The Walker is the place to be this summer for an incredible array of activities. Tee up on the terraces in a game of artist-designed mini golf, escape the heat with a free gallery tour, or bring your blanket, pick up picnic snacks and libations at Cardamom, and enjoy one of the many outdoor Summer Social 2023 events.
NEW WALKER HOURS BEGINNING JUNE 1
Monday–Tuesday, closed
Wednesday, 10 am–5 pm
Thursday, 10 am–9 pm
Friday–Sunday, 10 am–5 pm
CARDAMOM HOURS
Daily, 11 am–9 pm
EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW
April 15–September 3, 2023
The exuberant and wide-ranging works of Pacita Abad (US, b. Philippines, 1946–2004) are the subject of the first-ever retrospective spanning the artist’s 32-year career. Abad is best known for her trapuntos, a form of quilted painting made by stitching and stuffing her canvases as opposed to stretching them over a wood frame. During her lifetime, the prolific artist made a vast number of artworks that traverse a diversity of subjects, from colorful masks to intricately constructed underwater scenes to abstract compositions. The exhibition includes more than 100 works—most of which have never been on public view in the United States—showcasing her experiments in different mediums, including textiles, works on paper, costumes, and ceramics. Organized by the Walker in collaboration with Abad’s estate, the presentation celebrates the multifaceted work of an artist whose vibrant visual, material, and conceptual concerns are as urgent today as they were three decades ago.
Curators: Victoria Sung, former associate curator, Visual Arts; with Matthew Villar Miranda, former curatorial fellow, Visual Arts
Exhibition Tour:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: October 21, 2023–January 28, 2024;
MoMA PS1, New York: March 28–September 2, 2024;
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto: October 12, 2024–January 19, 2025
Make Sense of This: Visitors Respond to the Walker’s Collection
February 18–November 19, 2023
Make Sense of This: Visitors Respond to the Walker’s Collection is an exploratory exhibition that invites visitors to share feedback, fostering a dialogue with audiences in order to impact future Walker shows. The presentation is organized in four chapters that unfold over a period of nine months. Each new rotation offers a compelling grouping of works drawn from the Walker’s collection, spanning different mediums and time periods while centering on a specific theme.
CHAPTER 1: Portrait and Lived Experience, February 18–April 16;
CHAPTER 2: Minimal Art and the Measure of the Body, April 22–June 25;
CHAPTER 3: Remembrance and Commemoration, July 1–August 27;
CHAPTER 4: A Piece of Music, September 2–November 19
Curators: Henriette Huldisch, chief curator and director of Curatorial Affairs; William Hernández Luege, curatorial assistant, Visual Arts; Erin McNeil, program manager, Curatorial Affairs; Jake Yuzna, content producer; and Simona Zappas, youth & community programs associate, Public Engagement, Learning, and Impact
Kahlil Robert Irving: Archaeology of the Present
February 23, 2023–January 21, 2024
St. Louis–based artist Kahlil Robert Irving (US, b. 1992) creates assemblages made of layered images and sculptures composed of replicas of everyday objects. Mainly working in ceramics, Irving critically engages with the history of the medium and challenges constructs around identity and culture in the Western world.
Curator: William Hernández Luege, curatorial assistant, Visual Arts
Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection
February 14, 2019–May 5, 2024
Does a portrait need to resemble its subject? Can a sculpture also be a landscape? The Walker’s newest collection exhibition takes a look at these and other questions through an exciting selection of works from the not-so-distant past and the current moment. The presentation is organized by five familiar themes: portraiture, the interior scene, landscape, still life, and abstraction. Each of these areas features a diverse range of artists whose approaches to their subjects are often unconventional, innovative, and even surprising.
Curators: Siri Engberg, senior curator, Visual Arts; with Jadine Collingwood, former curatorial fellow, Visual Arts; and Alexandra Nicome, former interpretation fellow, Education and Public Programs
EXHIBITIONS CLOSING
November 17, 2022–July 16, 2023
Paul Chan: Breathers is the first major US-based museum exhibition of works by artist, writer, and publisher Paul Chan (US, b. Hong Kong, 1973) in 15 years. Chan, who was recently awarded the prestigious 2022 MacArthur Fellowship, came to prominence in the early 2000s with vibrant moving image works that touched on aspects of war, religion, pleasure, and politics. Around 2009, Chan embarked on what he described as a “breather” from the art world, turning his attention to experimental publishing by founding the press Badlands Unlimited. This exhibition traces the artist’s return to art-making through approximately 40 works and suites of objects, including a new installation made especially for the Walker. Together, the featured works capture Chan’s creative and conceptual innovations, from his publishing through to his current experimentations with the boundless possibilities of the moving image.
