A sweeping look at the Walker Art Center’s paintings collection, displayed floor to ceiling in a salon style inspired by the 1920s galleries of museum founder Thomas Barlow Walker, will be presented in
Benches & Binoculars
, on view November 21, 2009–August 15, 2010. In a large-scale and densely hung installation, organized by chief curator Darsie Alexander and curator Elizabeth Carpenter, visitors will encounter unpredictable juxtapositions and side-by-side pairings of more than 120 works mirroring the twists and eccentricities found in T.B. Walker’s personal collection as well as the serendipity and uncanny coincidences that emerge in the present-day storage areas housing the collection. Many works have not been seen for decades, and a number of surprises (as well as a few old friends) make their 21st-century debut here. Some have served as centerpieces of key monographic exhibitions, and are locally as well as internationally renowned. Others are more modest in appearance, subject to the tides of changing taste and practice. All were, at least once, contemporary.
Highlighting the exhibition is the return of Franz Marc’s Die grossen blauen Pferde (The Large Blue Horses) (1911), long considered a masterpiece of the Walker’s collection, and Edward Hopper’s mysterious Office at Night (1940), one of the artist’s best-known works. Included among the many works exhibited will be Jim Dine’s My Studio # One: The Vagaries of Painting “These are sadder pictures” (1978); Chuck Close’s Big Self-Portrait (1967–1968); Georgia O’Keeffe’s Lake George Barns (1926); Eleanore de Laittre’s Squares (1946); Louis Eilshemius’ Hymn to Nature (1919); Lyonel Feininger’s Barfüsserkirche II (Church of the Minorites II) (1926); Saul Fletcher’s Untitled (painting II) (2005); Sherrie Levine’s Untitled (after Egon Schiele) (1984); Alice Neel’s Charlotte Willard (1967); Charles Sheeler’s Midwest (1954); Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait (1978); and Carl L. Boeckman’s Portrait of Thomas Barlow Walker (circa 1915).
Displaying artworks salon style is markedly different from the minimalist aesthetic that defines the look of today’s contemporary and modern museums. This is a style the Walker has also at times adopted, but just as frequently contradicted or subverted. Recent solo exhibitions like The Quick and the Dead and Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis, for example, revealed strategies that turned the galleries into immersive environments for both artworks and ideas.
Choosing salon style as a mode of exhibition is something of an homage to the nature of the institution itself—one of a few places where autonomous works and programs, with different audiences and disparate histories, coexist and frequently overlap. The Walker’s mix of live performing arts events, film and video screenings, and gallery exhibitions, in addition to various educational programs, sets up a plethora of opportunities that keeps the offerings fresh and unpredictable. Benches & Binoculars seeks to create a similarly divergent platform for discovering new relationships between works in the collection. Over the course of the exhibition, programs and activities will offer opportunities to investigate ideas at play within the exhibition, delving into the ways in which personal impressions assign kinships and distinctions among works on view. The gallery space of the exhibition will feature platform seating and viewing binoculars as well as an interactive touch-screen map where visitors can select works from a digital version of the installation to access more information.
As an extension of the concurrently running cross-disciplinary collections exhibition Event Horizon, whose content will rotate during its three-year run, Benches & Binoculars will also change over time. As new works appear and others return to the vaults, return visits are important—and probably necessary. And yet even with a single visit, browsing provides its own kind of pleasure and freedom, as well as a distinctive view of the Walker’s history—as it no doubt did in T.B. Walker’s own day.
RELATED EVENTS
Opening Weekend
Walker After Hours Preview Party
Event Horizon and Benches & Binoculars
Friday, November 20, 9 pm–12 midnight
$35 ($25 Walker members)
Tickets: walkerart.org/tickets or 612.375.7600.
Celebrate the opening of two exhibitions showcasing the Walker collections. Preview the shows and enjoy cocktails, complimentary Wolfgang Puck appetizers, a cameo appearance by percussionist Dafnis Prieto and dancer Judith Sanchez Ruiz, music by Lookbook and DJ Scott Stulen, a curatorial art lab activity, screenings of Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising, and Party People Pictures.
