Walker Art Center Press Room

Walker Art Center Advance Exhibition Schedule :

Fri, 9 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS

Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes
February 16August 17, 2008

The first major museum exhibition to examine both the art and architecture of the contemporary American suburb and its catalytic role in the creation of new art features more than 75 workspaintings, photographs, prints, architectural models, sculptures, and videosaddressing commonly held assumptions about the origins, demographic composition, persistence, and sustainability of the suburban landscape. Some 30 artists and architects draw inspiration from, provoke discussion about, or cast either an appreciative or critical eye on todays suburbs.

The exhibition is arranged in three sections: the residential tract home; the retail zone, comprised of the strip mall, shopping center, and big box store; and the infrastructure for automobiles and the culture it has engendered. Several design firms have produced new works for the exhibition. Estudio Teddy Cruz explores the reciprocal influence of American suburbanization and Latin American immigration on suburban San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico; FAT (Fashion.Architecture.Taste) presents its work on a multiethnic suburban park in the Netherlands; Lateral Architecture explores the spaces between and around big box power centers, the successor to suburbias regional mall; Interboro examines life at a so-called dead mall in New York; Minneapolis-based Coen+Partners revises a traditional cul-de-sac development; the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) documents the major automotive test tracks located in various urban peripheries of the United States; and Jeffrey Inaba of INABA/C-Lab recasts the humble suburban trash container and the society of consumption and waste it represents.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

The exhibition will be on view at the Heinz Architectural Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, October 4, 2008January 18, 2009.

Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

The exhibition is made possible by generous support from John Taft. Media partner Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.

Curators: Andrew Blauvelt, Walker design director and curator, and Tracy Myers, curator of architecture at Carnegies Heinz Architectural Center

Richard Prince: Spiritual America
March 22-September 14, 2008

Richard Princes first comprehensive retrospective since 1992 highlights his contributions to the development of contemporary art, bringing together key examples of his photographs, paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Rather than organizing the work according to chronology or medium, the installation intersperses works from Princes numerous seriesincluding appropriated photographs such as Cowboys, Girlfriends, and Gangs; canvases such as Jokes, White Paintings, Check Paintings, and Nurses; and the Hood sculpturesto unearth latent thematic relationships. The exhibition reveals the iconographic continuity throughout Princes oeuvre despite the variety of its imagery and technique. Richard Prince: Spiritual America not only focuses on the artists fascination with rebellion, obsession with fame, and preoccupation with the tawdry and the illicit, but also connects them to the fabric of our social landscape.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Richard Prince: Spiritual America is organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

The Walker Art Centers presentation is sponsored by Ameriprise Financial.

Major support for the Walker Art Centers presentation is generously provided by Karen and Ken Heithoff.

Media partner Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.

Curator: Nancy Spector, chief curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Walker Coordinating Curator: Philippe Vergne

Trisha Brown: So That the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Have Stopped Dancing>
April 18July 20, 2008

The centerpiece of a spectrum of programs honoring the 40-year career of this contemporary dance icon provides an in-depth look at the visual arts practice of an artist recognized primarily for her work in dance and opera. While Trisha Brown is best known for her innovative choreographies that revolutionized modern dance, she has for many years made drawings and other works beyond the stage that integrate the performing and visual arts. Trisha Brown centers on a broad survey of Browns drawings going back more than three decades, concluding with a large drawing created by the artist at the exhibitions preview event. It takes inspiration in its structure from Browns interest in reorienting the performer and audience, with a performance installation that places live dancers on the wall of the gallery, and a participatory audio work that invites visitors to lie on the gallery floor and contemplate the ceiling. The former work, Planes (1968), is a major early performance that includes a film by Jud Yalkut and soundtrack by Simone Forti; the latter, Skymap (1969), was Browns one attempt to engage the ceiling as a performative surface. To a significant degree, the arc of Browns work in drawing parallels her developments in dance, and footage of seminal performances is present throughout the exhibition.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

The Year of Trisha is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpiece: Dance Initiative, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Sage and John Cowles, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the University of Minnesota McKnight Arts and Humanities Endowment.

Curator: Peter Eleey

Design for the Other 90%
May 24September 7, 2008

Of the worlds 6.5 billion people, 90 percent have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have reliable access to food, clean water, healthcare, education, affordable transportation, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% features a growing movement among designers, engineers, and social entrepreneurs to create low-cost solutions for everyday problems. Through local and global partnerships, individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the worlds poor.

The exhibition showcases designs that use conventional and unorthodox methods, new and traditional materials, or ancient and innovative technologies to solve myriad problemsfrom cleaner-burning sugarcane charcoal to a solar-powered battery for a hearing aid, from a portable water purification straw to a $100 laptop computer. By actively understanding the available resources, tools, desires, and immediate needs of their potential users, these designers create simple and pragmatic objects and ingenious and adaptive systems that can help transform lives and communities.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Design for the Other 90% is organized by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York. The Walker Art Center's presentation is sponsored by UnitedHealth Group. The exhibition is made possible by the Lemelson Foundation. Additional support is is provided by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency, the Esme Usdan Exhibition Endowment Fund, and the Ehrenkranz Fund.

Walker Coordinating Curator: Andrew Blauvelt

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
September 13, 2008January 4, 2009

The Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts jointly present this first major museum retrospective of architect Eero Saarinens short but prolific career. Saarinen was one of the most celebrated, unorthodox, and controversial masters of 20th-century architecture. In many ways he was the architect of what has been dubbed the American century, the post-World War II era when the United States emerged as an influential world superpower.

Although Saarinens most iconic and publicly recognizable design is the soaring Gateway Arch in St. Louis, his work spanned many different areas of architectural practice, including the design of airports, corporate and academic campuses, churches and private residences, and furniture. Although criticized by his peers at the time for having a different style for each project, Saarinen rejected the dogma of an orthodox modernism and instead adopted a varied approach to architectural design, letting the subject and site guide his inventive solutions. His resulting body of work includes such masterpieces as the sweeping concrete curves of the TWA Terminal (19561962) at New Yorks JFK Airport; the grandeur of General Motors Technical Center (19481956), dubbed an industrial Versailles by the media; and the iconic Womb Chair and Ottoman (19461948) or the innovative Pedestal (19541957) series of tables and chairs, both for Knoll and all classics of mid-century modernism.

Featured in the exhibition are never-before-seen sketches, working drawings, models, photographs, furnishings, films, and other ephemera from various archives and private collections. Exploring his entire output of more than 50 built and unbuilt projects, it provides a unique opportunity to consider Saarinens innovations in the use of new materials, technologies, and construction techniques within the larger context of postwar modern architecture.

In this collaborative presentation, the Walker Art Center will feature Saarinens furnishings and residences as well as his designs for churches and academic and corporate campuses, while the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will present his designs for airports, memorials, and embassies, as well as his early work within the context of its modernist design collection.
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future is organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and The Museum of Finnish Architecture with the support of Yale University School of Architecture. ASSA ABLOY is the global sponsor of the exhibition. Additional support is provided by Florence Knoll Bassett, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, Jeffrey Klein, Earle I. Mack, Marvin Suomi, anonymous donors, and the Ministry of Education, Finland.

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future is co-presented in Minneapolis by the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Major support for the Minneapolis presentation is provided by Judy Dayton.

Curator: Donald Albrecht, independent curator and curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York
Walker Coordinating Curator: Andrew Blauvelt
Minneapolis Institute of Arts Coordinating Curator: Jennifer Komar Olivarez, Associate Curator of Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft & Sculpture

Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis
October 18, 2008January 11, 2009

The first solo U.S. museum exhibition of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudos work includes some 70 works of diverse media and scaleobjects, sculpture, installation, drawing, and paintingcovering the entire trajectory of his career, from the late 1950s through the late 1980s. Also featured will be a study room, in which viewers can explore a timeline of the artists life and work and examine historical documentation, posters, and ephemera, as well as studies for some of his larger-scale works. Kudo was a rare artist who bridged many disparate artistic tendencies in the latter half of the 20th centuryincluding French Nouveau Realisme, international Fluxus, Pop art, 1960s anti-art tendencies, and 1980s Japanese postmodernismwithout specifically belonging to any of them. Throughout his life and career he remained an eccentric and enigmatic figure in postwar art. In his stance and approach, temperament, and philosophy, the contemporary artists he perhaps shared most with were figures like Joseph Beuys, Paul Thek, James Lee Byars, and Yayoi Kusama. But the significance of Kudos work lies not only in art history but in postwar culture and thought more generally. Throughout his career, he remained particularly Japanese, while his art and vision were consistently and uniquely transcultural, international, and cosmopolitan. Deeply concerned with the fate of humanity in the wake of nuclear attacks on his native land and the dawn of the global arms race, Kudo sought to develop a universal humanist language of creativity and regeneration until his untimely death in 1990.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis is organized by the Walker Art Center. The exhibition is made possible by generous support from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation and the Japan Foundation.