Curators: Pavel Pyś, curator, Visual Arts; with Matthew Villar Miranda, former curatorial fellow, Visual Arts
Exhibition Tour:
Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU: September 8, 2023–January 7, 2024;
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis: March 8–August 11, 2024
EXHIBITION OPENINGS
Among Friends: The Generosity of Judy and Ken Dayton
June 10, 2023–July 7, 2024
Those who have spent time in the Walker Art Center’s galleries or the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden will have encountered major works of art gifted to the Walker’s collection by Judy and Kenneth Dayton, patrons who made a profound impact on the cultural institutions they supported, helping to make Minnesota a national hub for the arts. Together, the Daytons assembled a distinctive collection of American art. Their approach to collecting was driven by curiosity, passion, and lasting relationships: some of the artists whose works had pride of place in their home—such as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, and Claes Oldenburg—became their close friends.
Curator: Siri Engberg, senior curator, Visual Arts
August 24, 2023–January 21, 2024
Photographer, theorist, and critic Allan Sekula (US, 1951–2013) is known for photographs and essays that blend researched, descriptive realism with emotionally impactful narrative. His photography actively engages ideas around labor, capitalism, and Marxist theory, providing complex and poignant critiques about social reality.
This exhibition features Sekula’s tour-de-force project Fish Story (1990–1994), the result of seven years of documenting harbors and port cities around the world. Beginning his journey in Los Angeles at the port in San Pedro where he grew up, the artist traveled as far as Korea, Scotland, and Poland, photographing the prosperity, poverty, and political powers that continue to play out in these sites.
Curator: William Hernández Luege, curatorial assistant, Visual Arts
VISUAL ARTS PROGRAMMING
Julia Bryan-Wilson: Pattern as Politics
Thursday, June 1, 6 pm
Free
Join art historian Julia Bryan-Wilson as she explores how Pacita Abad used embellishment as a strategy to blur the lines between function and décor. Drawn from her essay contribution to the exhibition catalogue Pacita Abad (2023), published by the Walker on the occasion of Abad’s first retrospective, Bryan-Wilson’s lecture examines how the artist’s practice of intricately adorning domestic objects can expand our understanding of women’s work. The talk will be followed by a brief Q&A.
About the Artist
Julia Bryan-Wilson is professor of art history at Columbia University and curator-at-large at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. Her 2017 book Fray: Art and Textile Politics won the ASAP Book Prize, the Frank Jewett Mather Award, and the Robert Motherwell Book Award. Her modular monograph Louise Nevelson’s Sculpture: Drag, Color, Join Face will be published in spring 2023.
MINI GOLF
Thursday, May 18–Sunday, October 1
$12 ($10 Walker members and ages 7-18), free for ages under 6 with a paid adult
Skyline Mini Golf returns to the Walker rooftop this summer! Catch sunrays and a gorgeous view of downtown Minneapolis while putting away on the 10-hole course featuring an eclectic bevy of artist-designed holes.
Tickets go on sale May 10.
MOVING IMAGE
Hanif Abdurraqib’s Black VHS Experience
New York Times bestselling author and poet Hanif Abdurraqib’s widely published writing often explores music’s relationship with Black experience in America. Guest curating a series of films this summer at the Walker, Abdurraqib took cues from his recent books Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest and A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance to organize a look back at the 1990s as a particularly vibrant moment of critical mass for the representation of Black music in film. Ranging from Whoopi Goldberg’s performance in Sister Act to Robert Townsend’s portrayal of a fictional R&B group in The Five Heartbeats, plus the Queen Latifah–led heist film Set It Off, Abdurraqib’s movie playlist is affectionately inspired by their soundtracks.
Films take place in the Walker Cinema. Tickets will be available for purchase online prior to the event and at the box office; $15 ($12 Walker members, seniors, and students), Friday showtimes are free for students.
