MINNEAPOLIS, May 14 2014—The Walker Art Center is thrilled to present Art Expanded, 1958–1978, drawn primarily from the Walker’s diverse collection of artworks, films, archival materials, and ephemera, on view from June 14, 2014 through March 8, 2015. Charting the so-called “expanded arts” of the 1960s and 1970s, the exhibition surveys a transformational phase in the history of 20th century art when artists around the world collectively began to challenge, critique, and upend traditional media and disciplines. This catalytic shift in attitude and practice, which remains vital for contemporary artists working today, led to a proliferation of new, hybrid art forms, such as happenings, event scores, intermedia performance, multiples, conceptual art, and participatory environments. Related events include the overnight opening on June 14 for Northern Spark, a re-staging of Alison Knowles’ event score Make a Salad on July 10, and a gallery talk with exhibtion curator Eric Crosby on July 31.
Some 300 works by over 100 pivotal artists, filmmakers, and choreographers will be presented, including Yoko Ono, Jasper Johns, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Nam June Paik, Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, George Brecht, Yayoi Kusama, Yvonne Rainer, Adrian Piper, Dieter Roth, and Tony Conrad. Iconic pieces by these and many others artists in the Walker’s collection will come together with recent acquisitions, rarely seen works, and newly conserved sculptures. From room-based installations of objects and archival ephemera to an array of projected images and sound works, the exhibition will be organized into thematically groupings that occupy over 13,000 square feet in Galleries 1, 2, 3 and Perlman.
“No longer content to work within the parameters of conventional disciplines, artists of the period advanced radical ways of working in the spaces between traditional mediums, many of them ultimately embracing the creative potential of everyday life,” explained Walker curator Eric Crosby. “Art Expanded, 1958–1978 not only examines this critical point of departure, but also narrates a history of our present moment—so much of the work on view here has become the very DNA of contemporary artistic practice.”
Among the overlapping themes of the exhibition, Art Expanded, 1958–1978 will consider the period’s many assaults on the traditional mediums of painting and sculpture. Exploring the theme of performance throughout, the exhibition will include a significant grouping of artist-conceived instruments, scores for both music and events, as well as photographic and moving-image documentation. Artists’ widespread use of technology surfaces as a dominant theme as well—from film, video, and other means of recording and playback to early experiments with computing and programmed displays of light and motion. Other parts of the exhibition will consider the influx of information and systems in early conceptual art, as well as the evolving theme of participation as artists increasingly relied on the viewer for active input and even a hand in making.
The Walker’s renowned collection of Fluxus works—consisting of hundreds of event scores, editioned multiples, and packaged oddities—will serve as a through line across the various themes of the exhibition. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, an international constellation of artists, writers, performers, and composers assembled in performance halls and alternative spaces in the United States and Europe to challenge conventions through their freewheeling embrace of art in everyday life. In 1989, at the time of its landmark acquisition of some 400 Fluxus objects, the Walker became an early champion of this important facet of the international avant-garde. Now, some 50 years after the emergence of Fluxus and 25 years since the Walker’s milestone acquisition, Art Expanded, 1958–1978 presents this pivotal work for reexamination and reinterpretation—this time within the broader context of the period’s innovations and its unruly spirit of artistic reinvention.
Exhibition highlights include:
-Key paintings by Jasper Johns, Yoko Ono, Piero Manzoni, Daniel Buren, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jack Whitten, Alan Shields, and many others.
-An expansive display of Fluxus multiples and ephemera, as well as a focused presentation of Fluxfilms by Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Paul Sharits, and George Maciunas.
-A unique presentation of archival materials and never-before-seen photographs documenting Mushroom, a 1962 “happening” conceived by Allan Kaprow for the Lehmann Mushroom Caves in St. Paul, Minnesota.
-Belgian poet, filmmaker, and conceptualist Marcel Broodthaer’s slide projection piece, Bateau Tableau (1973), in which the artist rigorously deconstructs a found nautical oil painting into successive close-up images.
-A dedicated screening space with films from the Walker’s own Ruben/Bentson Film/Video Study Collection, including works by Merce Cunningham, Carolee Schneemann, Yvonne Rainer, and other pivotal figures who bridged the visual and performing arts of the day.
-An immersive installation of newly conserved 1960s light and kinetic artworks associated with the Walker’s pioneering 1967 exhibition Light/Motion/Space
-A projection space dedicated to the Walker’s recently acquired archive of films by queer performance artist and underground filmmaker Jack Smith.
Art Expanded, 1958–1978 is organized by the Walker Art Center and curated by Eric Crosby.
RELATED EVENTS
Art Expanded, 1958-1978
Opening Night: Northern Spark
Saturday, June 14 FREE
The lights stay on and the galleries remain open for Northern Spark, the annual city-wide dusk-to-dawn festival. Join us for a range of indoor and outdoor activities to engage curious all-night adventurers. The Garden Café by D’Amico and a range of food trucks stationed next to Open Field—AZ Canteen, A Cupcake Social, and Gastro Truck—provide fuel throughout the night. Northern Spark is presented by Northern Lights.mn, a nonprofit arts organization whose mission is to transform our sense of what’s possible in public space.
Alison Knowles: Make a Salad
Thursday, July 10, 5–9 pm FREE
Open Field
Alison Knowles, a leading member of the Fluxus artist group, will be in residence with her collaborator, Joshua Selman, to re-stage her event score Make a Salad on Open Field. The performance includes Knowles preparing a massive salad by chopping ingredients to live music, tossing it in the air, and serving it to the audience. Originally performed in London at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1962, Make a Salad has been re-staged more than a dozen times in cities around the world, most recently at the Highline in New York City in 2012, and in London at Tate Modern in 2008. Alison Knowles’ work is included in the exhibition Art Expanded: 1958-1978.
Gallery Talk: Eric Crosby on the Expanded Arts
Thursday, July 31, 7 pm FREE
Galleries 1, 2, 3 and Perlman
Join Eric Crosby, curator of the exhibition Art Expanded, 1958–1978 for a conversation about the ways artists of the period—discontent working within the parameters of conventional artistic mediums—forged radically new hybrid forms.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Major support for the exhibition is provided by the Bentson Foundation. Additional support is generously provided by Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney.