Curator: Doryun Chong

The Quick and the Dead
February 14May 3, 2009

The Quick and the Dead explores the lingering effects of new senses of time and space that have developed in postwar culture, and considers their affect upon our relationships with objects, memory, and in turn, with the museum itself. Occupying and expanding beyond the more than 11,000 square feet of the Walkers main galleries, the exhibition will feature approximately 80 works by more than 40 artists (along with a few scientists and musicians) with a combination of historical and contemporary works that expand, condense, invert, or implode characteristics of time and space.

Referencing a biblical description of the living and the dead, the futurist designer and engineer R. Buckminster Fuller in 1947 described the quick realities of Einsteins theory of relativity and its view of the world as a system of continuous, renewable motion as the revolutionary rejoinder to the dead superstitions of classical Newtonian physics and its insistence upon the stasis of objects. The exhibition takes this formulation as a model, mining this gap between the static object and what Fuller called the event of matter through a core group of conceptually oriented pieces from the 1960s and 70s, and more recent worksall of which manipulate time and space in some manner, whether as discrete works themselves, or through their presentation in the space of the exhibition.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Curator: Peter Eleey

Elizabeth Peyton: Painting
February 14June 14, 2009

A vanguard voice in the return to narrative figuration in contemporary painting and a brilliant colorist with a razor-sharp graphic sense, Elizabeth Peyton creates small, jewel-like portraits that capture an artistic zeitgeist using a visual vocabulary that could only have been produced in late 20th-century urban America. Peyton was among a handful of artists to develop a peculiar hybrid of realism and conceptualism. Although her paintings have clear debts to 19th-century French modernist painting from Gros to Manet, these masters have been processed through an intimate understanding of David Hockney, Alex Katz, and above all, Andy Warhol. Like Warhol, Peyton's art is, at a certain level, at the service of the culture it captures. Her paintings are enormously seductive in form and content, and they frankly flaunt their celebration of the shallow aesthetics of youth, fame, and fashion. They are also testaments to a deeper passion for beauty in all its formsfrom the elevated to the banal.

This first comprehensive survey of the artists paintings examines Peyton's mature work over the past 15 years. Beginning in 1994 with her small-scale paintings of rock idols like Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain, the exhibition is organized by seriesof individual subjects like well-known contemporary artists and historical figures; motifs, including pose and props; and broad thematic categories such as music and fashion. Like a novel, Peyton's oeuvre can be read in chapters, each of which features portraits of friends, family, personal heroes, and fleeting passions. The exhibition offers a visual biography of the artist while creating a snapshot of the popular culture of the past decade.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Elizabeth Peyton: Painting is organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Banana Republic is the global sponsor of the exhibition.

Curator: Laura Hoptman, senior curator, New Museum
Walker Coordinating Curator: Elizabeth Carpenter

Tomás Saraceno
April 30August 9, 2009

Recently featured in the Walker exhibition Brave New Worlds, Tomás Saracenos futuristic constructions and images occupy a space between art and architecture that calls attention to the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of forms. Pushing the conventions of sculpture and installation art, Saraceno uses such signature materials as elastic ropes and plastic balloons to create clusters of spheres, radiant explosions of lines, and geometric constellations that wed materials and space into one.

Trained as an architect at the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Saraceno later merged his architectural inquiry into kinetic sculpture in the tradition of figures such as Buckminster Fuller, Gyula Kosice, and Kenneth Snelson. His conceptual and formal investigations cross fields as diverse as philosophy, politics, economics, and history to construct platforms for discussion about the anxieties of our times, the depletion of world resources, alienation, and borderlines. While balancing his practice between producing and preserving energy, clustering and knitting, elevating and suspending, Saraceno follows the tradition of those who have looked to the sky to escape the reality of earth inviting us to visualize new horizons and goals.

This solo exhibition offers an in-depth presentation of Saracenos visionary and poetic approach to architecture, engineering, and physics, while addressing spatial and conceptual questions related to art. On view will be drawings, photographs, kinetic sculptures, and the premiere of a newly commissioned large-scale installation. In keeping with the experimental nature of Saracenos vision, the Walker will use solar power to generate the electricity needed for the exhibition.

In a related project and culminating a one-month Walker residency in fall 2008, Saraceno, in collaboration with Italian writer Alberto Pesavento, will present the U.S. premiere of Museo Aerosolar, a solar-powered balloon made from thousands of recycled plastic bags, which will be launched in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, tracked during its flight, and rescued when it lands after losing its solar power. Working with graduate students from the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the artist will conduct in-depth discussions on such related topics as sustainable technologies, utopian architecture, and solar energy, as well as provide hands-on experience building solar-powered inflatable structures.

Tomás Saraceno is organized by the Walker Art Center. The artists residency was made possible by generous support from the Nimoy Foundation.

Curator: Yasmil Raymond

Yves Klein
June 6September 27, 2009

Half shaman, half showman, Yves Klein took the European art scene by storm in a brief career that lasted just eight years, from 1954 to 1962. Working in Paris during the apogee of geometric abstraction and Art Informel, in an intellectual scene dominated by existentialism, Klein carved out theoretical ground based on his embrace of Rosicrucianism, his interest in Gaston Bachelards philosophy of space, and the ethics of his career as a judo professional. A precursor of many movements of the postwar avant-garde, including minimal art, conceptual art, land art, and performance art, Klein aimed to reach beyond the problematic in art and rethink the world in spiritual and aesthetic termsto reinstate the role of the artist as heroic, in the manner of Marcel Duchamps invention of the readymades decades earlier. Kleins impressive body of work broke new ground and blended traditional artistic mediums, performance, and spiritual exploration. He inaugurated his defining series of monochromes in 1957, employing ultramarine blue of his own invention after trying various other hues, and in the final years of his career, his body paintings, or anthopometries, recorded the bodys physical energy using his patented pigment known as International Klein Blue or IKB. Through pure color he searched for immaterial spirituality.

The first large-scale exhibition of Kleins influential work to tour the United States in nearly three decades is organized by the Walker Art Center and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, in collaboration with the Yves Klein Archives in Paris. Exploring the artists work and its relationship with the environment, film, theater, air, and architecture, the exhibition of some 100 pieces features painting, sculpture, drawing, documents, photographs, and films. Following its premiere at the Walker, the exhibition will travel to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (October 2009January 2010) and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (FebruaryMay 2010).

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Yves Klein is co-organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Smithsonian Institutions Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.

Curators: Philippe Vergne, Walker Art Center, and Kerry Brougher, acting director, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

COLLECTION EXHIBITIONS

Statements: Beuys, Flavin, Judd
May 15, 2008July 12, 2009

Joseph Beuys, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd were contemporaries of thought more so than form. Each took sculpture off its pedestalliterally and figurativelyand expanded the conventions of what constitutes a work of art, influencing scores of artists to do the same. This exhibition provides a snapshot of a vital moment in postwar cultural production and traces the influence of these artists ideas on contemporary art. Drawn from the Walkers collection, the works on view reflect each artists distinct position towards art-making and the ways in which they address the autonomy of art, its nature, and its social power, concerns that continue to have relevance for artists today. Not interested in flamboyance and monumentality, Beuys, Flavin, and Judd experimented with new alternatives and presented concrete statements despite the unwelcome reception by mainstream culture.

