Target Free Thursday Nights in May Highlighted by Artist Talk with Lorna Simpson
Target Free Thursday Nights at the Walker Art Center in May are highlighted by an artist talk with Lorna Simpson (May 13, 7 pm), who discusses her career and practice in conjunction with the currently running exhibition Recollection: Lorna Simpson, which features eight major pieces, including early works on paper and felt, a film commissioned in 1998, and new acquisitions on view for the first time.
Other highlights in May include a curator-led gallery talk with Peter Eleey for the exhibition The Talent Show (May 6, 7 pm), which examines a range of complicated relationships that have emerged between artists, audiences, and participants in light of the competing desires for notoriety and privacy that mark our present cultural moment. Target Free Thursday Nights also feature a screening of Béla Tarr’s The Man from London (A Londoni férfi) (May 20, 7:30 pm), which had its U.S. premiere at the Walker in 2007 as part of the Walker’s Regis Dialogue and Retrospective for the filmmaker. The Man from London features Tilda Swinton and is an adaptation of a Georges Simenon mystery about a man whose life changes after he witnesses a murder.
Sound Bites gallery talks, offered throughout the month on select Thursday evenings at 6:30 and 7 pm, illuminate an artist or work of art from the Walker’s world-class collection or one of its special exhibitions.
Target Free Thursday Nights
May 6, 13, 20, 27
Galleries open 5–9 pm; special events follow.
Free
Thursday, May 6
Sound Bites: Short Talks About Art, 6:30 and 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Be a part of this fresh take on contemporary art. Participants meet up for a 15-minute chat in the gallery, where guides offer an insider’s view of a particular artwork, artist, or exhibition. Talks begin in the Bazinet Garden Lobby.
Curator-led Gallery Talk: The Talent Show, 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Join Peter Eleey for a tour of the exhibition.
The Talent Show is made possible by generous support from the David Teiger Foundation and Ann M. Hatch.
Hotel partners Le Meridien Chambers Art Hotel and W Minneapolis – The Foshay.
Thursday, May 13
Sound Bites: Short Talks About Art, 6:30 and 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Be a part of this fresh take on contemporary art. Participants meet up for a 15-minute chat in the gallery, where guides offer an insider’s view of a particular artwork, artist, or exhibition. Talks begin in the Bazinet Garden Lobby.
Artist Talk: Lorna Simpson, 7 pm
Cinema
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk from 6 pm
Broadening the horizons of contemporary photographic practice, Lorna Simpson’s work spans a variety of media and addresses issues ranging from racial and sexual identity to conceptions of the body to history and memory.
Trained at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Brooklyn-based Simpson received her MA in 1985 from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied film and fine arts. She began her career as a documentary photographer but soon found herself more interested in investigating the role of the viewer. Part of a larger movement of feminist-inspired conceptual artists in the 1980s, including Cindy Sherman, Adrian Piper, and Barbara Kruger, who were concerned with the way a photograph is “read,” Simpson began to create compositions pairing minimalist black-and-white images with short texts.
Recently, Simpson has begun appropriating mid-century vernacular photographs, recombining them with staged pictures of her own devising, and assembling them together into large grids. Using snapshots purchased at flea markets or via online auctions, she stages her own reconstructions, casting herself as the unknown subjects depicted therein.
Thursday, May 20
Sound Bites: Short Talks About Art, 6:30 and 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Be a part of this fresh take on contemporary art. Participants meet up for a 15-minute chat in the gallery, where guides offer an insider’s view of a particular artwork, artist, or exhibition. Talks begin in the Bazinet Garden Lobby.
Film: The Man from London (A Londoni férfi), 7:30 pm
Directed by Béla Tarr
Cinema
“Every moment vibrates with tension . . . the most extraordinary art piece I’ve seen all year.” —The Independent
After witnessing a murder, a man’s life is upended as he confronts issues of morality, sin, and punishment—and finds himself crossing the line between innocence and complicity in the crime. Tilda Swinton and Miroslav Krobot costar in this mesmerizing adaptation of a Georges Simenon mystery. The Man from London had its U.S. premiere at the Walker’s Regis Dialogue and Retrospective with renowned Hungarian director Béla Tarr in 2007. Following this rare appearance, Tarr returned to Europe and thoroughly reworked the dialogue and sound to make this definitive new version. 2007, 35mm, in English and French with English subtitles, 132 minutes.
Thursday, May 27
Sound Bites: Short Talks About Art, 6:30 and 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Be a part of this fresh take on contemporary art. Participants meet up for a 15-minute chat in the gallery, where guides offer an insider’s view of a particular artwork, artist, or exhibition. Talks begin in the Bazinet Garden Lobby.