Walker Art Center's Target Free Thursday Nights in January Include Free Verse with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, Drawing Activities, Gallery Talk on Eva Hesse, and Design Talk with Piotr Szyhalski and Steve Dietz
The Walker Art Center’s Target Free Thursday Nights in January are highlighted by a Free Verse talk with writer Neil Gaiman and visual artist Dave McKean (January 11, 7 pm). Gaiman, whose works include an epic comic book series, a BBC television series, and bestselling novels, joins McKean, whose unconventional work in photography, collage, sculpture, painting, drawing, film, and writing prove him to be a vivid storyteller in his own right, to discuss their various collaborations, including their recent feature-length film Mirrormask. Other highlights in January include month-long activities related to drawing, as inspired by the exhibition Eva Hesse Drawing (January 4, 11, 18, 25, 6–9 pm); a Drawn Here design talk with Minneapolis-based artist-designer Piotr Szyhalski and Steve Dietz, Director of ZeroOne: The Art and Technology Network and organizer of the recent exhibition ZeroOne’s Global Festival of Art on the Edge in San Jose, California (January 18, 7 pm); and a Gallery Talk on the exhibition Eva Hesse Drawing led by co-curator Elisabeth Sussman (January 25, 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
January 4, 11, 18, 25
Galleries open 5–9 pm; special events follow.
Free
Thursday, January 4
Body Politics: Figurative Prints and Drawings from Schiele to de Kooning Tour, 6 pm
Everybody Draws Art Lab: Drawing to Trace and Tracing to Draw
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 6–9 pm
Explore ways that lines from everyday objects and materials can be transformed by changing their context. Find and capture lines from a multitude of found images and then trace, layer, transfer, and Xerox, eventually creating your very own work of art! Led by local artist Jennifer Nevitt.
Thursday, January 11
Gallery Tour, 6 pm
Everybody Draws Art Lab: Drawing to Trace and Tracing to Draw
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 6–9 pm
(See description above.)
Free Verse: Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
Cinema, 7 pm
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby Desk from 6 pm.
Separately and together, writer Neil Gaiman and visual artist Dave McKean are two of the fantasy field’s most extraordinary innovators. Gaiman’s writings occupy nearly every storytelling medium including the epic comic book series The Sandman, the BBC series Neverwhere, and the bestselling novels American Gods, Anansi Boys, and Coraline. McKean’s stylistically unconventional work in photography, collage, sculpture, painting, drawing, and film along with his mammoth graphic novel Cages prove him to be a vivid storyteller in his own right. Their intensive collaborations range from graphic novels to children’s books; their most recent feat is the visually magical feature-length film Mirrormask, directed by McKean with screenplay by Gaiman. The artists will present work both verbal and visual, followed by an on-stage conversation.
This talk will be webcast live and archived at channel.walkerart.org.
Free Verse is copresented by Rain Taxi Review of Books.
Thursday, January 18
Body Politics: Figurative Prints and Drawings from Schiele to de Kooning Tour, 6 pm
Everybody Draws Art Lab: It’s All in the Drawing
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 6–9 pm
Consider the ways that drawing and sculpture are related by combining techniques from both art forms. With plastic bags as your canvas, learn how layering, pasting, taping, and molding can be ways to draw and create lines. Use common materials in unexpected combinations to produce something uncommon and beautiful. Led by local artist Mari Richards.
Drawn Here: Piotr Szyhalski and Steve Dietz
Cinema, 7 pm
Free tickets available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby Desk from 6 pm
Visitors to the Walker have likely encountered a captivating animated dolphin that engages them in a dialogue about subjects large and small—from the philosophical to the prosaic. Created in collaboration with Los Angeles-based artist Rich Shelton, Dolphin Oracle II is the work of Minneapolis-based artist-designer Piotr Szyhalski. A professor of design at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Szyhalski works in a variety of media—illustration, photography, typography, drawing, painting—which are often combined in installations, interactive media, or live performance. What remains central to his production is the insistence on the viewer as a “co-creator” of the artwork. Szyhalski will be in conversation with Steve Dietz, Director of ZeroOne: The Art and Technology Network and organizer of the recent exhibition ZeroOne’s Global Festival of Art on the Edge in San Jose, California. Founding director of the Walker’s new media initiatives, he has curated digital media exhibitions worldwide and has contributed to numerous publications and the recently published book, Else/Where: Mapping—New Cartographies of Networks and Territories.
Thursday, January 25
Gallery Tour, 6 pm
Everybody Draws Art Lab: It’s All in the Drawing
Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab, 6–9 pm
(See description above.)
Gallery Talk: Eva Hesse Drawing
Meet in the Bazinet Garden Lobby, 7 pm
Artist Eva Hesse worked at a time when the visual vocabularies of Minimalism and Conceptualism ruled the art world, yet she challenged these conventions in her highly experimental work. For this gallery talk, Eva Hesse Drawing co-curator Elisabeth Sussman uses the exhibition to discuss Hesse’s use and re-interpretation of the language of Minimalism in both her drawings and sculptures.