Journeys to Nowhere: Selections from the Collection
August 14December 7, 2008

This focused gathering of works from the Walkers collection revolves around the ideas of adventure and discovery, dreams and imagination, as well as nature and environment. The centerpiece is the ambitious video installation A Journey That Wasnt (2005) by Pierre Huyghe (born 1962, Paris), which takes viewers on an expedition to Antarctica in search of a lost island and its elusive inhabitantan albino penguin. Documentation of this perilous yet thrilling voyage is interspersed with footage from a spectacular operatic light-and-sound recreation, which the artist staged as a public event in New Yorks Central Park. A Journey That Wasnt premiered at the Whitney Biennial 2006: A Day for Night, curated by Philippe Vergne and Chrissie Iles and was jointly acquired by the Whitney and the Walker in 2006. Inspired by the artists work, this exhibition explores the convergence of reality and fiction, memory and history, and various modes of cultural reproduction through the use of a diverse range of media, including film, video, sound, animation, sculpture, and architecture. Journeys to Nowhere also features works from the Walkers collection that resonate with the range of complex and contemporary social topics addressed and suggested by Huyghes piecein particular, humanitys simultaneous destruction of nature and yearning for utopia.

Curators: Elizabeth Carpenter and Doryun Chong

The Shape of Time
Through August 23, 2009

Unfolding a chronological path through 50 years of art history, this exhibition begins with postwar abstraction, moves on to the historical and visual provocation of alternative modernisms, and ends in the swarming and seductive experiments of the 1980s and 1990s.

Mid-Century Radical
The Shape of Time begins with postwar American and European abstraction. This installation of High Modernist painting and sculpture presents moments of classicism and radicality in the work of a selection of artists, including Lucio Fontana, Alberto Giacometti, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Isamu Noguchi, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko.

Alternative Modernisms
Exploring in depth the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s and the concurrent spirit of liberation and experimentation, this section offers a comprehensive survey of aesthetic practices aimed at subverting the conventions of painting and sculpture, as well as art-making in general: Japanese Gutai, Viennese Actionism, Italian Arte Povera, and the international Fluxus movement. Artists include Alighiero Boetti, Bruce Conner, David Hammons, Yves Klein, Marisa Merz, Hermann Nitsch, Nam June Paik, Giulio Paolini, Dieter Roth, Kazuo Shiraga, Atsuko Tanaka, and
Hannah Wilke.

American Standard
This section of the exhibition contains a selection of the Walkers Pop art holdings as well as landmark works by two of the movements progenitorsJasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Centered on an ensemble of Andy Warhol grocery carton sculptures, the installation also features work by Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg. Multidisciplinary experimentation is represented by Walkaround Time, a stage set created by Jasper Johns for a dance choreographed by Merce Cunningham.

Variations on Convention
The last gallery belongs to the complexity and diversity of the art of the 1980s and 1990s. A cross-generational installation demonstrates, through painting and sculpture, figuration and abstraction, that cultural and critical inquiry can live happily together with lyrical sensuality. Artists represented in this section include Chuck Close, Robert Gober, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Richard Prince, Lorna Simpson, and Christopher Wool.

Elemental
Through October 19, 2008

By the mid-1960s, critics and artists heralded the arrival of Minimalism, an idea-based sensibility that seemed more in keeping with Americas embrace of its burgeoning space program and new technologies than the Abstract Expressionists mining or the subjective and the Pop artists adoption of banal material culture. Although the artists in this exhibition make use of many of the same formal devices and geometries, their differing or even opposing points of view with regard to influences, form, and content opened up the discourse surrounding the movement in later decades. Major works by Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Mangold, Agnes Martin, Fred Sandback, and Richard Serra provide a foundation for the exhibition which showcases one of the strongest areas of the Walkers collection.

Mythologies
Through October 10, 2010

This exhibition is built around some of the most important pieces in the Walkers collection. Including works by Joseph Beuys, Mary Esch, Katharina Fritsch, Anselm Kiefer, Paul McCarthy, Julie Mehretu, Sigmar Polke, Charles Ray, and Paul Thek, Mythologies assembles a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, and multiples, around the idea of historical or contemporary mythologies. Beuys, Kiefer, and Polke are questioning entrenched mythologies when reflecting on troubled history and the notion of national identity; mythology again comes into play when Charles Ray shapes a conflicted monument to the late 20th century in his Unpainted Sculpture of a wrecked car.

All exhibition information is correct at time of printing.

Walker Art Center to Premiere the Late Japanese Artist Tetsumi Kudo's First U.S. Solo Museum Exhibition : Garden of Metamorphosis Reveals the Artist's Radically Transcultural and and Cosmopolitan Vision :

Fri, 9 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis, the late Japanese artists first solo museum exhibition in the United States, premieres at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, October 18, 2008January 11, 2009. Curated by Walker visual arts curator Doryun Chong, in close collaboration with Hiroko Kudo, the artists widow and executor of the estate, the retrospective exhibition will feature some 70 works of diverse mediaobjects, sculpture, installation, drawing, and paintingcovering the entire trajectory of Kudos productive career, from the late 1950s through the late 1980s. Many works will be borrowed from some of the most important museums in Japan and Europe, as well as from private collections. The Walker is publishing a comprehensive catalogue to accompany the exhibition, the first full-length study of the artists work in any Western language.

Tetsumi Kudo was a rare artist who bridged many disparate artistic tendencies in the latter half of the 20th centuryincluding French Nouveau Réalisme, international Fluxus, Pop art, 1960s anti-art tendencies, and 1980s Japanese postmodernismwithout specifically belonging to any of them. Throughout his life and career, he remained an eccentric and enigmatic figure in postwar art. In his stance and approach, temperament, and philosophy, the contemporary artists he perhaps shared most with were figures like Joseph Beuys, Paul Thek, James Lee Byars, and Yayoi Kusama. But the significance of Kudos work lies not only in art history but more generally in postwar culture and thought. Throughout his career, he remained particularly Japanese, while his art and vision were consistently and uniquely transcultural, international, and cosmopolitan. Deeply concerned with the fate of humanity in the wake of nuclear attacks on his native land and the dawn of the global arms race, Kudo determinedly sought to develop a universal humanist language of creativity and regeneration until his untimely death in 1990.

Although Kudos work has been featured in benchmark historical exhibitions, such as Japon des avant-gardes 19101970 (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1986) and Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky (Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1994), the artist has never been the subject of a one-person exhibition outside Europe and Japan. The only comprehensive retrospective of his work, organized by the National Museum of Art, Osaka, took place more than a decade ago.

Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis aims not only to introduce this important artist to new audiences, but to contribute to the ongoing revision of the narrative of postwar international art. The exhibition will include a study room, in which viewers can explore the timeline of the artists life and work and examine historical documentation, posters, and ephemera, as well as studies for some of his larger-scale works.

The Artist
Born in Osaka in 1935 and raised in Aomori, located in the northern end of the main island of Japan, Kudo came of age in the late 1950s when Japan began to experience a return of the traumas and discontents which had been suppressed during more than a decade of military occupation, political stability, and economic growth following the devastation of World War II. He made a name for himself early on with his evocative and sensuous, often grotesque objects and shocking performances. In 1962, he stunned the Tokyo art world with his installation titled The Philosophy of Impotence, in which he filled an entire gallery with objects resembling phalluses that symbolized, in his own words, the pathetic despair of human efforts.

In the same year, just as he was gaining exposure and notoriety, Kudo immigrated to Paris. But fittingly for someone with a radical mindset, the artist soon became disenchanted with the Parisian art world and postwar European humanism; he quickly embarked on developing a practice that confronted and critiqued the Western dualistic way of viewing humanity in opposition to nature or technology. His Your Portrait series, which he began in 1963 and continued through the 1970s, consisted of sculptural fragments of the human bodyface, hands, brain, heart, penistrapped inside bird cages, fish tanks, and wooden boxes in the shape of dice. He often mixed these with found everyday objects. He provocatively declared, I wanted to tell Europeans that humanism and love and sex are virtually on the same dimension as such mundane commodities as instant soup or cigarettes.

Kudos lurid and even morbid works did not represent a pessimistic or cynical vision, however. In his unique version of humanism, the artist viewed human beings no differently than lower, simpler organisms that exist within a perpetual proliferating chain reaction. At the same time, unlike many postwar artists and thinkers, Kudo did not hold a negative view of the irreversible tides of modernity; for him, the pollution of the human body and society by science and technology, consumerism and commodities, could create new hybrid forms of existence and turn the landscape of humankind and civilization into a new ecology.

