Based in Puerto Rico, collaborators Jennifer Allora (b. 1974) and Guillermo Calzadilla (b. 1971) have been working together since 1995, creating works that reach across sculpture, video, performance, and photography. Chalk (1998) is an ongoing art project in which the artists place human-size sticks of chalk—each piece measuring 64 inches in length and weighing approximately 120 pounds—in public spaces for passers-by to use as they choose. Previously installed in cities around the world, the work takes on a new personal and political identity in each location.
The exhibition will be presented in the Walker’s Gallery 7, a space adjacent to the museum’s outdoor terraces, which are a hub for seasonal programming. Treated with a special chalk-friendly paint, the gallery will serve as a center of activity for audiences of all ages. Visitors will be invited to draw or write with the chalk on the gallery’s floor and walls, transforming the space into an immersive site for self-expression.
Chalk provides a physical forum for participants to exchange ideas, evolving into a social and political portrait of the community. Express yourself and see what others have added to this ever-changing space for all ages.
Allora & Calzadilla: Chalk will be on view from February 14, 2019 through February 2, 2020.
Curator: Victoria Sung, Assistant Curator, Visual Arts
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s Charcoal Dance Floor—a highly detailed floor drawing of young clubgoers that slowly disappeared as the shoes of gallery visitors scuffed it—was featured in the Walker’s 2003 exhibition How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age. Since then, they’ve visited twice more as artists-in-residence in 2003 and 2004 to develop with the Walker’s Teen Arts Council “Radio Re-Volt: One Person .ooOne Watt,” a project in which they imagined a network of micro-radio stations across the Twin Cities and hosted transmitter-building workshops to help realize it.
The pair has exhibited their work worldwide through solo shows in Zurich, Munich, Indianapolis, and more; group shows like documenta 13; and high-profile honors, including representing the United States at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 (their five-installation work Gloria included, among other elements, a flipped-over 52-ton army tank on top of which was mounted a treadmill complete with an Olympic runner).
RELATED EVENTS
Winter at the Walker: Be My Walker Valentine
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Walker Art Center, 5pm, Free
Bring a date, come solo, or meet a friend—this is your low-commitment Valentine’s Day night out! Celebrate the opening of Five Ways In and Chalk with special SweetheART tours. You can also listen to readings by local poets, try speed dating in French, and jam to DJ Douala Soul spinning tunes all night, or catch Love Tapes by Wendy Clarke in the Bentson Mediatheque.