Target Free Thursday Nights in October at the Walker Art Center Include Student Open House for Teens, Artist Talk with Thomas Hirschhorn, Chinese Martial Arts Film, and Talk with Local Designers
The Walker Art Center’s Target Free Thursday Nights in October are highlighted by a Student Open House for teens (October 5, 5–9 pm), featuring raucous performances by the Twin Cities’ own Birthday Suits and MUte ErA, head-to-head video games, and a survey of everything Asian by Eric Nakamura and Eric Wong from Giant Robot magazine. Other highlights in October include another edition of the Walker book club The Artist’s Bookshelf, featuring Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home (October 5, 7 pm); an artist talk by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, whose work Cavemanman is featured in the Walker’s upcoming exhibition Heart of Darkness (October 12, 7 pm); a screening of Lau Kar-leung’s My Young Auntie (Zhangbei), part of the Heroic Grace series of Chinese martial arts films (October 19, 7:30 pm); a special joint tour between the Walker and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, that winds through the galleries to highlight the connections between our institutions (October 26, 6 pm); and a Drawn Here lecture between Minneapolis architect Thomas Oslund of oslund.and.assoc. and Deborah Karasov, executive director of Great River Greening, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ecological design and environmental restoration (October 26, 7 pm).
Target Free Thursday Nights are made possible by Target. Additional support provided by The Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Target Free Thursday Nights
October 5, 12, 19, 26
Galleries open 5–9 pm; special events follow.
Free
Thursday, October 5
Student Open House: Attack of the Giant Robot!, 5–9 pm
Presented by the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC)
From Asian pop culture to kung fu and rock and roll, this year’s Student Open House will jump-kick you into the school year. Join us for a free night of events featuring a raucous performance by Birthday Suits and MUte ErA, head-to-head video games, and an artist talk by Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong from Giant Robot magazine.
Artist Talk: Giant Robot
Cinema, 7 pm
From movie stars, musicians, and skateboarders to toys, technology, and history, Giant Robot magazine covers cool aspects of Asian and Asian American pop culture. In 1994, Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong launched the publication with no budget, no bureaucratic meetings, and no excuses to anyone. Demonstrating know-how and attitude culled from the coeditors’ punk-rock zine backgrounds, the first Giant Robot was a stapled and photocopied digest in an edition of 240. Over time, the magazine has grown more than 100 times larger, gaining accolades as one of the best zines, according to the L.A. Weekly, L.A. New Times, Wired, and Zine Guide, as it tackles magazine racks around the world.
Video Games: Mortal Kombat
U.S. Bank Orientation Lounge,
5–9 pm
Karate-chop your way to victory on the big screen.
Music: Birthday Suits and MUte ErA
Gallery 8 Cafe, 7:30 pm
Last year, Twin Cities punk band Sweet J.A.P. broke up and formed four new bands. Fortunately for you, two of the four will perform at the Student Open House. Check out the partial family reunion as Birthday Suits (Hideo Takahashi and Yuichiro Matthew Kazama) and MUte ErA (Sho Nikaido and Jessica Driscol) bring a beautifully thunderous racket to the Gallery 8 Café.
Also showing: Kranky Klaus/BB/Spook House/J_O_/The Neotoma Tape
Films by Cameron Jamie
Lecture Room, 5–9 pm
Witness the ritualized social theatrics of backyard wrestlers, homemade haunted houses, and pagan celebrations in the films of artist Cameron Jamie. Screened as part of the exhibition Cameron Jamie, on view in the Target Gallery.
Teen Programs are made possible by the Surdna Foundation and Best Buy Children’s Foundation. Target Free Thursday Nights sponsored by Target.
Gallery Tour, 6 pm
Book Club
The Artist’s Bookshelf: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Free, but reservations required; call 612.375.7600
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 7 pm
Explore the complex relationship between text and image in Alison Bechdel’s new graphic novel Fun Home. Best known as the author/artist of the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, Bechdel offers readers a more personal, revealing memoir that proves just how literary a graphic novel can be. Guest moderated by cartoonist Robert Kirby, author of Curbside and Boy Trouble. Books are available in the Walker Shop and at the Minneapolis Public Library (mplib.org). For discussion questions and author interviews, visit blogs.walkerart.org/ecp, and look for posts marked Artist’s Bookshelf.
Presented in partnership with the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library.
Thursday, October 12
Gallery Tour, 6 pm
Artist Talk: Thomas Hirschhorn
Cinema, 7 pm
Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk
Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn says he is interested in the idea of “doing too much, giving too much, putting too much of an effort into something.” His cluttered and chaotic large-scale installations, including Cavemanman (2002), one of three works featured in the exhibition Heart of Darkness, communicate this attraction to excess. A sprawling network of caves constructed from cardboard, plywood, duct tape, and objects and images from everyday life, Cavemanman immerses viewers in an overwhelming physical space that sparks questions about consumerism and modern civilization. Join the artist for a lecture about this piece and other projects, plus a discussion about utopian ideals, interactivity, and politics in art. This talk will be webcast live and archived at channel.walkerart.org. Heart of Darkness opens on October 21.
Thursday, October 19
Gallery Tour, 6 pm
Film: Heroic Grace
Cinema, 7:30 pm
My Young Auntie (Zhangbei) (newly restored print)
Directed by Lau Kar-leung
When a young widow arrives in Guangdong to deliver a fought-over deed of inheritance to the rightful heirs, her crotchety nephew by marriage and his westernized son show how age and gender role reversals allow for a wealth of kung fu funny business. Freely mixing martial arts moves with allusions to popular Hollywood genres, My Young Auntie is an unalloyed triumph of martial arts comedy. 1980, Hong Kong, color, 35mm, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 114 minutes.
Thursday, October 26
Conversations between Collections
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby, 6 pm (Repeats Sunday, October 29,
2 pm)
The Walker and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts present a series of tours that wind through the galleries of both institutions to highlight the connections between our institutions. For more information, call the Walker at 612.375.7600, or the MIA at 612.870.3140. Tours are offered twice at each museum. Sunday tour at the Walker is free with gallery admission.
Tours at the Minneapolis Institute of Art are on Thursday, November 2,
6 pm, and Sunday, November 5, 2 pm. Meet at the Information Desk.
Over The Top: Baroque Art Past and Present
The bold colors, lights and shadows, and dramatic stories employed by 17th-century artists painting in the baroque style are not lost to history. Contemporary artists are drawn to a similar aesthetic of theatrical extravagance. These tours explore artistic excess in the exhibitions A Passion for Paintings: Old Masters from the Wadsworth Atheneum at the MIA and Heart of Darkness at the Walker.
Drawn Here: Thomas Oslund in conversation with Deborah Karasov
Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk
Cinema, 7 pm
Thomas Oslund, founding principal of oslund.and.assoc. of Minneapolis, is known for his sculptural approach to transforming landscapes, turning open space into unique places for personal contemplation and social interaction. His critically acclaimed projects include the recent expansion of the General Mills campus in Golden Valley and the newly proposed park along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Oslund will be in conversation with Deborah Karasov, executive director of Great River Greening, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ecological design and environmental restoration. Drawn Here lectures are webcast live and archived at channel.walkerart.org.