 pm: Scorpio Rising, directed by Kenneth Anger, 29 minutes, 1964
5:57 pm: Castro Street, directed by Bruce Baillie, 10 minutes, 1966
6:07 pm: Hold Me While I’m Naked, directed by George Kuchar, 17 minutes, 1966
6:24 pm: Broken English, directed by Derek Jarman, 12 minutes, 1979
6:36 pm: The Angelic Conversation, directed by Derek Jarman, 78 minutes, 1985
7:54 pm: Odilon Redon (or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity), directed by Guy Maddin, 6 minutes, 1995
8 pm: Lost Book Found, directed by Jem Cohen, 34 minutes, 1996
8:34 pm: Absence Stronger Than Presence, directed by Benita Raphan, 7 minutes, 1996
8:42 pm: 2 + 2, directed by Benita Raphan, 11 minutes, 2002
8:53 pm: The Critical Path, directed by Benita Raphan, 13 minutes, 2004
In the Lecture Room
Ericka Beckman’s Frame UP
9 am-9 pm, Lecture Room
Commissioned by the Walker, Ericka Beckman’s Frame UP is the inaugural work in the refurbished Lecture Room. As artist-in-residence during the construction of the new Walker, Beckman had the opportunity to shoot hours of footage between August 2003 and November 2004. This documentation becomes the framework for a video/pinball game that plays on two screens. The Walker construction zone, as filmed by Beckman, becomes a complex, three-dimensional platform for the interaction of the off-screen players and their squads of construction workers as the game progresses. Beckman, using her unique style of animation in conjunction with live footage, creates a multilayered visual experience that can be viewed as a game, as choreography, or simply watching the construction workers build the new Walker.
Best Buy Film/Video Bay
A place to investigate the genesis of film animation. Featured are examples of pioneering cel animation from Winsor McCay [Sinking of the Lusitania (1919) and Little Nemo (1909)], early computer animation [John Whitney’s Arabesque (1975) and James Whitney’s Lapis (1963-66)], and Sally Cruikshank’s wild cel animations [Make Me Psychic (1978) and Quasi at the Quackedero (1975)]. All films are from the Walker’s Edmond R. Ruben film collection.
Education & Community Programs
Opening-day Programs
Building and Gallery Tours
Tours begin every hour between 11 am and 8 pm.
Architectural tours guide visitors through the expanded Walker Art Center.
Gallery tours focus on the inaugural exhibitions showcasing the Walker collection.
Drop-In Art Labs
Greetings from the Walker Art Center
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 11 am-6 pm
Drop in at the new Art Lab anytime to create mail-art inspired by the new Walker, then sign, seal, and send to your family and friends.
Interactive Educational Spaces
Best Buy Info Lounge
One of the main tools being developed to deliver interpretive material in the new facility is a custom-designed installation and interface called the Dialog table. The design for the table was selected through an international design competition in 2002. Different from the more standard terminal or kiosk approach to gallery-based technology installations, Dialog is designed as a table to promote social interactions among visitors while providing access to the Walker’s multidisciplinary collections and related interpretive information. Also unique to the table is its gesture recognition interface. Differing from traditional touch screens, mice, and trackballs, this system uses video-based tracking of the users’ hands above to give the illusion that their cast shadows are manipulating the objects, information, and tools displayed on the tables’ rear projection displays. This abandonment of the physical interface allows multiple users to simultaneously manipulate the screen’s contents and to potentially work in collaboration.
Best Buy Arcade
The Best Buy Arcade is a new educational space featuring changing interactive activities for discovering more about contemporary art and artists, making connections to the Walker’s collections and artistic programs, and exploring the evolution of ideas in art and culture. The Arcade features participatory experiences that are playful, varied, and dynamic, encouraging a relaxed and open-minded attitude for learning more about contemporary art.
In its inaugural installation, visitors can converse about contemporary art and other topics with Dolphin Oracle II, a virtual dolphin with an artificial intelligence capability designed by artists Piotr Szyhalski and Richard Shelton. Customized for its Walker debut, visitors—using a keyboard input—can pose questions to the Dolphin, which, in turn, responds with both statements and conversational inquiries of its own.
Art on Call
Art on Call, a new model for the museum audio guide, allows Walker visitors to access information on specific works of art or exhibitions using their personal cell phone. Art on Call provides greater access to a wide range of information, from objects in the Walker’s collection, to artists’ interviews, to a daily schedule of activities. Visitors will be able to customize their experiences and access Walker resources according to their own interests and learning styles. Examples include being able to hear a curator’s interpretation of an artwork on view; sampling music by a jazz musician scheduled to perform in the Walker’s new theater and purchasing tickets for the event, if desired; taking an architectural tour of the new facility enhanced by interview excerpts from architect Jacques Herzog whose Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron designed the Walker expansion; or guiding a child through a look-and-find game in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Art on Call is made possible by generous support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Project Team
Herzog & de Meuron
have attracted critical praise for their architectural work around the world and have designed a wide variety of public and private buildings, including museums, residences, apartment buildings, libraries, schools, a sports complex, and office buildings. Their projects include London’s Tate Modern Bankside, Dominus Winery in Northern California’s Napa Valley, and Prada Epicenter Store in Tokyo, Japan. They are the architects for the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, currently under construction. In 2001, Herzog & de Meuron were the winners of the Pritzker Prize, often called “the Nobel of architecture.”
Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc.
, based in Minneapolis, have more than 35 years of experience in designing museum buildings throughout the United States and are the local architects for the creation of the new Walker. The firm has been associated with the Walker since 1978 and was involved in the Walker’s 1984 expansion.
Michel Desvigne
is the recipient of the Medal of the French Academy of Architecture (2000) and has taught at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. His projects include the Millennium Park in London’s Greenwich Peninsula and large public parks surrounding the Centraal Museum of Utrecht, the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, and Fort Thungen Museum of Modern Art in Kirchberg, Luxembourg.
Arnold Chan
founded his London-based firm Isometrix Lighting + Design in 1984. Trained as an architect at London’s Architectural Association, Chan is recognized for his innovative and versatile approach to lighting design. His projects include the Grand Opera de Lyon (Jean Nouvel, architect); Calvin Klein, Tokyo (John Pawson, architect); Kenzo, London (David Chipperfield, architect); Philippe Starck-designed Ian Schrager hotels in London, Miami, and Los Angeles; and numerous other projects.
Walker Art Center programming is made possible by its Premier Partners: Best Buy, General Mills, Target, Star Tribune, and WCCO-TV.