About The Artist
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in the FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full-length poetry collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (Two Dollar Radio, 2017), was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. His 2019 book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, became a New York Times bestseller. His second collection of poems, A Fortune for Your Disaster (Tin House, 2019) won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released A Little Devil in America (Random House), which won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Abdurraqib is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
The Five Heartbeats by Robert Townsend
Friday, July 14, 7 pm
Track the rise and fall of five close friends singing together in an R&B group across several decades.1991, USA, digital, 121 min. Introduced by Hanif Abdurraqib.
Wednesday, July 19, 7 pm
Friday, July 21, 7 pm
Featuring the music of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, Spike Lee’s 1990 release explores the busy nightlife of Bleek (Denzel Washington) and the Brooklyn jazz club where he performs. 1990, USA, DCP, 130 min.
Wednesday, July 26, 7 pm
Friday, July 28, 7 pm
Hiding out from the mob, a lounge singer (Whoopi Goldberg) joins a convent and converts the nun’s choir to rousing gospel and Motown. 1992, USA, DCP, 96 min.
Dead Presidents by Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes
Wednesday, August 2, 7 pm
Friday, August 4, 7 pm
Follow a group of friends as their lives change during and after a tour in Vietnam while an expert selection of soul, R&B, and funk music drives an emotional plotline. 1995, USA, Digital, 119 min.
Wednesday, August 9, 7 pm
Friday, August 11, 7 pm
Flipping the gender script of popular mid-’90s South Central Los Angeles stories, Queen Latifah stars as one of four women who seek to take back what society owes them by orchestrating a bank heist. 1996, USA, 35mm, 123 min.
Sound for Silents 2023: Film + Music on the Walker Hillside
Thursday, August 17, 7 pm
Wurtele Upper Garden
Free
“All artists are creative. But Papa Mbye, a North Minneapolis rapper, singer, and producer, has a creative appetite that few can match.” —The Current
Join us at sunset on the hillside for Sound for Silents, an electrifying evening of live music paired with films from the Walker’s Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection. Returning for its 7th year, this summer’s experience features a newly commissioned score from omnivorous musician and visual artist Papa Mbye and his collaborators Symbioscia, Zak Khan, and friends. The event begins at 7 pm with DJ Diane Miller from The Current’s Local Show, along with food trucks, and full food and drink options at the Walker’s Cardamom restaurant.
About the Artist
When Papa Mbye was a teenager, he’d go to the park, set up shop, and draw caricatures for willing passersby. It was a hustle, but the mischievous exaggeration also provided a much-needed valve. Mbye had been raised to be quiet and dutiful since his family had immigrated from the Gambia/Senegal to North Minneapolis when he was two years old. But he was an eccentric at heart, an artist. He developed a sound influenced by the music his parents played, such as the Senegalese artist N’dongo Lo, and supplemented it with ’80s alt-rock, 2000s pop, UK drum and bass, and increasingly, the sounds of the burgeoning DIY rap and R&B scenes in the Twin Cities. That breadth of influence is on display in his 2021 debut MANG FI, his post-everything, shape-shifting album, with sounds ranging from the middle of the mosh pit yelps and chest-thumping sh*t talk to distorted melodramatic electro garbles and breezy lover boy crooning. As the best caricature artists do, Mbye pays homage to the source material while showing us something we’ve never seen before.
PUBLIC TOURS
Connect with contemporary art and learn more about artworks on view with a free public tour. Tours take place on Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons.
Tours are designed for adult audiences, but participants of all ages are welcome. Please gather 5 minutes before the tour begins. No registration required.
For details on private gallery tours, visit our tours page or email tours@walkerart.org.
Thursday Evening Gallery Tours
Every Thursday, June 1–August 31, 6 pm
Tours explore a selection of works across current exhibitions and include interactive discussion facilitated by Walker educators. Learn about the artworks on view, the ideas behind them, and the complex issues they raise.
Saturday Afternoon Minneapolis Sculpture Garden Tours
Every Saturday, June 3–August 26, 1 pm (weather permitting)
Looking to connect with contemporary art at the Walker? A public tour of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a fun way to learn about the artworks on view, the ideas behind them, and the complex issues they raise. Tours explore artworks in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and include interactive discussion facilitated by Walker educators.