New members receive one free party ticket (or other premium) for joining, while supplies last.
Walker After Hours sponsored by Target.
Target Free Thursday Nights
Thursday, December 10
Tour
Event Horizon and Benches & Binoculars with Darsie Alexander, 7 pm
Chief curator Darsie Alexander leads visitors through the newest collection exhibitions.
Thursday, January 7
The Inquisition: “Art is Fun: Quiz Party Proves It,” 7 pm
Perlman Gallery
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk from 6 pm
Space is limited.
In 1940, the Walker hosted the Inquisition, A Quiz Forum on the Arts that tested contestants on their range of art-historical knowledge and expertise. Letters, photographs, and articles from the archives create a picture of an event that was a lighthearted approach to the heavyweight challenges of modern art. Join us for this spirited revival in which Walker curators and special guests will be challenged on their knowledge of art, the institution, and a motley range of cultural topics in between. With help from the audience, we will uncover surprising secrets from the Walker vaults, demand on-the-spot interpretations, proffer elusive facts, and discuss moot issues in an attempt to turn art expertise on its head. All are encouraged to submit questions, facts, and topics in advance at walkerart.org/inquisition/. Prizes will be awarded and egos will be bruised.
Thursday, February 11
The Inquisition: “Art is Fun: Quiz Party Proves It,” 7 pm
Perlman Gallery
See January 7.
Thursday, March 4
The Inquisition: “Art is Fun: Quiz Party Proves It,” 7 pm
Perlman Gallery
See January 7.
Target Free Thursday Nights sponsored by Target.
Open House
Wall–to–Wall Walker: A 10-Hour Open House
Saturday, December 5, 10 am–8 pm, Free
Join us for a daylong celebration of all things Walker: music, film, performance, and an array of artworks from the new collection exhibitions Event Horizon and Benches & Binoculars. Come early for family fun; stay late with friends and enjoy gallery tours, cocktails, dinner, film in the Cinema, or a performance in the McGuire Theater.
Gallery Tours
3–7 pm on the hour, Free
Join Walker tour guides for special mini-tours of Event Horizon and Benches & Binoculars.
Free First Saturdays Are for Families!
The Big Event
Saturday, December 5, 10 am–3 pm, Free
Celebrate art, music, film, performance, and much more at this all-day (and into the night!) open-house extravaganza.
Performance: Erik Friedlander, 1 pm
Jazz cellist Friedlander combines inventive music with travel stories and images created by his renowned photographer father.
Free First Saturday is sponsored by Ameriprise Financial. Program support by Medtronic Foundation. As part of the Walker Art Center’s Raising Creative Kids Initiative, additional support is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Gallery Tours
Sunday, December 6, 2 pm
Saturday, December 12, 2 pm
Thursday, December 17, 2 pm
Friday, December 18, 2 pm
Sunday, December 20, 2 pm
Sunday, December 27, 2 pm
Sunday, January 3, 2 pm
Saturday, January 9, 2 pm
Friday, January 15, 2 pm
Thursday, January 21, 2 pm
Thursday, January 28, 2 pm
Sunday, January 31, 2 pm
Thursday, February 4, 2 pm
Thursday, February 11, 2 pm
Saturday, February 13, 2 pm
Thursday, February 18, 2 pm
Saturday, February 20, 2 pm
Sunday, February 21, 2 pm
Friday, February 26, 2 pm
Gallery Hours and Admission
$10 adults; $8 seniors (65+); $6 students/teens (with ID)
Free to Walker members and children ages 12 and under.
Free with a paid ticket to a same-day Walker event.
Free to all every Thursday evening (5–9 pm) and on the first Saturday of each month (10 am–5 pm).
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11 am–5 pm
Thursday 11 am–9 pm
Closed Mondays
