The Walker Art Center’s Target Free Thursday Nights in May are highlighted by The Wave, a program of short films from China (May 4, 7 pm). The program, curated by Li Zhenhua, features 14 experimental films, showing how a new generation of media artists is sharing perspectives on the rapid transformation happening in China today. On the same night at 6 pm, are a tour and performance lab for the exhibition OPEN-ENDED (the art of engagement). Other highlights in May include performances in the OPEN-ENDED gallery by resident artists, including Gülgün Kayim and Skewed Visions (May 4, 7 pm) and Mankwe Ndosi (May 18, 7 pm); members of the Myra Melford/Dawn Saito/Oguri company offer a performance that takes its cue from their new work Knock on the Sky, which premieres in the Walker’s McGuire Theater on May 12 and 13 (May 11, 7 pm); a screening/performance of a work in progress by filmmaker Mike Siv and rapper Prach (May 11, 8 pm); a screening of Fanta Régina Narco’s The Night of Truth (La Nuit de la vérité), part of the Walker’s Global Lens series (May 11, 7:30 pm); another edition of Drawn Here: Contemporary Design in Conversation featuring Joan Soranno of Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. in conversation with Renée Cheng from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Architecture (May 18, 7 pm); a fashion show curated by Anna Lee of Ruby3 and the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC) (May 25, 7 pm); and the area premiere of the documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint, directed by Alison Chernick (May 25, 8 pm).
Target Free Thursday Nights are made possible by Target. Additional support provided by The Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Target Free Thursday Nights
May 4, 11, 18, 25
Galleries open 5–9 pm; special events follow.
Free
Thursday, May 4
OPEN-ENDED Tour and Performance Lab
Bazinet Garden Lobby, 6 pm
Free, but reservation required; call 612.375.7600.
What’s your story? How can you tell it? Engage in the art of performance using Rirkrit Tiravanija’s sculptural stage in the exhibition OPEN-ENDED (the art of engagement). Explore key questions generated by artist projects on this interactive tour, then craft a performative response.
The Wave: A program of short films from China
Cinema. 7 pm
Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk
Journalists have written thousands of columns on China’s rapid transformation; now a new generation of media artists is sharing perspectives on this transition. Curated by Li Zhenhua, this series of 14 experimental films from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou explores a range of themes, from pingpong to Christianity, personal desire to China’s revolutionary history. From Kao Kai’s look back at her generation’s idols, including Chairman Mao, Che Guevara, Bob Dylan, and Malcolm X in Summer of 1969 to Du Jie’s 22Yuan, a meditation on how one of the world’s most populous cities can contain millions of pockets of loneliness, these works express the country’s social, economic, and political changes in evocative ways that transcend journalistic fact or the limitations of language. Running time 105 minutes.
Repeat screenings: Friday–Sunday, May 5–7, shown continuously in the Target Gallery during open hours when no other events are scheduled. Free with gallery admission.
1201
Directed by Wang Ning
In this work, miscommunication and extreme repression are nuanced to shed light on the inevitability of betrayal in human relationships. 2002, China, color, video and 16mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 12 minutes.
22Yuan
Directed by Du Jie
Despite the hustle of urban life in Beijing, people there can still be lonely. 2001, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 5 minutes.
Backyard—Hey! Sun Is Rising
Directed by Yang Fudong
This dreamy, magical realism–style work about waking up and exploring the backyard includes enchanting sound by Zhou Qing, and a plot reminiscent of the Peking Opera. 2001, China, 35mm, BW, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 13 minutes.
Beautiful Cloud
Directed by Zhou Xiaohu
The theme of manipulation accounts for much in Zhou Xiaohu’s works, therefore the doll images become the most important linguistic element. 2001, China, color, video animation, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 4 minutes.
Burners
Directed by Cao Fei
This very short film explores desire, fantasizes about revolution and liberty, and depicts intellectual rather than physical choices. 2003, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 1 minute.
Danam
Directed by Zhang Dan and Chen Man
This piece was created for Danam.org and tests new technologies by combining photography, video, graphic design, and 3-D design. 2003, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 1 minute.
Fire
Directed by Wu Ershan
In this is a trial by fire, originally made for the Mearzmusik festival in Berlin, the artist plays with questions of life or death. Music by Feng Jiangzhou. 2002, China, color, in Mandarin with English subtitles, video, 5 minutes.
Jerks Don’t Say Fuck
Directed by Zhao Liang
China’s Tiananmen Square offers a real and conceptual frame for the country’s ever-evolving revolutionary history—from 1949 to 1989 to the present. The film uses remixed footage of military celebrations in the square cut to a sound track by the Beijing band Sick Doctors; music composed by Feng Jiangzhou. 2000, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 5 minutes.
Me
Directed by Wu Quan
This home movie explores the reality of becoming a father. 2002, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 12 minutes.
Mo Xi Town
Directed by Shi Qing
Mo Xi—a town in which different ethnic groups live together and where the odd combination of Christian churches built the style of ancient Chinese buildings stand side by side with deserted luxury hotels—is the setting for this film about four young Tibetan men, snorkel equipment in hand, who meet by chance as they anxiously await the flood. 2003, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 12 minutes.
News dance
Directed by 8GG
8GG (artists Jia Haiqing and Fu Yu), using randomly recorded CCTV (Central China TV) news broadcasts as source material, create a composition of frames and rhythms that reorders and animates the dullness of daily life. 2002, China, color, video, in Mandarin, 3 minutes.
Ping Pong
Directed by Qiu Zhijie
Following children training for China’s national sport, this documentary tells how ping-pong was introduced into the country and its political history—and how it has become an official tool to control people’s minds and bodies. 1997, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 22 minutes.
