Walker Art Center | Visual Arts

The Walker’s Visual Arts department presents forward-thinking contemporary art exhibitions and oversees the museum’s expansive collection.

The Walker’s Visual Arts department is a cornerstone of the museum’s acclaimed arts programming. Grounded in a commitment to creativity and rigor, the program illuminates the art and ideas of our time. Across both indoor gallery spaces and the outdoor Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the department supports emerging work while stewarding the Walker’s vast collection.

Since the Walker’s founding in 1940, the scope of visual arts has evolved to include a broad range of practices. From sculpture and site-specific installation to performance and time-based media, today’s artists continually explore novel modes of expression. Reflecting the cross-disciplinary nature of contemporary art practices, the curatorial team presents a mix of solo, group, and thematic exhibitions. To date, dozens of artists have had their first major museum exposures in the Walker galleries, including Pao Houa Her, Kara Walker, Dyani White Hawk, Julie Mehretu, and Haegue Yang.

With an eye toward change and an ear toward community, the Walker’s Visual Arts department honors the past, present, and future of contemporary art, fundamentally reshaping how we engage with its many forms.

History

When the Walker Art Center opened in 1940, Assistant Director, J. LeRoy Davidson was the first visual arts curator. With an expertise in Chinese painting and an interest in 20th-century art, Davidson was uniquely qualified to lead the visual arts program. He re-examined the thousands of Chinese jades, porcelains, paintings, and artifacts in the T. B. Walker collection, which led to a refreshed installation in colorful cases and the creation of informative labels describing how objects were made, as well as where, when, and why they were used. Similarly, he had an eye for modern and contemporary art; it was Davidson who saw Franz Marc’s Large Blue Horses on exhibition in the United States. Davidson encouraged the Walker to acquire the oil painting, even though the museum had very few works from the 1900s in the collection. With the acquisition of Large Blue Horses, the focus of the visual arts program shifted dramatically toward the presentation and collection of modern and contemporary art.

Davidson’s tenure was short-lived. In 1943 he, like many at that time, left to join the war effort. Davidson was assigned to the War Department and then served with the State Department, where in 1946 he organized Advancing American Art, a touring exhibition of American contemporary art in Europe

Though Davidson’s time at the Walker was brief, his direction was instrumental for its visual arts program. His successors combined both exhibition and collection practices to advance contemporary art. In exhibitions such as 136 American Artists, 1946, the Walker purchased Edward Hopper’s Office at Night(1940) as well as numerous other examples over the years, including the acquisition of Prayer (1962) by a young art student Siah Armajani from the 1962 Biennial.

Besides exhibiting and acquiring, the curatorial team has long worked directly with artists. In 1941, local sculptor Evelyn Raymond became the first artist in residence—or “artist at work” as it was then called. Raymond created a bas relief for International Falls, Minn., in the lobby. Museum visitors could visit over the course of many weeks to watch as the relief came into view.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Walker presented numerous exhibitions of installation art, including Adhesive Products (1971) by Lynda Benglis, and Robert Irwin’s Untitled (Slant) (1971) in Works for New Spaces, the opening show of the gallery tower known as the Barnes building. More recent examples of residencies and commissions that provided artists with the freedom to explore new ideas include Goshka Macuga’s tapestry Lost Forty (2011), created during her residency, and Carolyn Lazard’s commissioned installation, Long Take in 2022. The Visual Arts team has worked with numerous artists, many over the course of their careers, presenting exhibitions, residencies, and collecting artworks including Kara Walker, Julie Mehretu, and Haegue Yang. In more recent years, curatorial practices have expanded the definition of visual arts to include performance and interdisciplinary art; examples include the presentation of works by Jason Moran and Sadie Barnette, and the acquisition of the Merce Cunningham Dance Collection of sets and costumes.

With a solid historical foundation, the Visual Arts program continues to change, question, and expand the presentation and acquisition of contemporary art.