Walker Art Center 2023-2024 Exhibition Schedule Highlights
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Walker Art Center 2023-2024 Exhibition Schedule Highlights

The Walker Art Center’s upcoming exhibition highlights include a major survey presentation, titled Multiple Realities, that offers a sweeping exploration of art made in six Central Eastern European nations during the 1960s to 1980s. The result of five years of extensive research and network-building to uncover works and documentation that have for many years been largely inaccessible, Multiple Realities includes more than 250 works by nearly 100 artists, with many objects and installations to be shown in the United States for the first time. While grounded in the recent past, the featured works maintain strong resonance within contemporary social and political happenings, offering new opportunities to foster dialogue about the global development of art and its role within our daily lives.  

Additionally, the Walker will open several artist solo exhibitions, including Allan Sekula’s groundbreaking nine-chapter image-based research project Fish Story and a presentation spanning 20 years of work by Twin Cities–based, interdisciplinary artist Tetsuya Yamada. 

 The Walker will also serve as the third venue for the major traveling exhibition Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody, which provides new insight into the artist’s life and career through more than 100 works and archival materials and is currently on view at The Broad, Los Angeles.  

Further details about these exhibitions and other current and upcoming presentations follow below. 

 

OPENING EXHIBITIONS:  

Allan Sekula: Fish Story 

August 24, 2023–January 21, 2024 

 

Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s  

November 11, 2023–March 10, 2024 

 

Tetsuya Yamada 

January 18–July 7, 2024  

 

Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody  

April 27–September 8, 2024 

 

 

CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS: 

Among Friends: The Generosity of Judy and Ken Dayton 

June 10, 2023–May 19, 2024 

 

Pacita Abad 

April 15–September 3, 2023 

 

Make Sense of This: Visitors Respond to the Walker’s Collection 

February 18–November 19, 2023 

 

Kahlil Robert Irving: Archaeology of the Present 

February 23, 2023– November 26, 2023 

 

Paul Chan: Breathers 

November 17, 2022–July 16, 2023 

 

Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection 

February 14, 2019– May 5, 2024 

 

OPENING EXHIBITIONS:  

Allan Sekula: Fish Story 

August 24, 2023–January 21, 2024 

Regarded as one of the most influential photographers and thinkers of his generation, Allan Sekula (1951–2013) is known for blending documentary-style photography with essays to create poignant narratives that speak to and critique global social, economic, and political structures. Conceived as both an exhibition and a book, Fish Story is the artist’s groundbreaking nine-chapter image-based research project, exploring the profound impact of the globalized shipping trade and its relationship to romantic notions of the sea. Developed over the course of seven years, during which Sekula journeyed across harbors and port cities, spending considerable time with the tradespeople, Fish Story includes 105 photographs, slide projections, and accompanying texts. Each of the nine chapters in Fish Story relates to a different aspect of maritime commerce and emphasizes the dynamics of class and labor within the profit-focused structures of globalized trade. At the same time, the project explores the mystery and aura of the sea, merging intensive research with the aesthetics of fine art. The Walker’s presentation of Fish Story marks the first time that the work will be presented in the United States in its entirety since its institutional debut tour in 1999.  

Curator: William Hernández Luege, curatorial assistant, Visual Arts

 

Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s  

November 11, 2023–March 10, 2024 

Multiple Realities is the largest survey of Central-Eastern European art to be presented in the United States. Through more than 250 works by nearly 100 artists, the exhibition explores the range of experimental visual art, performance, music, and material culture that emerged across East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia, from the 1960s through the 1980s. Despite their geographical proximity, artists working at this time encountered different conditions and varying degrees of control from state authorities. Multiple Realities sheds light on these contexts and the many ways that artists refused, circumvented, and subverted these official systems, often creating new modes of expression and leveraging the power of wit, humor, and irony. While the exhibition includes select canonical figures from the region such as Geta Brătescu, Sanja Iveković, and Alina Szapocznikow, it emphasizes lesser-known practitioners—especially women artists, artist collectives, and those creating work through an LGBTQIA+ lens—highlighting the true depth of artistic innovation, material experimentation, and creative dialogues that developed in the region in this distinct period. The exhibition is the result of five years of extensive research and network-building to uncover works and documentation that have for many years been largely inaccessible 

Multiple Realities is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue, produced by the Walker, foregrounding perspectives that reflect on the period’s relevance and meaning through the lens of today. Following its run at the Walker, the exhibition will travel to the Phoenix Art Museum and Vancouver Art Gallery.  