Public tours of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden meet outside the main entrance to the Walker on Vineland Place. In the case of inclement weather or rain, tours may be moved to the Walker galleries. Tours of the Walker’s galleries are free with admission.
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.
FREE FIRST SATURDAY
Enjoy free, family-friendly programming on the first Saturday of the month at the Walker.
Free First Saturday also features free gallery admission. Gallery admission tickets are available on-site on the event day from the Main Lobby desk; quantities are limited. Free admission 10 am–5 pm; activities 10 am–3 pm.
Free First Saturday: 10,000+ Lakes
Saturday, June 3, 10 am–3 pm
With over 14,000 lakes statewide—not to mention rivers, streams, ponds, and wetlands—Minnesota is a freshwater haven. Join us outside in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden for art-making and interactive activities inspired by Minnesota’s ultimate natural resource.
Free First Saturday: ’90s Never Left
Saturday, July 1, 10 am–3 pm
Grab your Game Boy, reset your Tamagotchi, put on your favorite CD, and head over to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden for a Free First Saturday full of ’90s nostalgia. Explore the iconic and reemerging style of the decade through music and art-making activities.
Free First Saturday: Plant Teachers
Saturday, August 5, 10 am–3 pm
Resilience, ingenuity, interconnectedness—what else might we learn by paying closer attention to plants? Invite the aspiring green thumbs in your life and join us for Free First Saturday in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as we celebrate our plant teachers.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Sensory Friendly Sunday
Sensory Friendly Sunday is a monthly, free event for people of all ages with sensory processing differences, Autism Spectrum Disorder, or developmental disabilities and their friends and families. The galleries will be closed to the general public, allowing visitors to enjoy the museum in a calm environment with accommodations such as quiet spaces, fidgets, and sunglasses available. Experience a selection of current exhibitions, make art, or watch a short film. All friends and family members are welcome.
This June through September (weather permitting), play a free round of mini golf on the Walker’s rooftop between 8 and 11 am. The one-of-a-kind course features 10 distinctive, artist-designed holes and an unrivaled view of the Minneapolis skyline.
Masks are required at Sensory Friendly Sunday for visitors over age 2.
This program was created in consultation with the Autism Society of Minnesota (AuSM) and the University of Minnesota’s Occupational Therapy Program.
Friday Art-Making in the Garden
Fridays, June 16–Aug 25, 10 am–1 pm
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Free
Every Friday this summer, visit the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden to try a drop-in art-making activity designed for ages 4 and up. With all art supplies provided and a new project each week, Friday artmaking in the Garden gives anyone the chance to explore art and their own creativity.
No prior registration is required. Activity instructions are available in English and Spanish.
Look for Walker educators who will be stationed in the Garden. Signs will help point you in the right direction. Materials will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis; supplies are limited. This program may be cancelled in the case of rain or inclement weather.
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.
The Walker is the place to be this summer for an incredible array of activities—all for free! Summer Social is a series of participatory, artist-designed programs and events that reunite us, delight us, and remind us how great it is to be together. Each Thursday evening you’ll enjoy performances and poetry readings, community exhibition openings, artist talks, tours, film screenings, art-making, and more.
Bring your blanket, pick up picnic snacks and libations at Cardamom, and join us to connect with friends and discover something new.
Green Roof Poetry Curated by All My Relations Arts’ Native Author Program
Thursday, June 22, 6 pm
Wurtele Upper Garden
Green Roof Poetry brings together some of the Twin Cities’ most dynamic writers for an evening of literary readings on the Walker’s hillside. Bring your blanket, pick up curated picnic snacks and libations at Cardamom, and relax for an evening of fresh-air readings curated by local and national poets.
On June 22, All My Relations Art’s Native Authors program will offer readings from writers and mentors of the program to celebrate the upcoming 2022 writers’ public reading events.
About the Artists
All My Relations Arts’ Native Authors Program supports all aspects of the development of Native authors in genres of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, children’s fiction, and young adult fiction. Under the program facilitator and mentorship of leaders like Art Coulson and Diane Wilson, authors will expand their practice and engage in the development of their focus.
Community Opening: Kahlil Robert Irving
Thursday, June 29, 6 pm
Cinema and Wurtele Upper Garden
Join us for a dynamic conversation between artist Kahlil Robert Irving, creative consultant Jerald Cooper (@hoodmidcenturymodern), as well as writer and curator Antwaun Sargent. Using Irving’s exhibition Archaeology of the Present as a reference point, the three will discuss how our present moment is composed of physical remnants that begin to tell a fragmented story of American history through art, design, and culture.