In the last decade of his life, Kudo sharply shifted the orientation of his art, seeking to bridge Japan and the West, as well as to dissect Japanese culture and society more explicitly. His work began to appear less visceral, and instead more abstract and contemplative. It even addressed the usually off-limit subject of the Japanese Emperor system; he considered it to be at the centeror the black holeof Japanese culture, society, and spirituality. His earlier performances and Happenings evolved into what the artist called Ceremonies: he appeared as a cross between a Buddhist monk and a Shinto priest, meditating with objects. In 1987, he was appointed professor at his alma mater, the Tokyo University of Fine Art. In November 1990, Tetsumi Kudo died of cancer.

Exhibition Catalogue
The 208-page catalogue, with 80 color plates and 85 black-and-white illustrations, will feature an essay by exhibition curator Doryun Chong on Kudos philosophy, the evolution of his artistic vocabulary, and his art historical place; selections of the artists writings and interviews; and reprints of historical criticism. Also included will be a chronology of the artists life and career by Hiroko Kudo, richly illustrated with photographic documentation; and a reflection by artist Mike Kelley.

Distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 155 Sixth Avenue, Second Floor, New York, NY 10013, 800.338.2665 (phone), 800.478.3128 (fax), artbook.com, and available at the Walker Art Center Shop, 612.375.7633 (phone), 612.375.7565 (fax). ISBN 978-0-935640-92-2
$39.95 ($35.95 Walker members).

Exhibition Curator
Doryun Chong is assistant curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. During his tenure he has organized exhibitions such as Brave New Worlds (2007), Catherine Sullivan: Triangle of Need (2007), and OPENENDED (the art of engagement) (2006). He was also a co-curator of the Busan Biennale (2006) in South Korea.

Tour Schedule
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
October 18, 2008January 11, 2009

Other venues to be announced.

Public Tours in June Offer Chance to Explore the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden During its 20th Anniversary Celebration :

Fri, 9 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT
June tours at the Walker Art Center offer a chance to get outside and explore the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden during Walker Inside Out: Art goes outdoors, a summerlong celebration honoring the Gardens 20th anniversary. Tours are also offered for Trisha Brown: So That the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Have Stopped Dancing (through July 20), providing an in-depth look at the visual arts practice of an artist recognized primarily for her work in dance and opera; Richard Prince: Spiritual America (through September 14), a critical overview of the celebrated American artists work, organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; and of ongoing collection exhibitions. Also offered in June are Spotlight Gallery Talks led by Walker curators and tour guides highlighting selected artworks or artists in the galleries.

Gallery admission is $10 adults; $8 seniors (65+), $6 students/teens (with ID) and free to Walker members and children 12 and under. Admission is free with a ticket to a same-day Walker event, $4 with a ticket stub up to six days after an event. Gallery admission is free to all every Thursday evening from 59 pm and on the first Saturday of each month.

June Public Tours

Gallery, Garden, and Architecture Tours
Thursday and Friday, 1 and 6 pm
Saturday and Sunday, 12 noon
Free with gallery admission. Garden tours are always free.
Check the calendar listing, visit the lobby desk, or call the box office for details and tour topics. To schedule a private group tour, visit learn.walkerart.org or call 612.375.7609.

Trisha Brown: So That the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Have Stopped Dancing Gallery Tours
Friday, June 13, 1 pm
Thursday, June 19, 1 pm
Saturday, June 21, 12 noon
Thursday, June 26, 6 pm
Saturday, June 28, 12 noon
Saturday, June 28, 6 pm

Richard Prince: Spiritual America Gallery Tours
Friday, June 6, 1 and 6 pm
Thursday, June 12, 6 pm
Saturday, June 14, 12 noon
Friday, June 20, 1 and 6 pm
Friday, June 27, 1 pm

Walker Collection Tours
Sunday, June 1, 12 noon
Sunday, June 8, 12 noon
Friday, June 13, 6 pm
Thursday, June 19, 6 pm
Thursday, June 26, 1 pm
Friday, June 27, 6 pm
Sunday, June 29, 12 noon

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden Tours
Thursday, June 5, 1 pm
Thursday, June 12, 1 pm
Sunday, June 15, 12 noon
Sunday, June 22, 12 noon

Spotlight Gallery Talks
June 4: Women Artists in the Collection
June 18: Bruce Conner
Wednesdays at 12 noon
Free with gallery admission
The Walkers world-class collection of contemporary art and its internationally recognized performing arts program take center stage in focused 15- to 20-minute talks led by Walker curators and tour guides. Each talk sets the stage for illuminating discussions. Bring a friend and continue the conversation over lunch at Gallery 8 Café or 20.21 Restaurant & Bar by Wolfgang Puck.

Adult learning opportunities are made possible by Richard and Claudia Swager.

Walker Art Center Cinemateca Series on Last Friday of Each Month Continues in May with La Corona (The Crown) and Septembers (Septiembres) :

Fri, 9 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT

A reemergence of Latin American films on the international scene in recent years has resulted in a wealth of vivid, groundbreaking work. The Walker Art Centers Cinemateca film series continues its run of screenings on the last Friday of each month with two documentaries on Friday, May 30, 7:30 pm, including Isabel Vega and Amanda Michelis La Corona (The Crown) from Colombia, about a beauty pageant at a womens prison in Bogotà, and Carlos Boschs Septembers (Septiembres) from Spain, which documents a singing competition at a prison in Madrid.

The contestants in this beauty pageant are thieves, murderers, and guerillas. The runner-up wipes her tears with a tattooed hand when the tiara is not placed on her headand after the winner is crowned queen, all are taken back to their cells. Set in the womens penitentiary in Bogotá, Colombia, The Crown is a character-driven documentary that follows four inmates competing in the annual pageant. Nominated for an Oscar in the Short Documentary category and winner of Honorable Mention Award at 2008 Sundance film festival. 2007, Colombia, video, in Spanish with English subtitles, 45 minutes.

In Septembers, eight men and women reveal their lives though the love songs they perform in a competition held in a prison near Madrid. The inmates from such various countries as Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, and Lithuania pine for their family, friends and lovers and director Carlos Bosch (of the Oscar-nominated Balseros), tracks down the loved ones outside the penitentiary walls who have inspired the songs. 2007, Spain, video, in Spanish with English subtitles, 90 minutes.

Tickets to La Corona (The Crown) and Septembers (Septiembres) are $8 ($6 Walker members) and are available at walkerart.org/tickets or by calling 612.375.7600. The screening takes place in the Walker Cinema.

The Cinemateca series continues on Friday, June 27, with XXY from Argentina, which won the Ariel Award for Best Ibero American Film.

Walker Art Center Seeks Tour Guide Candidates : Applications Available in May for Nine-Month Fall Training Course Covering Art History, Education Theory, and Touring Techniques :

Fri, 2 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT
The Walker Art Center is seeking individuals for whom the Walker is a source of inspiration to become part of its tour guide community. Applications are available in May for the nine-month fall training course, which covers art history, education theory, and touring techniques. New candidates are asked to commit at least two years to the Walker as an active tour guide, being available to lead tours one day or evening per week. Tour guides are also required to continuously hone their knowledge of the Walkers collection and contemporary art through education training sessions and personal study. The training course will be held on Wednesdays, from 9:30 am to 12 noon, beginning September 17.

Walker tour guides are a diverse group, including men and women, world travelers, retirees, working professionals, and recent college graduates. Some have art history degrees and others have advanced degrees in physics and mathematics and relish the opportunity to engage in left-brain activity. All have wide-open minds and share a commitment to lifelong learning and a passion for contemporary art.

Applications will be accepted through July 7. Bilingual candidates are encouraged to apply. To request an application, call 612.375.7574 or e-mail tours@walkerart.org. For more information about booking a guided tour of the Walker, visit info.walkerart.org/visit/tours.wac.

