Target Free Thursday Nights: Summer Edition at Walker Art Center Continues in July with Teen Poetry Slam, Outdoor Concerts, and Workshops
The celebration of summer continues at the Walker Art Center with Target Free Thursday Nights in July, featuring a series of concerts and workshops designed to get visitors discovering, questioning, and creating art outdoors.
Target Free Thursday Nights: Summer Edition
keeps the beat going with two
Skyspace/Soundspace
concerts merging music and sculpture. Local bands venture out of the club for performances inside and around James Turrell’s meditative Sky Pesher, 2005 chamber in the greenspace on the west side of the Walker. These exclusive, one-night-only sets feature some of the area’s hottest music-makers in experimental concerts unlike any other, including sets by Mandrágora Tango Orchestra on July 2 and Machinery Hill on July 23. Seating capacity inside the Turrell sculpture is limited; please arrive early for seating inside. Patrons are welcome to bring a blanket and listen to the sweet sounds drift out onto the Walker’s grassy hillside. Refreshments available at the outdoor cash bar, located on the greenspace near the Angus Fairhurst gorilla sculpture.
July also sees the return of
Remake, Revamp
, a workshop series that harnesses the creative talents of some of the Twin Cities’ most creative, forward-thinking fashion designers. In the FlatPak House on July 9, from 6–9 pm, participants will take tips from designer/artist Rebecca Yaker as she demonstrates how to “upcycle” old clothing into new and delightful attire.
Taking place indoors are the Fifth Annual Quest for the Voice Youth Poetry Showcase presented by Walker Teen Programs and the Minnesota Spoken Word Association on July 2, at 7 pm; the Mack Lectures series Visions of the Unknown on the subjects of time travel (July 9) and hyperbolic space (July 30); and Sound Bites gallery talks focusing on the exhibitions The Quick and the Dead (July 2) and Dirt on Delight: Impulses That Form Clay (July 16), and Spoonbridge and Cherry in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (July 23).
Target Free Thursday Nights: Summer Edition
July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Galleries open 5–9; special events follow.
Free
Thursday, July 2
Sound Bites: The Quick and the Dead: A Comparison of Two Works, 6:30 and 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Contemporary art and artists are the focus of these 15-minute gallery conversations led by Walker tour guides. Each highlights selected artworks, artists, or themes that serve as topics for illuminating discussions.
Fifth Annual Quest for the Voice Youth Poetry Showcase, 7 pm
McGuire Theater
Free tickets available from 6 pm at the Hennepin Lobby desk
Each year hundreds of youths battle it out in a series of poetry slams, vying for a spot on the Minnesota Quest for the Voice Team. This year’s team will represent the state at the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam in Chicago. Featured performers include the Quest for the Voice Poets, El Guante, Khary Jackson (6 is 9), and Onante Erolin. Presented by the Minnesota Spoken Word Association.
Walker Teen Programs sponsored by Wells Fargo. Support provided by Best Buy Children’s Foundation. Walker Teen Programs are also supported by the Surdna Foundation.
Music: John Cage’s Organ2/ASLSP, 7 pm
Basilica of Saint Mary, 18 North 17th Street, Minneapolis
As part of the exhibition The Quick and the Dead, Cage’s Organ2/ASLSP will be performed by Christopher Stroh, principal organist at the Basilica.
Skyspace/Soundspace: Mandrágora Tango Orchestra, 8:30 pm
James Turrell’s Sky Pesher, 2005 and Walker greenspace
This vibrant collective is dedicated to preserving tango music as well as translating it into fresh yet nostalgic forms.
Thursday, July 9
Remake, Revamp: Upcycling is the New Recycling, 6–9 pm
FlatPak House
Turn those tired pants you wore all winter into a skirt! Designer/artist Rebecca Yaker—noted for re-fashioning the iconic sock monkey doll into chic apparel—shows how to “upcycle” your clothes into new and delightful attire. Some garments will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own apparel to transform. (Coats, hats, scarves, and other winter wear will also be accepted for donation.)
Mack Lecture: Visions of the Unknown
Ronald Mallett, 7 pm
Walker Cinema
This talk takes off on the artistic experiments with time and space in the exhibition The Quick and the Dead. Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk one hour before the event.
Ronald Mallet has dedicated his life to something most people consider a science fiction dream: time travel. A childhood trauma followed by a chance encounter with a comic book based on H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine set him on a path to becoming a theoretical physicist at the University of Connecticut, where he has designed a time machine based on Einstein’s theories. Pending key technological breakthroughs and funding, he believes that human time travel could occur within this century. Join Mallet for a lecture on the mysteries of space and time and a reading from his memoir, Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality.
This lecture is made possible by generous support from Aaron and Carol Mack.
Thursday, July 16
Sound Bites: Dirt on Delight: Spotlight on Nicole Cherubini, 6:30 and
7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Contemporary art and artists are the focus of these 15-minute gallery conversations led by Walker tour guides. Each highlights selected artworks, artists, or themes that serve as topics for illuminating discussions.
Thursday, July 23
Sound Bites: Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Spoonbridge and Cherry, 6:30 and 7 pm
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby
Contemporary art and artists are the focus of these 15-minute gallery conversations led by Walker tour guides. Each highlights selected artworks, artists, or themes that serve as topics for illuminating discussions.
Skyspace/Soundspace: Machinery Hill, 8:30 pm
James Turrell’s Sky Pesher, 2005 and Walker greenspace
Deftly combining ska, klezmer, Celtic music, rock, and American folk, Machinery Hill’s style “hurtles all over the musical map with impish delight” (Star Tribune).
Thursday, July 30
Mack Lecture: Visions of the Unknown
The Institute For Figuring
Lecture: Walker Cinema, 7 pm
Workshop: Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 5–6:30 pm
This talk takes off on the artistic experiments with time and space in the exhibition The Quick and the Dead. Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk one hour before the event.
The physics of snowflakes, the hyperbolic geometry of sea slugs, and the mathematics of paper-folding are all fodder for Margaret and Christine Wertheim, whose crocheted models of hyperbolic space feature prominently in the exhibition The Quick and the Dead. Through their Los Angeles–based Institute For Figuring, the duo conducts projects aimed at illuminating the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science and mathematics. The preceding crochet workshop (needles and yarn provided) teaches simple techniques for making hyberbolic forms. All skill levels welcome.
This lecture is made possible by generous support from Aaron and Carol Mack.