The Walker Art Center’s Target Free Thursday Nights in November feature events inspired by the exhibition House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective, including a lecture on current issues facing China by journalist Howard French, on Thursday, November 3, at 7 pm. Also, the Walker book club, the Artist’s Bookshelf, returns with discussions on Dai Sijie’s Mr. Muo’s Traveling Couch, Thursday, November 3, 7 pm. Other highlights in November include gallery tours; a gallery talk on the use of animals in the artwork of Huang Yong Ping, Thursday, November 10, 7 pm; a Free Verse event with poet Alice Notley, Thursday, November 10, 7 pm; and Games of Chance, an art lab activity inspired by the Huang Yong Ping exhibition, Thursday, November 17, 6–9 pm.
Target Free Thursday Nights are made possible by Target.
Target Free Thursday Nights
November 3, 10, 17, and 24
Galleries open 5–9 pm; special events follow.
Free
Thursday, November 3
Gallery tour, 6 pm
Howard French: On China and the West
Cinema, 7 pm
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk starting at 6 pm.
In his recent book, A Continent for the Taking, Howard French provides an account of the disastrous consequences of the fateful, centuries-old encounter between Africa and the West. Raised in Washington D.C. and the Ivory Coast, French worked as a university lecturer before joining the press to report on Africa in the 1980s. Now a senior writer for the New York Times living in Shanghai, he reports on the ever-shifting politics of the world’s fasted growing economy: China. Join French for a lecture on the key issues facing China at a time of great economic and cultural transition, and the connections between the relationship of the West to the “lost” continent of Africa and to the rising superpower of the East.
Since 1986, French has reported for the Times from Central America, the Caribbean, West and Central Africa, Japan, Korea, and now China. He also maintains a Web site, howardwfrench.com, with writings, photographs from his travels, music reviews, and recommended reading lists.
The Artist’s Bookshelf, 7 pm
Conference Room
Participation is free, but space is limited and reservations are required. Call 612.375.7600.
House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective introduces viewers to the work of this Chinese-born, Paris-based artist who reconsiders ideas about national identity and cultural divisions between East and West. To echo these questions, The Artist’s Bookshelf looks to Dai Sijie’s newest novel, Mr. Muo’s Traveling Couch in which a complex series of cultural collisions results from the journey of the European-educated protagonist (a convert to psychoanalysis) to his native China.
Find this book in the Walker Shop, The Friends of MPL Bookstore, or check out a copy at a Minneapolis Public Library. www.mplib.org.
Presented in partnership with The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library.
Thursday, November 10
Gallery tour, 6 pm
Free Verse: Alice Notley, 7 pm
Cinema
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk starting at 6 pm.
“Alice Notley’s verse has a caustic swish, the intimacy of a vivisectionist on the contemporary body politic . . . Disobedience does what only the best poetry can do in times like these: surprise, denounce, dissent.” So reads the Judge’s Citation for Notley’s volume of poetry that claimed the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2002 as the International Winner. A prominent member of the “second generation” New York School of poets, Notley uses writing and art to respond to a broad spectrum of American culture from her permanent residence in Paris. Her experiments with poetic forms and free verse have won her widespread acclaim. Her numerous collections of poetry include Margaret and Dusty, The Descent of Alette, and Mysteries of Small Houses. Once married to the late poet Ted Berrigan, she also edited the just-published Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan with their two sons.
Free Verse is co-sponsored by Rain Taxi Review of Books.
Gallery Talk Mythologizing Animals, 7 pm
Bazinet Garden Lobby
The first in a two-part series of talks on animal imagery and mythology features art historian Carol Brash discussing the symbols and animals referenced in Huang Yong Ping’s work.
Tuesday, November 15
Part Two: Conceptualizing Nature
Bell Museum of Natural History, 7 pm
Animals have been observed by both artists and scientists in their attempts to understand the patterns and processes of nature. The exhibition Visions of Nature: The World of Walter Anderson and the Bell’s collection of dioramas both depict animals as seen in their natural environments. Join Bell Museum curator Don Luce and art historian Robert Silberman for a discussion of these exhibitions as they relate to a distinctly American conceptualization and identity with nature.
Thursday, November 17
Gallery tour, 6 pm
Games of Chance, 6–9 pm
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab
Huang Yong Ping made 4 paintings created according to random instructions (1985) with a roulette wheel derived from the Chinese compass first used in 12th century BC. Using a multi-disc wheel constructed in a similar fashion, create your own work of art by chance.
Thursday, November 24
Gallery tour, 6 pm
