Walker without Walls Events Draw More Than 55,000
Even though the Walker Art Center’s building has been closed since February 15, 2004, more than 55,000 people have participated in more than 150
Walker without Walls
events, while the Center completes its remodeling and expansion project. With the generous support of Target, events large and small have taken place around the Twin Cities and in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Walker without Walls continues through March. The expanded Walker opens on April 17, 2005.
Walker without Walls events have ranged from major public programs such as Rock the Garden, Walker in the Rough: Artist-Designed Mini Golf, Summer Music & Movies, and Sethu (Bridge), to smaller intimate events such as The Artist’s Bookshelf discussion series and community residency projects. In addition, a Walker without Walls Ice Cream Truck took to the streets for one month to distribute information on Walker events and the expansion and to hand out free ice cream at art fairs, festivals, and in neighborhoods throughout Minneapolis.
The most visible Walker without Walls program was this summer’s
Walker in the Rough: Artist-Designed Mini Golf
, a hugely popular 10-hole miniature golf course that drew nearly 28,000 people who experienced the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in a new way. Other highlights included the annual
Summer Music and Movies
series featuring local and national bands and Steve McQueen films, which delighted 8,000 people in Loring Park, with Har Mar Superstar’s opening-night concert attracting nearly 3,000;
Women with Vision
, shortened this year from one month to five days, which drew 2,000 film fans to 25 features, documentaries and shorts, and the popular Girls in the Director’s Chair program; and the outdoor spectacle _
Sethu (Bridge)
_, a global performance collaboration featuring 50 artists from India, Indonesia, and Minnesota, which brought 5,000 people to the Garden over two days. In addition, passersby on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis have been treated to artist-designed billboards by Yoko Ono, Frank Gaard, Laylah Ali, and Takashi Murakami while the Walker galleries have been closed, and more than 100 artist-designed books from the Walker’s collection, on view outside the museum for the first time, have been on view at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
Upcoming Walker without Walls events feature the annual British Television Advertising Awards screenings; a Regis Dialogue and Film Retrospective showcasing the work of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Fondation Jean-Pierre Perreault’s JOE, a riveting dance-theater spectacle; the two-day conference RAD: Radio, Access, Democracy, the concluding event of Radio Re-Volt: One Person, .ooOne Watt, a collaboration of artists-in-residence Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla and the Walker’s Teen Arts Council; and a billboard designed by Matthew Barney, which concludes the Billboard Project. For complete program schedule, call 612.375.7622 or visit calendar.walkerart.org.