Design for the Other 90% Explores Socially Responsive Solutions for Everyday Needs : Walker Art Center Exhibition Features Design Solutions for the Poor and Marginalized Around the World :

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Of the worlds 6.5 billion people, 90 percent have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have reliable access to food, clean water, healthcare, education, affordable transportation, or shelter. The exhibition Design for the Other 90%, presented by the Walker Art Center in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden May 24September 7, features a growing movement among designers, engineers, and social entrepreneurs to create low-cost solutions for everyday problems. Through local and global partnerships, individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the worlds poor. The exhibition will be open 11 am5 pm TuesdaySunday, Thursdays until 9 pm (open Mondays Memorial Day and Labor Day). Admission is free.

Design for the Other 90%, organized by the Smithsonians Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, showcases designs that use conventional and unorthodox methods, new and traditional materials, or ancient and innovative technologies to solve myriad problemsfrom cleaner-burning sugarcane charcoal to a solar-powered battery for a hearing aid, from a portable water purification straw to a $100 laptop computer. By actively understanding the available resources, local context, and immediate needs of their potential users, these designers create simple and pragmatic objects and ingenious and adaptive systems that can help transform lives and communities.

More than 30 projects will be featured inside a series of Global Village Sheltersprefabricated emergency housinglocated in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as well as in the Walkers Bazinet Garden Lobby.

Organized by Cooper-Hewitt curator Cynthia E. Smith, along with an eight-member advisory council, the exhibition is divided into sections focusing on water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy and transportation and highlights objects developed to empower global populations surviving under the poverty level or recovering from a natural disaster.

Among the featured objects are the Pot-in-Pot Cooler, a storage container that doubles the amount of crops saved while extending their shelf life; the Big Boda Load Carrying Bicycle, which can easily carry hundreds of pounds of cargo or two additional passengers at a substantially lower cost than other forms of human-powered utility vehicles; MoneyMaker Pumps, which families can use to irrigate fruits and vegetables during the dry season, allowing greater crop yields year-round; and Nicholas Negropontes One Laptop per Child project, an inexpensive, universal laptop computer to be used as an educational tool for children.

Design for the Other 90% also focuses on the design worlds response to the devastation of natural disasters. On view will be furniture recycled from hurricane debris and produced by the Katrina Furniture Project, an organization that trains individuals in furniture craftsmanship and facilitates workshops that function as neighborhood-based places of work, sites of learning, and community centers. Also featured will be examples of shelters used throughout the world, including Global Village Shelters, which are used as temporary homes and rural clinics; Mad Housers Huts, built by volunteers to house the homeless; Day Labor Station, a mobile worker center; and the Seventh Ward Shade Structure, which provides a gathering place for planning reconstruction efforts while the Porch Cultural Center in New Orleans is being rebuilt.

Ninety-five percent of the worlds designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10 percent of the worlds customers, said Dr. Paul Polak, president of International Development Enterprises and a member of the exhibitions advisory council. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90 percent, he added.

In the Shop
The 144-page exhibition catalogue from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum features 200 full-color illustrations and more than a dozen essays by leading experts. $20 ($18 Walker members).

RELATED EVENTS

Film Screenings

Big Ideas for a Small Planet
JuneAugust
Screens each half-hour from 12 noon during gallery hours
Lecture Room

This series of documentaries created by the Sundance Channel focuses on innovative ideas for transforming the planets future, offering creative green solutions to some of the worlds looming challenges.
2007, video, 30 minutes each.

Target Free Thursday Nights

Soundbite
Thursday, July 3, 6:30 and 7 pm
These focused 15- to 20-minute talks highlight selected artworks in the exhibition and set the stage for illuminating discussions.

Solutions for the Other 90%
Thursday, July 31, 7 pm
Cinema
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk from 6 pm.
Good design isnt just for the world's richest 10% anymore and the Twin Cities are at the forefront of a new movement towards humanitarian design. Local professionals, students, and amateurs alike are all finding inspiration in tackling a new set of problems: how to bring sustainable solutions to the water, energy, education, healthcare, and transportation to the 90% of the world's population that can least afford it.

In conjunction with the exhibition Design for the Other 90%, the Walker hosts an edition of Solutions Twin Citiesan ongoing event that brings world-changing design to the forefront of public discourse. In a rapid-fire, media-rich format where each speaker is allowed just six minutes and 40 seconds, this evening of short presentations will cover a cross section of
solution-minded designers working on real-world answers to real-world challenges, both local and abroad. Curated by Solutions founders Troy Gallas and Colin Kloecker.

www.solutionstwincities.org

Free First Saturdays are for Families!

Design Matters
Saturday, August 2, 10 am3 pm, Free
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Visit the exhibition to learn how design innovations are improving peoples lives around the world, then make your own eco-friendly art projects. Eureka Recycling will be on site to help achieve a zero-waste event and educate families on composting, recycling, and reusing materials.

Summer Design Institute

July 28August 1
Summer Design Institute (SDI), a partnership between the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Walker, is an intensive, process-based program that will train 30 selected K12 teachers to use design in their classrooms. In 2008, SDI will explore the ideas presented in Design for the Other 90%, featuring the work of designers attempting to improve the lives of people living in poverty or recovering from natural disasters.

Summer Design Institute features hands-on workshops and keynote presentations that connect the school curriculum with the world beyond the classroom. Teachers share experiences and then create inventive design-focused lesson plans and activities aligned to the national standards for all grade ranges. To evaluate the effectiveness of this content, Cooper-Hewitt will follow these teachers over the next school year as they integrate these lessons in their own classrooms. Teachers will produce standards-based lesson plans which will be housed on the Cooper-Hewitts Web site, www.cooperhewitt.org.

Miniature Golf Returns to the Walker Art Center with Two Green-Themed Courses Created by Artists, Architects, and Designers : Walker on the Green to be Open May 24 Through September 7 :

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

In the mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap, bassist Derek Smalls suggests that the difference between miniature golf and regular golf is the size of the ball. While the ball remains the same, virtually everything else about mini golf growsat least on the course of Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf on the greenspace adjacent to the Walker Art Centers Vineland Place entrance that will be open 10 am8 pm WednesdaySunday, May 24September 7. Small packages hold big ideas in the rebirth of a favorite Walker program from the summer of 2004. Artists, architects, and designers answered an open call to create green-themed holes, pitching ideas destined to challenge players senses as much as their games. Two seven-hole courses feature a water hazard; a replica of the real life island of plastic, a heap of debris floating in the Pacific Ocean; a 12-foot-tall Paul Bunyan; a single-breaking wave covered with recycled glass; and a hole that plays like Pachinko, a Japanese version of pinball with a human-powered elevator for your golf ball.

For the last course, it was artists and the Walker having a lot of fun. This one is fun with a message, says Christi Atkinson, an associate director in the Walkers education and community programs department, who coordinated the entries. Most proposals incorporate a lot of ideas. We just have to make sure the courses will stand up to four months of weather, not to mention an enthusiastic, club-wielding public.

Designers range from independent artists and architects to members of established companies and design collectives. All are registered with mnartists.org, an online resource for Minnesota artists. Alchemy Architects of St. Paul created Water Hazard, which employs dozens of dangling water bottles as an observation of the less-than-ecological practice of bottling and shipping drinking water. Sculptor Zoran Mojsilov cut a groove into the branches of storm-damaged trees, culled from the Pigs Eye landfill, to serve as a track for the ball. Maura Rockcastle, a former member of the Walkers Teen Arts Council, teamed with Regan Golden-McNerney to build a hilly landscape pocked with mounds that appear as inverted holes. Kevin Kane collaborated with his students to create a rainwater garden, a hillside of pop-bottle bottoms, and a garden for birds. You can sink a ball into the mouth of Theodore Rooseveltif you can maneuver past a 12-foot Paul Bunyancreated by artist Andrew MacGuffie. The Big Kahuna is Michael Keenans huge, single-breaking wave covered with recycled glass. The hole designed by Ed Hernandez plays like Pachinko, a Japanese version of pinball.

The two seven-hole courses share a grand finalea unique layout that not only embraces the wealth of strong designs, but also allows more people to play throughout the day.

There are no advance reservationsplay comes on a first-come, first-served basis. The course also includes a golf shack featuring a selection of food and refreshments from Wolfgang Pucks Gallery 8 Café. Copresented by mnartists.org.

Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf
WednesdaySunday, May 24September 7, 10 am8 pm (weather permitting)
On the Walker campus
$8 adults ($6 Walker members, seniors, students, $5 children 12 and under, $4 members 12 and under)

Water Hazard
Water Hazard employs dozens of dangling water bottles as an observation of the less-than-ecological practice of bottling and shipping drinking water. Reflect on "clean water" as you play this hole in some discomfort and the intentionally claustrophobic experience is felt as one maneuvers through the hazards.
Alchemy Architects: Blake Loya and Geoffrey Warner

Paul & Teddy
This hole requires you to maneuver past a 12-foot-tall Paul Bunyan so you can sink a ball into the mouth of Theodore Roosevelt who was instrumental in creating the National Park Systems we know today.
Andrew MacGuffie

Watering Hole
Survival Design has constructed a water tank hole filled with the annual average amount of water that a golf course typically uses for one person at one hole.
Survival Design: Jason S. Brown, Sean P. Frank, Elizabeth Scofield, and Frederic Scofield

Reduce.Reuse.ReSURFACE
A study in the potential of everyday recycled materials to create surface treatments appropriate for the modern environment. A skilled putter has a chance for a hole-in-one along a narrow, smooth surface of recycled tire rubber. An errant shot will send the golfers ball onto the rough, an unpredictable ricochet from compressed aluminum beverage cans.
Julie Snow Architects: Tyson McElvain and Dan Winden

Cu:Copper
This hole is made completely of copper, a recyclable and natural resource. The idea of sustainability has become devalued as more and more people try to become green. It has become fashionable, and even used as a marketing tool, to present green ideas when in fact much of what is presented as being green is really not. Cu:Copper is completely recyclable. We build it, we putt on it, and then we melt it down, gone.
James Dayton Design and A. Zahner and Company.

Growholes
Growholes is climbable, rollable, jumpable, and whackable. Made from scrap tires, this durable recycled rubber topography will playfully engage your body and your ball. Growholes uses topography to increase momentum and impose a twist on the most obvious, integrating play with the dualities of open and closed, empty and full, inherent in the game of golf. Dare to take on gravity and watch out for entropy!
Regan Golden-McNerney and Maura Rockcastle

Dimensional Rambler
Triangular paving stones made of stabilized compacted earth forms faceted hills and valleys for your putt-putt fun. Like a neglected sidewalk, weeds creep through the playing surface, changing the game-play throughout the summer. Compressed earth is a sturdy and efficient traditional building material that is used throughout the world. This golf hole is made from waste dirt pressed into a form using a simple lever mechanism.
Brett and Erin Smith

Impact!
This hole plays like Pachinko, a Japanese version of pinball, starts with a human-powered elevator for your golf ball. Through a series of switches, this hole changes each time its played. Ever wonder how your actions affect the world around you? Your putt directly affects the next. Will you have a positive or negative impact?
BBDO: Ed Hernandez, Yves Roux, Heather Sullard, Zaar Taha

People Powered Penny Arcade
The most efficient form of recycling is reuse. These artists love dumpster diving! Virtually everything you see on this golf hole has been creatively salvaged from choice Minneapolis locations.
Nate Carny Kulenkamp, Chris Pennington, and Eric Veldey

The Big Kahuna
The Big Kahuna is a huge single-breaking wave, covered with recycled glass which glimmers in the summer sun. Shred the curl just right and make it back to shore, but get caught inside and end up snuffed under the slop.
Michael Keenan

The Cycle then Recycle Home Concept of the Rimsicle Whirled of Minnie Golf
Kevin Kane collaborated with his students at the City of Lakes Waldorf School to create a rain water garden, a hillside of pop-bottle bottoms, a replica of the island of plastic hazard, and more. This island of plastic actually exists in the Pacific Ocean and continues to grow. Currently it is twice the size of the continental United States.
Kevin Kane

Pigs Eye Landfill
Sculptor Zoran Mojsilov has cut a groove into the branches of tree trunks to serve as a track for the ball. Mojsilov gets diseased or storm-damaged trees from various recycling sites, otherwise destined for the wood chipper.
Zoran Mojsilov

Angus Fairway
In affectionate memory of Angus Fairhurst (19662008). Par 1. Only one shot from the tee. If you miss the hole and the ball rolls off the edge of the green, your score is 2. No putting or walking on the mirrored green or fairway, as the ball will roll on its own from the tee.
Dont think of a monkey.
Walker Art Center: Phil Docken and Kirk McCall

Special thanks to the judges who selected the winning designs: Arlene Birt, graphic designer specializing in humanitarian design; Andrew Blauvelt, design director and curator, Walker Art Center; Peter Eleey, visual arts curator, Walker Art Center; Mark Rosen, WCCO-TV sports director/anchor; and Geoffrey Warner, creator of the weeHouse.

MINI FACTS ABOUT MINI GOLF

Miniature Golf has a long, strange, and fascinating history. One of the few truly American art forms, it has evolved from fake golf, literally a substitute sport for Scots and Englishmen transplanted to countries lacking their rolling green hills to a sport that rivaled baseball and the movies in popularity. Mini golf moved from being the savior of the American economy, threatening to replace movies as the nation's fifth largest industry, only to be placed alongside comic books and pools halls as the perpetrators of the corruption of Americas morals. Regardless, mini golf has endured, always reflecting its unique and quirky history.

The 1920s, with factors such as the suffragette movement, prohibition, and new levels of prosperity and leisure time, allowed for the game to evolve from its 1916 origin as a short game of regulation golf to what we now think of as classic miniature golf. It was an era of fadsflagpole sitting, dance marathons, and hot-dog-eating contests. Garden Golf, as it was then called, began in earnest in 1926 in two separate parts of the country. Offered as a diversion for overwrought executives during their lunch break, New York City hosted over 150 courses on building rooftops. At the same time, a resort opened on the border of Georgia and Tennessee as a sort of fantasyland for millionaires. Designed by a woman (women couldnt be architects at that time), the courses obstacle and hazard-laden features were patented as Tom Thumb Golf.

Indoor and outdoor courses soon caught on. Most were lavish affairs, often with caddies and open late into the evening so folks could stop by for a round after a night at dinner and the theater. They were a society affair, played by visiting European aristocrats and famous Hollywood stars. A course was even installed in the American Presidential Summer Camp. The crash of 1929 was the impetus for the next era of Garden Golf. Few people could afford to run the courses with their former country club-like atmospheres in these lean times and courses became more ragtag, created on abandoned lots with scavenged objects for the obstacles. Often know as Rinkiedink golf, the game only gained in popularity during the Great Depression. The courses were unique and offered cheap diversions.

The 1950s are the era that produced most of the courses for which our ideas of the game were formed. Miniature golf became a calm and wholesome family activity rather than the craze of the earlier years. The new courses were located in post war suburbia, most often the shopping strips. To increase the entertainment factor, many of the more animated and trick hazards were addedthe courses became more challenging, requiring both skill and timing.

Courses tend to reflect their geographical locationswest coast courses are influenced by Hollywood, grandiose and are fantasy-filled, while East Cost links are smaller, often reflecting historical, literary, or artistic themes.

The sport is now played around the world, and the World Minigolfsport Federations (WMF) boasts clubs in 24 nations.

The many names of Miniature Golf over the years: Plantation Golf, Wacky Golf, Putt-Putt Golf, Miniature Golf, Goony Golf, Garden Golf, Carpet Golf, Fun Golf, Midget Golf, Goofy Golf, Pint-Pot Golf, Tom Thumb Golf, Mini-Golf, Pigmy Golf, Half-Pint Golf, Jolly Golf, Lilliput Links, Rinkiedink Golf, Adventure Golf, Peewee Golf, Runt Golf.

Unusual Locales
Miniature golf course have been located in graveyards, using the tombstones as hazards, The New Hampshire State Prison, The Lincoln State Hospital for the Insane, oceanliners, New York penthouse rooftops, empty corner lots, greenhouses, and churches. The Palladium and Artists Space in New York have both hosted miniature-golf courses.

Annotated History of the Putting Green
Although other materials such as compressed feathers, oiled sawdust, carpet, clay, hard sand, sponge mixed with cement, and a green dye called Grassit were used, these were the industry standards.
1920: Natural grass
1925: Cottonseed hull mixed with oil spread upon a sand foundation
1940: Goat hair felt (concocted out of goat hair and vulcanized rubber)
1960: Indoor/outdoor carpeting and astroturf

Accompaniments to mini-golf courses have included: French lessons, teahouses, live bands, and The Singer Midgets.