Curators: Pavel Pyś, curator, Visual Arts; with William Hernández Luege, curatorial assistant, Visual Arts 

Curatorial Consultants: Daniel Muzyczuk, head of contemporary art, Muzeum Sztuki Łódź, Poland; Dušan Barok, editor, Monoskop.org; Joanna Kordjak, curator, Zachęta National Gallery, Warsaw; Michał Grzegorzek, independent curator, Warsaw; and Ksenia Nouril, gallery director, Arts Student League, New York 

 

Tetsuya Yamada 

January 18–July 7, 2024  

The forthcoming exhibition features a broad range of recent and new work by Twin Cities–based artist Tetsuya Yamada (US, b. Tokyo, 1968), whose interdisciplinary practice blurs the lines between art, design, and craft. From ceramic objects that reflect an extraordinary level of technical and aesthetic sophistication to dynamic sculptures and to video installations, the featured works highlight Yamada’s engagement with the connections between life and art. Yamada’s influences include the ancient Japanese forms of Noh theater and the traditional tea ceremony, the modernism of Brancusi and Isamu Noguchi, and the democracy of the found object espoused by Marcel Duchamp. Many of his pieces include found materials, such as bits of machinery, sawhorses, plywood, pegboard, or natural elements, in combination with his exquisitely crafted ceramic objects and delicate drawings. Often, these form vignettes that create visual and conceptual narratives about the relationships between objects in space. The exhibition, the first US museum presentation of Yamada’s work, features more than 60 works from 2005 to the present, including sculptures in ceramic, wood, and metal; paintings, drawings; photographs; video; and an environmental installation.     

Curator: Siri Engberg, senior curator and director, Visual Arts 

 

Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody  

April 27–September 8, 2024 

This major survey exhibition on the work of Keith Haring (US, 1958–1990) is organized by The Broad, Los Angeles and presented by the Walker. Haring embraced a democratic spirit in his work, aiming to dissolve barriers between art and life. His practice was rooted in the notion that “art is for everybody,” a creative ethos and mission he carried from his early drawings in New York’s subway stations to his renowned public murals. Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody features more than 100 artworks, including rarely seen archival materials, and explores Haring’s unique visual language, conveyed through vibrant color, energetic line work, and iconic characters such as the barking dog and the “radiant baby.” It includes major paintings, sculptures, drawings, and mural-scaled works, along with video, photographs, ephemera, and important source material from his personal journals, from across the full arc of the artist’s short career, beginning in the late 1970s, while he was an art student, through the late 1980s, just before his death from AIDS-related illness at the age of 31. Haring’s art and passionate activism were intertwined and works in the exhibition show his commentary on issues surrounding environmentalism, capitalism, religion, race, and sexuality—subjects and approaches that remain highlight resonant.   

Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody is accompanied by a major catalogue with texts by exhibition curator Sarah Loyer, and writers Kimberly Drew and Tom Finkelpearl; a roundtable conversation between performer Patti Astor and artists Kenny Scharf and Kermit Oswald; and reflections by select contemporaries of the artist.  

Exhibition Curator: Sarah Loyer, curator, The Broad, Los Angeles 

Walker Coordinating Curator: Siri Engberg, senior curator and director of Visual Arts, Walker Art Center 

 

CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS 

Among Friends: The Generosity of Judy and Ken Dayton 

June 10, 2023–May 19, 2024 

The exhibition features major works of modern and contemporary art gifted to the museum by Judy and Ken Dayton, distinguished patrons whose philanthropic legacy over the course of five decades helped to significantly shape the Walker’s collection. Between 1969 and 2022, Ken Dayton, whose family’s business grew into the present-day Target Corporation, and his wife, Judy Dayton, a longstanding member of the Walker’s board, amassed an expansive collection of 20th–century art. The collection included important works by some of the most groundbreaking artists of our time—many of whom became close friends of the couple. Over time, the Daytons gave 550 works of art to the museum as well as important financial gifts to support the Walker’s operations and expansion of its program. Among Friends, which honors their remarkable generosity, will feature 25 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints gifted over the course of their long engagement with the institution, including works by Sam Gilliam, Philip Guston, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Martin Puryear, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol, among others.  

