Minneapolis, December 13, 2013—The Walker Art Center’s Target Free Thursday Nights in January feature Cabin Fever, a lineup of social, idiosyncratic, participatory events to give your mind and your body a warm-hearted workout. Events include Social/Brief: Blank Slate, a poetry/printing party (Thursday, January 2); B-Movie Bingo: Samurai Cop, an evening of participatory cinema (Thursday, January 23); and Feel the Churn, a butter-making aerobics class (Thursday, January 30). Cabin Fever continues into February with a night of Fever Songs with artist Lexa Walsh and local music hero John Munson (Thursday, February 6). Target Free Thursday Nights in January also include a Chef-in-Residence event with Chris Dmochowski of Campiello (Thursday, January 9).
Target Free Thursday Nights
Get inspired. Get in free.
January 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30
Galleries open 5–9 pm; special events follow.
Thursday, January 2
Social/Brief: Blank Slate
Medtronic Gallery, 7–9 pm
It’s a New Year and the slate’s clear! Join Rain Taxi Review of Books and Lunalux letterpress studio for a poetry and printing party in a vacant gallery, featuring local writers reading quick quips in 20 seconds or less that will inspire a series of slogan cards for 2014. Get in on the action: compose your own short poetic resolution then blast it out at the open mic segment and don’t leave without making a commemorative print. You can even get in on the fun early (or if you can’t make it): starting now, send us your poems, slogans, and resolutions via email or Twitter #socialbrief, and we’ll pick some to immortalize that night!
A cash bar and snacks are provided.
Thursday, January 9
Tastings with Chef-in-Residence Chris Dmochowski
Gather by D’Amico, 5–9 pm
Thursday evenings at Gather by D’Amico feature $5 small plates and drink specials, and limited-edition dishes from a roster of stellar guest chefs who share tastings each month.
In January, join chef-in-residence Chris Dmochowski of Campiello in Eden Prairie, who shares tastes from his small plates menu, created exclusively for Gather and featured throughout the month.
The reigning chef at Campiello, Dmochowski joined the D’Amico famiglia in 2009. Prior to this, he logged several years of experience at various Twin Cities restaurants, including Trygs and Grand Café. Before his move to Minneapolis, he worked for the renowned K Restaurant and Wine Bar in Orlando, which received almost every local award from “Neighborhood Gem” to “Best Restaurant in Orlando,” and was also featured in Bon Appétit Magazine, Nation’s Restaurant News, and Florida Trend. Dmochowski was born and raised in Lansing, Michigan, where his grandparents’ passion for cooking inspired him to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Thursday, January 23
B-Movie Bingo: Samurai Cop
Walker Cinema, 7:30 pm
Play bingo to the most awesome movie clichés ever committed to celluloid. Oregon-based music/art group Wolf Choir hosts an evening of participatory cinema, featuring maybe for the first time in a theater, Samurai Cop written and directed by Amir Shervan. Be ready for gun and sword fights, and long awkward love scenes as Joe “The Samurai” Marshall and his sidekick Frank take on the minions of L.A.’s crime underworld. 1989, VHS, 96 minutes. Co-presented with Portland’s historic non-profit Hollywood Theatre.
Thursday, January 30
Feel the Churn
Medtronic Gallery, 6 and 8 pm
Make fat as you burn fat! In this signature butter-making aerobics class, the Los Angeles-based artist duo Pop Soda will have you shaking your body and jars of fresh locally-sourced cream until you magically create delicious butter. After class, put the calories back on while enjoying buttery treats.
The goal of Feel the Churn is to spread the physical delight of artisan practices with a participatory audience, combining food science with music, exercise, performance, and community.
Cream for Feel the Churn is generously provided by Hastings Cooperative Creamery.
About the Artists
Pop Soda is Jimmy Fusil and Mike Wait, from Paris and San Francisco, respectively. Collaborating since 2009, they create genre-bending music that is fun, honest, thoughtful, and new.
Thursday February 6
Fever Songs
Cargill Lounge, 6–9 pm
Join artist Lexa Walsh and local music hero John Munson (Trip Shakespeare, Semisonic, The New Standards) to co-create collaborative “Fever Songs” about the long northern winters. Participants are welcome to contribute lyrics and melodies to be developed on the spot by the Fever Band, who shall be writing and recording live. The multiple-authored completed songs will be made available on the Walker’s blog.
About the Artists
An interdisciplinary, socially engaged artist based in Oakland, California, Walsh works with conversation, food, and music to create what she calls “hospitable democracy.” She was recently an artist-in-residence at Portland Art Museum and a community artist-in-residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts. Walsh is currently an artist fellow in San Francisco’s de Young Museum.
Munson is a Twin Cities-based Munson musician, composer, and producer. A founding member of the ’90s cult band Trip Shakespeare, he went on to form Semisonic with Dan Wilson and Jacob Slichter. His recent projects include producing Lucy Michelle’s solo record Attack of the Heart; acting as music director for Wits, an American Public Media radio variety show; and playing in his bands the New Standards and the Twilight Hours.
Walsh and Munson met almost 10 years ago at an artist residency in Taipei. As they ate colorful dumplings while singing Neil Young songs in the Gongguan district, they vowed to someday collaborate.
Target Free Thursday Nights Special in the Walker Shop
The Walker Shop offers a discount on selected items during Target Free Thursday Nights. The special for January is buy-one-get-one-free Badge Notecards by Black Rabbit. Featuring a range of animal inspired greetings cards, each Badge Notecard is regularly prices at $4 each and comes with a pin badge as part of the design.
Not combinable with other discounts.