Miscellany
A 1930s Los Angles course had a live bear cub as an obstacle. They trained him to go after the balls dipping them in honey.

In The Colossus of the Roads, Karal Ann Marling said miniature golf was the very last of the goofy fads of the twenties. She also noted that all the fads of the 1920s made participants feel larger than life.

The Above Facts and History are courtesy of John Margolies Miniature Golf.

New Walker Art Center Collection Exhibition Features Work by Joseph Beuys, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd :

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Joseph Beuys, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd were contemporaries of thought more so than form. Each took sculpture off its pedestalliterally and figurativelyand expanded the conventions of what constitutes a work of art, influencing scores of artists to do the same. A new Walker Art Center exhibition, Statements: Beuys, Flavin, Judd, on view May 15, 2008July 12, 2009, provides a snapshot of a vital moment in postwar cultural production, says curator Yasmil Raymond, and allows viewers to trace the influence of their ideas on contemporary art. Drawn from the Walkers collection, the works on view reflect the artists distinct positions towards art-making and the ways in which they address the autonomy of art, its nature, and its social power. These are concerns this generation of artists set in motion that continue to have relevance for artists today, says Raymond.

Joseph Beuys (German, 19211986)
An artist, teacher, and political activist, Joseph Beuys became one of the art worlds most discussed, celebrated, and controversial postwar figures. He wanted people to see his objects as stimulants for the transformation of the idea of sculpture. He pursued this goal by using organic materials and focusing on the process of creation, allowing chemical reactions, fermentations, and decay to render his objects constantly in a state of change and evolution. His preoccupation with the collective memory and trauma of European culture and civilization led him to label his objects as vehicles for transformation, healing, and action.

On view will be more than 150 of the nearly 500 multiples in the Walkers collection, which includes two- and three-dimensional objects along with film and sound recordings that Beuys produced in a number of identical copies over a 20-year period. Among the best known are Schlitten (Sled) (1969); Filzanzug (Felt Suit), which he made and wore in 1970 during a performance against the Vietnam War; and the first presentation of the newly acquired film I like America and America likes Me (1974), the only full-length visual documentation of Beuys week-long dialogue with a coyote, which took place in the René Block Gallery in New York in 1974.

Dan Flavin (American, 19331996)
Dan Flavin rejected the Minimalist label many critics and curators placed on his work. He worked with generic fluorescent lighting to make horizontal and vertical sculptures along walls and floors including corners, baseboards, and stairwells, dedicating his career to combining traditions of painting and sculpture in architecture with acts of electric light defining space. His rejection of artistic convention extended to the labels sculpture and environment, which he abandoned in favor of creating proposals and situations in barren rooms. This last practice is a direct predecessor to the work of contemporary artists such as Tino Sehgal, whose constructed situations were recently on view at the Walker.

Featured in Statements are untitled (to dear, durable Sol from Stephen, Sonja and Dan), one of several corner pieces Flavin produced during 1966-1968, consisting of six cool white fluorescent tubes mounted on four standard eight-foot fixtures to form a square; and the sculpture "monument" for V. Tatlin, part of a series Flavin dedicated to artist-designer Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), the leading figure in the Russian Constructivist movement who dreamed of a close-knit relationship between art and science, artistry and engineering.

Donald Judd (American, 19281994)
Donald Judd paved for himself a path between painting and sculpture, with singleness or wholeness as a key pursuit. In direct contrast to Beuys expanded notion of art, Judd championed a new sculptural aesthetic of bare geometrical shapes he termed specific objects. By 1965, he began commissioning industrial fabricators to weld and manufacture his works in a wide variety of new materialsstainless steel, galvanized iron, anodized aluminum, brass, Plexiglas, Formica, and plywoodhe observed as either recent inventions or things not used before in art.

For the Walker exhibition Works for New Spaces, the first in the new Edward Larrabee Barnes-designed building that opened in 1971, Judd presented untitled (1971), consisting of six 48-inch square units of blue anodized aluminum. Spaced at one-foot intervals, the piece reveals the artists interest in the volume, not mass, of the form. This major work will be on view along with several other pieces by Judd from the Walkers collection.

Several threads connect the artists in Statements: Beuys, Flavin, Judd. Their consideration of the space surrounding their work and the removal of their own hands from the production process, providing specifications for others to fabricate the work. Each artist worked in different manners but toward similar goals. A shared confidence and an earnest conviction in both forms and ideas guide their work. Not interested in flamboyance and monumentality, Beuys, Flavin, and Judd experimented with new alternatives and presented concrete statements despite the unwelcome reception by mainstream culture.

Gallery Admission

$10 adults; $8 seniors (65+); $6 students/teens (with ID)
Free to Walker members and children ages 12 and under.
Free with a paid ticket to a same-day Walker event.
Free to all every Thursday evening (59 pm) and on the first Saturday of each month (10 am5 pm).

Walker Art Center Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Minneapolis Sculpture Garden : Summerlong Tribute--Walker Inside Out: Art Goes Outdoors--Features Exhibition; The Return of Artist-Design Mini Golf and Rock the Garden; Dance and Theater Performances; and Family Events :

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Its the place where John Philip Sousa conducted and where boxing matches and auto shows were held at the turn of the 20th century. Purchased by the City of Minneapolis in 1893, the grounds served as the U.S. Army Reserve drill teams practice field and home to the local Armory and annual garden displays. This historic plot of land opened as the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in 1988, and quickly evolved as both a popular destination and a model project of civic collaboration. Expanded to encompass 11 acres in 1992, the Garden is one of the largest urban sculpture parks in the United States and one of the most beloved public spaces in the Twin Cities. With Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggens iconic fountain-sculpture Spoonbridge and Cherry (19851988) at its heart, surrounded by more than 40 modern and contemporary sculptures, the Garden has drawn more than 6.5 million people since it opened and become a living stage for myriad performances and community events.

In celebration of the Gardens 20th anniversary, the Walker Art Center presents a summerlong celebration featuring the return of the highly popular Artist-Designed Mini Golf and Rock the Garden; an outdoor exhibition, Design for the Other 90%, offering socially conscious design solutions for the poor and marginalized around the world; the remounting of important site-specific dance works from the 1970s by the Trisha Brown Dance Company; Australias celebrated Back to Back Theatre; the annual Summer Music and Movies series in Loring Park; film screenings; expanded Free First Saturday family days; and the inauguration of the Garden FlatPak House and Activity Center.

WALKER INSIDE OUT: ART GOES OUTDOORS

Exhibition

Design for the Other 90%
TuesdaySunday, May 24September 7, 11 am5 pm
(open Mondays Memorial Day and Labor Day)
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Free

Of the worlds 6.5 billion people, 90 percent have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact, nearly half do not have reliable access to food, clean water, healthcare, education, affordable transportation, or shelter. Design for the Other 90% features a growing movement among designers, engineers, and social entrepreneurs to create low-cost solutions for everyday problems. Through local and global partnerships, individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress faced by the worlds poor.

The exhibition showcases designs that use conventional and unorthodox methods, new and traditional materials, or ancient and innovative technologies to solve myriad problemsfrom cleaner-burning sugarcane charcoal to a solar-powered battery for a hearing aid, from a portable water purification straw to a $100 laptop computer. By actively understanding the available resources, tools, desires, and immediate needs of their potential users, these designers create simple and pragmatic objects and ingenious and adaptive systems that can help transform lives and communities.

Mini Golf

Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf
WednesdaySunday, May 24September 7, 10 am8 pm
Greenspace adjacent to Vineland Place entrance
$8 adults ($6 students/seniors/members, $5 children 12 and under, $4 members 12 and under)

Two seven-hole courses feature green-themed mini-golf holes designed by artists, architects, and designers. Visitors will encounter a water hazard; a replica of the real life island of plastic, a heap of debris floating in the Pacific Ocean; a 12-foot-tall Paul Bunyon; a single-breaking wave covered with recycled glass; and a hole that plays like Pachinko, a Japanese version of pinball with a human-powered elevator for your golf ball.

Copresented with mnartists.org.