Summer of 1969
Directed by Cao Kai
Born in 1969, Cao Kai sees his birth year as an exciting moment in history that influenced his generation deeply. This film looks back at an odd list of idols, including Mao Tse-tung, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King Jr., Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Malcolm X, Pol Pot, and John Lennon, and connects China’s Red Guards with Woodstock, the hippies, Latin American guerrillas, Vietnamese communists, and political refugees from Prague. 2002, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 7 minutes.
Sing With Me
Directed by Zheng Yunhan
Heroic music from the 1960s and 1970s backs up this look at coal miners. Inspired by his father, who worked in the mines, Zheng Yunhan tries to find a positive way to look at the ironic life of the Chinese. 2004, China, color, video, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 3 minutes.
The Wave: A program of short films from China is made possible by generous support from the Bush Foundation.
Resident Artist: Gülgün Kayim and Skewed Visions
Target Gallery, 7 pm
Free tickets available from 6 pm in the Cargill Lounge
Gülgün Kayim is an interdisciplinary artist creating innovative performance, merging elements of space with art installation and movement. She is a founder and Co-Artistic/Managing Director of Skewed Visions, a Minneapolis-based, site-specific performance company which was voted 2004 Artists of Year by City Pages. Kayim’s work with Skewed Visions includes writing, adapting, directing, and designing elements of The Car and The House—both parts of The City Itself Trilogy (2005), voted as one of the “10 Best Experimental Performances” by City Pages and the Star Tribune. Kayim has also written, designed, and directed many other pieces for the company, including The Orange Grove (2003), The Eye in the Door, part two: Breakfast of Champions (1998), and Untitled #1 (1998) at various non-theater venues around the Twin Cities.
Kayim will present abstractions and moods from her new work, The Hidden Room, currently in performance as part of Days and Nights, an immersive multimedia performance series made for the old Grain Belt Office Building in Northeast Minneapolis. Set in the many rooms of the empty, labyrinth-like Grain Belt Office building, The Hidden Room utilizes puppetry, movement, and installation to evoke the life and art of Jewish/Polish writer/visual artist/Holocaust victim Bruno Schulz.
Thursday, May 11
Performance: Myra Melford/Dawn Saito/Michael Haberz
Target Gallery, 7 pm
Join members of the Myra Melford/Dawn Saito/Oguri company for a performance that takes its cue from their new work Knock on the Sky, which premieres in the Walker’s McGuire Theater on May 12 and 13.
Screening/Performance: Mike Siv and Prach (Work-in-Progress)
Target Gallery, 8 pm
Free tickets available from 6 pm in the Cargill Lounge
Repeat Screening/Performance: Friday, May 12, 7 pm
Join Mike Siv as he presents his short documentary film Struggle and Flow: In 9 Tracks, about Cambodian American rapper Prach. Siv uses Prach’s own words and music to tell the story of his birth in a concentration camp in Cambodia, his arrival in America, growing up in the housing projects of Long Beach, and his life as a rapper. A live performance by Prach and a discussion with the filmmaker and Spencer Nakasako follows.
Film: Global Lens
The Night of Truth (La Nuit de la vérité)
Directed by Fanta Régina Narco
Introduced by Victoria Coifman, assistant professor, University of Minnesota
Cinema, 7:30 pm
Free tickets available from 6:30 pm at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk
In her debut feature film, the first by a woman from Burkina Faso, Fanta Régina Narco crafts a satirical and remarkably funny look at the capacity for forgiveness despite years of abuse. After a decade of genocidal civil war, two factions attempt a truce one evening. “Narco has a fine eye for intimate drama and for finding the universal in the particular” (Variety). 2004, Burkina Faso/France, color, 35mm, in French/Mooré/Dioula with English subtitles, 100 minutes.
Thursday, May 18
Resident Artist: Mankwe Ndosi
Target Gallery, 7 pm
Join Mankwe Ndosi and a group of young artist/activists as they respond to artworks in the gallery through movement, poetry, spoken word, rant, rap, and music.
Drawn Here: Contemporary Design in Conversation
Joan Soranno of HGA in conversation with Renée Cheng
Cinema, 7 pm
Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk
Specializing in the design of cultural institutions, Joan Soranno, a vice president at Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA), has garnered critical acclaim for her designs, which range from the elegantly proportioned, light-filled sanctuary of the Bigelow Chapel in nearby New Brighton to the dynamically poised forms that comprise the University of Minnesota’s Barbara Barker Center for Dance and the new University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks. Renée Cheng is head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Minnesota.
Thursday, May 25
Fashion Show
Free tickets available from 6 pm in the Cargill Lounge
Target Gallery, 7 pm
A slew of local designers show their stuff onstage and in the galleries. Groove to the sounds of a DJ while checking out what you should have/could have worn to your prom. Curated by Anna Lee of Ruby3 and the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC).
Teen Programs are made possible by generous support from the Surdna Foundation and Best Buy Children’s Foundation.
Matthew Barney: No Restraint
Directed by Alison Chernick
Free tickets available from 7 pm at the Bazinet Lobby desk
Cinema, 8 pm
Chernick investigates Matthew Barney’s influences and process as he develops the film Drawing Restraint 9. In his most complicated film to date, Barney tackles the logistical and artistic challenges. From hoisting 45,000 pounds of petroleum jelly into a mold on a Japanese whaling vessel to directing and collaborating with Björk, this is rare behind-the-scenes footage of Barney at work. Chernick also interviews with those who know him best (including both his father and former Walker Chief Curator Richard Flood), which helps to demystify Barney’s new mythology. 2006, U.S./France, color, video, 70 minutes.