Curator: Siri Engberg, senior curator, Visual Arts 

 

Pacita Abad 

April 15–September 3, 2023 

This is the first retrospective of artist Pacita Abad (US, b. Philippines, 1946–2004), featuring significant and rarely-seen works from across her 32-year career. Pacita Abad serves as the most comprehensive exploration of Abad’s works to date, including more than 100 objects drawn from private and public collections across Asia, Europe, and the United States. A largely self-taught artist, Abad developed a distinct visual vocabulary that embraced the artistic traditions of global cultures and actively blurred the boundaries between fine art and craft. While Abad was engaged in artistic and political dialogues during her life, the depth, range, and inventiveness of her work is only now coming to prominence. The current presentation positions Abad within art historical narratives, providing new insights into her conceptual and aesthetic evolutions as well as the life experiences that so richly influenced her practice. The exhibition was developed in collaboration with the Pacita Abad Art Estate, which provided unprecedented access to archival materials, including photographs, correspondence, sketchbooks, and other primary sources, as well as to the depth of existing artworks by the artist.  

Pacita Abad is accompanied by new scholarship in a beautifully illustrated catalogue, produced by the Walker and edited by Sung, with texts by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Ruba Katrib, Nancy Lim, Matthew Villar Miranda, Sung, and Xiaoyu Weng. The exhibition will tour to SFMOMA, MoMA PS1, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.  

Curators: Victoria Sung, Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and former associate curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center; with Matthew Villar Miranda, curatorial associate at BAMPFA, and former curatorial fellow, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center 

 

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 about their in-gallery experiences, fostering a dialogue about visitor preferences and testing curatorial assumptions about public opinion. It is organized in four concise thematic chapters that will unfold over a period of nine months. Each chapter is anchored by a significant recent acquisition and features a diversity of works—spanning different media and time periods—drawn from the Walker’s collection. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to participate in a short, anonymous survey—offered in English, Spanish, Somali, and Hmong—about the artworks on view, the gallery texts, and additional content of interest. Large-scale monitors in the exhibition and in the Walker lobby will capture the accumulating responses through the run of the show, revealing a composite of the varying ideas and perspectives. 

 Chapter themes and dates include:
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–November 26, 2023 

St. Louis–based artist Kahlil Robert Irving (US, b. 1992) creates complex and layered assemblages of 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. With his current exhibition, Irving presents new sculptures, videos, and found objects that together consider our relationship to the city street as a place and a concept. The street can be seen as not only a space of collective gathering but also one of transit between points of safety and security. Like sifting through archaeological strata, Irving’s work reveals how our present moment is composed of physical remnants that begin to tell a fragmented story. For the first time, Irving has also installed his work within a large plywood platform, allowing visitors to experience the objects through a variety of approaches. Some, such as a painted industrial ceramic pipe, are elevated through the platform, standing above most viewers like a large pillar or column, while ceramic tiles made to resemble textures from the urban street are sunken into the platform or visible through openings protected by a railing. The exhibition draws attention to what Irving calls “the unspoken, inherited reality of being a non-white person in America.” 

Curator: William Hernández Luege, curatorial assistant, Visual Arts 

 

Paul Chan: Breathers 

November 17, 2022–July 16, 2023 

This is the first major US-based museum exhibition of works by artist, writer, and publisher Paul Chan 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. The forthcoming exhibition, titled Paul Chan: Breathers, traces the artist’s return to artmaking 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.  

The exhibition is accompanied by a Walker designed and published catalogue created in close collaboration with the artist, with contributions by Pavel S. Pyś, Vic Brooks, and Paul Chan.  

Curators: Pavel Pyś, curator, Visual Arts; with Matthew Villar Miranda, curatorial fellow, 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? This 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. With more than 100 works—painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, and video installations—the exhibition Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection invites us to become reacquainted with favorites from the collection and discover new pieces by artists who are reinventing genres we thought we knew. 

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