A reception follows the artist talk. Join us at 7 pm in the Cargill Lounge and Wurtele Upper Garden to enjoy conversation, a cash bar, and small bites by James Beard Award-winning Chef Justin Sutherland (Handsome Hog, Iron Chef winner, Top Chef alum) and his team.
What’s in Your Crate curated by Yasmeenah
Thursday, July 6, 6–9 pm
Wurtele Upper Garden
Multidisciplinary artist and DJ Yasmeenah invites local DJs to the stage to get to know each other through their respective music collections. As the evening gives way to dusk, they spin songs in response to questions and conversation. What song would they play if they were stuck on an island? What song is their favorite but doesn’t translate well on the dance floor? Get to know these DJs and their relationship to music.
About the Artist
A first-generation Somali American DJ, curator, and arts & culture organizer based in south Minneapolis, the ethereal and joyous Yasmeenah is a multidisciplinary creative. She is not afraid to reflect the times, while prioritizing Black joy and celebration on the continuous path toward liberation. She has garnered international praise and attention through her DJ sets in support of Rina Sawayma, DJ Minx, Ash Lauryn, Kush Jones, and many others. Yasmeenah has curated exhibits for Hennepin Theatre Trust and Franconia Sculpture Park, and is also the cofounder of TimeCapsule, a virtually curated print zine and exhibit that uplifts Black and Queer futures. Yasmeenah lives and examines the intersections of creation, music, queerness, and Blackness as she believes art is essential for radical movements.
Green Roof Poetry: Curated by Tish Jones
Thursday, July 13, 6 pm
Wurtele Upper Garden
Tish Jones is a poet, narrative strategist, cultural producer, and educator from Saint Paul with a deep and resounding love for Black people, arts & culture, youth development, and civic engagement. As a performance artist her work has been shared in venues throughout the United States. Her writing can be found in We Are Meant to Rise (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), A Moment of Silence (Tru Ruts and the Playwrights Center, 2020), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s anthology, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015), and more.
Place + Making
Mutual care, history, interconnectedness, and resilience are but a few of the many things we can learn from plants and the places we are rooted within. This summer, learn about the place where the Walker Art Center currently resides, which was once an expanse of marshland and meadow, and the meanings it holds for Dakota, Ojibwe, and Indigenous people from other Native nations who live in the community today.
Find inspiration in the natural world while exploring the native plants found around the Walker campus and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The Walker’s library will also host an installation of artists’ books made with unusual or natural fiber materials. Throughout the evening, local artists will be stationed in the greenspace with materials and instructions for creative activities open to all ages and experience levels.
Galleries are open late and free on Thursday nights from 5–9 pm.
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.
Buhay Na Buhay curated by The MN Filipinx Community
Thursday, July 27, 5–9 pm
Wurtele Upper Garden
The Walker hillside will be so alive, Buhay Na Buhay, as the Filipinx community organizations come together to curate a night of inspiring activities. We will celebrate Pacita Abad’s work and the rich community here in Minnesota through performance, art, and togetherness!
Featuring CSFA (Cultural Society of Filipino Americans) FIRM (Filipinx for Immigrant Rights & Racial Justice MN) PSGM (Philippine Study Group of MN) FMA (Fil-Minnesotan Association) PSA Minnesota (Philippine Student Association of MN) UPAM (University of the Philippines Alumni in MN) Indigenous Roots (Cultural Arts Center) FAWN (Filipina American Women’s Network)
Green Roof Poetry Curated by Danez Smith
Thursday, August 3, 6 pm
Wurtele Upper Garden
Danez Smith is the author of three collections, including Homie and Don’t Call Us Dead. They have won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and have been a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, the National Book Critic Circle Award, and the National Book Award. Danez’s poetry and prose has been featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The New Yorker, GQ, Best American Poetry, and on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Danez is a member of the Dark Noise Collective. Former co-host of the Webby-nominated podcast VS (Versus), they are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Princeton, United States Artists, the McKnight Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Danez has been featured as part of Forbes’ annual 30 Under 30 list and is the winner of a Pushcart Prize. They live in Minneapolis near their people.