Theater

Back to Back Theatre
Small Metal Objects
ThursdayFriday, June 56, 7 pm
Saturday, June 7, 1 and 7 pm
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
$22 ($18 Walker members)

Small Metal Objects turns the notion of theatre and the everyday inside out. It is a pure, open-hearted, complex and breathtaking production . . . a unique
meditation on human worth. Sydney Morning Herald

Back to Back Theatre creates locally devised, but globally relevant and significant theater. This ambition plays out in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in a show where two men who normally escape noticementally disabled and possibly homelessplay inadvertent but pivotal roles in the lives of two abled ambitious executives. The drama unfolds before an audience wired with headphones.

Back to Back Theatre, an ensemble of actors with mental disabilities, strives to nudge and subvert audiences into seeing beauty that is otherwise hidden. Here, the company explores how respect is withheld from the disabled, unemployed, and others society deems unproductive. Set against the backdrop of the Garden, Small Metal Objects expands the theatrical frame with the unpredictability of public space while bringing stark relief to the notion that everything has its price.

Music

Rock the Garden
Andrew Bird, The New Pornographers, Cloud Cult, Bon Iver
Saturday, June 21, 411 pm
Vineland Place
$35 ($30 Walker/Minnesota Public Radio members) in advance
$40 ($35) at the door

The Walker Art Center and 89.3 The Current present the music event of the season with this all-ages, rain-or-shine street party featuring both established and emerging acts. Rock the Garden includes live broadcasts from DJs of 89.3 The Current and an array of food vendors.

Birds mix of rock, folk, small-combo swing, gypsy, and New Orleans jazz has put fire under his fans feet for more than a decade, and his most recent album, Armchair Apocrypha, has garnered critical and popular praise. The New Pornographers, anchored in Vancouver, have been darlings of Rolling Stone and Pitchfork magazines, establishing themselves as a powerful force in contemporary, ethereal, thoughtful power pop. Many members of the band have put out acclaimed solo albums, including A.C. Newman (The Slow Wonder) and Dan Bejar, who performs as Destroyer (Trouble in Dreams, Destroyers Rubies). Cloud Cult has evolved into both a personal and global statement for Craig Minowa, whose songs can jump from distorted hip-hop to indie rock to chamber pop. Since 1995, Cloud Cult has crafted sprawling, cathartic albums that have won them the attention of the New York Times, MTV, Spin, Billboard, and a devoted following of fans. National and local critics have raved about Bon Iver (pronounced bohn eevair), the musical nom de plume of Justin Vernon, for his enigmatic and emotional debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago. The CD was recently featured in Entertainment Weekly Magazine, as well as on numerous blogs and Web sites.

Film Screenings

Big Ideas For a Small Planet
JuneAugust
Screenings every half hour starting at 12 noon during gallery hours
Lecture Room
Free

This series of half-hour documentaries, created by the Sundance Channel, focuses on individuals at the forefront of innovative ideas and processes for transforming the planets future, offering creative green solutions for some of the worlds looming challenges. 2008, video, 30 minutes.

Free First Saturdays are for Families!

Birthday Bash
Saturday, June 7, 10 am3 pm, Free

Savor an array of live music, dance, and art-making activities in this special birthday launch event, part of Minneapolis MOSAIC 2008, a citywide festival celebrating the breadth and diversity of the local arts and cultural scene.

Dance Performance: Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, 11 am
Discover Bharatanatyam, a classical dance form from southern India with Ragamala Music and Dance Theater. Blending dance, music, and poetry, Ragamalas work provides a bridge between cultures both ancient and modern. After the show, learn some moves in a workshop led by members of the company.

Art-Making for the Entire Family: Catch a Cherry, 10 am3 pm
Design a toy inspired by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggens Spoonbridge and Cherry fountain-sculpture.

Best Buy Digital Imaging Booth: A Minneapolis Portrait, 10 am3 pm
Smile, its the 150th birthday of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota! Get your snapshot taken and see it projected at the State Theater later that evening during the kick-off party of MOSAIC 2008.

A Moving Spectacle
Performance: Trisha Brown: Early Works
Saturday, July 5, 10 am3pm, Free

Highlighting Julys Free First Saturday event and part of Year of Trisha festivities, Trisha Brown Dance Company members re-mount four important site-based dance works from the 1970s. In their exploration of space and gravity, these early movement experiments are now viewed as both highly influential and remarkably inventive. For the first time in the U.S. since its original performance in SoHo in 1970, the spectacular Man Walking Down the Side of a Building will be staged on the facade of the Walkers seven-story Barnes building. Company members will also restage Spiral (1974) on trees in Loring Park and Group Primary Accumulation on Rafts on Loring Park Pond, the location of the original premiere during a Walker-sponsored Trisha Brown residency in 1974. Finally, five of the companys leading female dancers will perform one of Browns most popular early works, the witty and sensual Spanish Dance (Line Up, 1979) in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

Music and Movies

Summer Music and Movies: Elected!
Mondays, July 14August 18, 7 pm
Loring Park, Free

The Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Park & Recreation Boards popular annual series of free concerts and film screenings in Loring Park returns with Elected! to mark the year of intense interest in political campaigns. For six nights enjoy bands under the summer sun, then watch classic films about Hollywoods take on Washingtons internal and external affairs.

FlatPak House and Activity Center

In 2005, the Walker Art Center exhibition Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses featured FlatPak, one of todays most innovative made-to-order homes. Created by Minneapolis-based Lazor Office, the FlatPak is a kit of parts that can be configured in a variety of ways to create a home.

The Walker acquired this full-scale exhibition model of FlatPak, which will be installed in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as part of the 20th-anniversary celebration. The FlatPaks glass walls and airy space, along with a new deck, will provide an inviting atmosphere for welcoming Garden visitors. A special open house will be hosted during the July Free First Saturday.

The FlatPak will be open to the public seasonally April though mid-October. Visitors will be able to pick up sculpture garden maps, check-out Garden WACPAKs (kid-sized backpacks filled with creative ideas for family activities), and learn more about the artworks in the Garden. The FlatPak will also host hands-on art-making activities during Target Free Thursday Nights, Free First Saturdays, Summers Cool classes, artist-in-residence workshops, teen classes, and Arty Pants: Your Tuesday Playdatea program for toddlers and caregivers.

About the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, a project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, is an ideal setting for sculptures of various sizes, from human-scale bronzes to towering constructions in steel. Expanded in 1992, the 11-acre Garden offers visitors from around the world an unusual opportunity to view important 20th-century art out-of-doors.

The original 7.5-acre Garden, made up of four 100-foot-square tree-lined plazas inspired by Renaissance and 18th-century Italian garden models, was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, architect of the Walker's 1971 building, in association with landscape architect Peter Rothschild, of Quennell Rothschild Associates, New York. The 1992 expansion, adding 3.7 acres less formally structured than the original acreage, was designed by the landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The sculptures on view along the Garden's walkways and in its plazas date from the early 20th century to the present. Styles range from the archetypal organic abstraction of Henry Moore's Reclining Mother and Child (19601961) to the social realism of George Segal's Walking Man (1988).

A spectacular focal point in the Garden is the 29-foot-high Spoonbridge and Cherry (19871988) fountain-sculpture designed by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Spanning a free-form pond in the Garden's middle sector is a gigantic gray spoon with a Bing-red cherry in its bowl. Visible from all points of the Garden, it has become a symbol for Minneapolis.

Amidst vine-covered arches and changing horticultural displays in the three-part Cowles Conservatory is Frank Gehry's sculpture Standing Glass Fish (1986). Attracting visitors' attention, the 25-foot-tall see-through leviathan rises from a lily pond surrounded by palm trees.

The Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge (1988) reflects the vision of the Minneapolis-based artist Siah Armajani. This double-arched footbridge connects the Garden to Loring Park, representing a major link to the downtown area and, subsequently, to the central Minneapolis riverfront.

The section added in 1992 contrasts the geometric formality of the original Garden area. The 3.7-acre section features groves of deciduous trees, a rectangular, granite-paved sculpture plaza for rotating exhibitions, a 300-foot-long vine-covered arbor, and a perennial garden. Permanently sited in this area of the Garden are Scott Burton's Seat-Leg Table (1986/refabricated 1991), Mark di Suvero's Molecule (19771983), and Judith Shea's Without Words (1988).

The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.