October Target Free Thursday Nights feature Drawing Workshop, Artist Talks, and Performances
Target Free Thursday Nights
October 4, 11, 18, & 25
Start the weekend early with a healthy dose of art gazing and pop-up activities, all for free. Switch up your routine this fall with Target Free Thursday Nights from 5 to 9 pm.
Drawing Workshops
Thursdays, September 6, October 4, November 1
Walker Art Center, 6–8 pm
Get inspired by Siah Armajani: Follow This Line and the newly renovated Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge, then create your own drawings. All art materials will be provided for these free, in-gallery workshops. Led by architect Amber Sausen.
Performance: Slavs and Tatars
Thursday, October 11
Walker Cinema, 7pm
The internationally renowned artist collective Slavs and Tatars creates exhibitions, books, and lectures focusing on the art and politics of Eurasia. Join the artists as they present their newest performance-lecture, Red-Black Thread, in conjunction with the exhibition Siah Armajani: Follow This Line.
As described by the group, this event “addresses the construction of race, namely blackness, from the perspective of Russia, the Soviet Union, and communism. Due to the slave trade in the Americas and European imperialism, blackness is often construed through an Atlanticist perspective and in Anglophone and Francophone bodies of knowledge. From imperial Russia’s involvement in Africa to the Soviet instrumentalization of ‘the Negro question’ in the United States, Red-Black Thread challenges this Atlanticist understanding of blackness and race, through an unlikely constellation of ideas including orientalism [and] multiculturalism.”
Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Main Lobby Desk.
Visit Armajani’s interactive installation Sacco and Vanzetti Reading Room #3 (1988) in Gallery 7 to read a selection of publications from Slavs and Tatars’ Red-Black Thread reading list.
About the Artists
Slavs and Tatars is an international collective of artists and designers whose practice is based on three activities: exhibitions, publications, and lecture-performances. Their work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Salt, Istanbul; Vienna Secession; Kunsthalle Zurich; and Ujazdowski Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, among others. In addition to their translation of the Azerbaijani satirical periodical Molla Nasreddin, Slavs and Tatars have published 10 books to date, most recently Wripped Scripped (2018), on alphabet politics and transliteration.
Screening:
Capturing the Flag
Thursday, October 18
Walker Cinema, Free
This is what voter protection looks like. Three months before the 2016 election, a tight-knit volunteer group travels to North Carolina to legally observe and assist voters. Their experiences during that long day at the polls serve as both warning and call to action to protect and participate in the right to vote. Deeply personal, often surprising perspectives prove that the big idea of American democracy can be defended by small acts of individual citizens. 2018, DCP, 76 min.
On Thursday, stay for a postscreening discussion with the director, Anne de Mare, producer and film subject, Laverne Berry, one of the film’s voter protection volunteers, and Nasser Mussa, Minnesota’s Director of Voter Outreach. This conversation will be moderated by Euan Kerr of Minnesota Public Radio.
View:
Trailer
Read more:
Women and Hollywood interview with Anne de Mare
Performance and Artist Talk: Mario García Torres
Thursday, October 25
Walker Cinema, 6:30pm
This opening-night celebration of Illusion Brought Me Here begins with a performance of the monologue I Am Not a Flopper… (2007), written by Mario García Torres and Aaron Schuster, performed by David Dastmalchian. Afterwards, the artist discusses his multifaceted practice in a lively conversation with exhibition curator Vincenzo de Bellis.
I Am Not a Flopper… takes as its subject the name Allen Smithee—an official pseudonym used by film directors in Hollywood who wish to disown a project, often used by members of the Directors Guild of America to replace the director’s name when the author was dissatisfied with the final cut of a film. In this monologue, a fictional Allen Smithee elaborates on the complex relationships between his public persona and his long filmography.
Gallery Tours: Siah Armajani
Thursdays, September 20, October 11, and November 8
Walker Art Center, 6 pm, Free
Dive deep into Siah Armajani: Follow This Line with specialized tours of the exhibition. Each tour expands up on the prolific career and life of this Minnesota-based artist. Exhibition co-curator Victoria Sung leads the October 11 tour.