Walker Art Center

This week I went to the Walker Art Center. I went on the free Thursday night and it was so much fun there. Many people were coming to attend the British Advertising Awards.

First, I jumped on a tour of the exhibit Events and Horizen; it was given by the museum's curator! I am really glad I took the tour, because I learned so much about the selected pieces and the layout of the museum. All the art in the museum is beautiful, but because it is so contemporary and new ideas I liked to have someone explain the artists intentions of their work. Such as the piece "3 Pass-stucke (3 adaptives)" by Franz West. West took molded white gauze into three different lump shapes and attached them to iron rods. The curator let people pass around the pieces, hold them and touch them. West's intentions is to break down the barrier between thinking art is precious and non-touchable. He intended for people to carry around these odd objects to reveal their own creativity and psychiatry. On my own I would have never guessed what West's intentions were, I would have looked at the gauze lumps and been grossed out. But it was interesting to see people's reactions to when they first held the objects (very timid) to when they started to have fun with it. Check out the art piece here www.artsconnected.org/resource/88778/3-pass-st-cke-3-adaptives (Sorry I had problems trying to hyperlink the sites).

The curator explained how a person never wants to put too many pieces of alike work together. It is better to mix and match it to keep the viewers on their toes. She said, "I have an envision for people to move a certain way through the museum and you people never go through it the way I want you too."When all the artwork was together, the curator was surprised by how many red pieces of work there are and the artworks of hands. On the night before the opening of Events and Horizens, the curator decided to move the large illuminated photograph "Morning Cleaning, Barcelona" by Jeff Wall into gallery two. It took the movers till 3am and she said it was worth it; Before the room was dark and dead, the illumination helped to brighten up the room. Check it out here: www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/jeff_wall/selected_05.html

The photograph by Jeff Wall is of a man cleaning windows at the Mies van der Rohe pavilion in Barcelona Spain. It shows the everyday life at a place with such significance. Interestingly, the curator explained, that the photograph is a "near documentary" meaning it was staged. A cleaner here would never leave mop heads on the floor or let soapy water drip on all the windows down the line. Sometimes to make more of an impact or to make it more noticeable to the viewers, the artist may need to add in extras to get their point across.

The first art piece a person sees when entering Event Horizen is a very large photograph about 5 feet high by 7 feet wide taken by Andreas Gursky in 1955 called "Klitschko". The photograph is taken from a high angle of a sports arena holding a fight. What is amazing to me is the detail in the photograph, usually the bigger the picture or further distance away it looses detail and focus. But one could see a logo on a t-shirt on the other side of the arena from where the picture was taken; it is so crisp and clear. It is true accuracy of "catching an event". The viewer can look at each person in the photograph to see how he or she is responding to the event. Check it out here: www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/klitschko-81kz4cijh9-0-m-342vc36qt9

One of the other very interesting art pieces in the exhibit I liked is "Konvex/ Konkav (Convex/ Concave) by Olafur Eliasson. The piece is of a mirror of about 3 feet circumference. A pump/motor system on the bottom slowly convexes and concaves the mirror. It does it so slowly one has to stare at him or herself in the mirror for a long time to notice it, while the pump makes sounds like breath. The artist intended people to stop at the piece, slow down, and force them to stare at themselves in the mirror. I liked this meaning behind the art piece, that people need to stop once in awhile and truly, deeply look at themselves. Check it out here:http://collections.walkerart.org/item/object/11283

Next the curator walked us to the exhibit Benches and Binoculars. Because the tour was not supposed to include this part she did not say much, but just wanted to say a few things because she was so proud of putting this together. The exhibit shows over 75 pieces in salon-styles; the artworks are almost frame to frame and floor to ceiling in a tall room. It was how art was judged by an academy and place accordingly to on the walls. I really liked the layout of this. It helped to see so many different styles of artwork and to compare them next to each other (and to also catch many similarities). The room was packed and everyone in there was having fun pointing out pictures and looking through the binoculars. It gave people a chance to put down their reserved guards int he museum and have fun; to point out "Ohhh, I like that one". Check it out here: http://visualarts.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=5306&title=Current+Exhibitions

Next I went to Heugue Yang's Integrity of the Insider. While it is interesting to see installation art and how people portray their ideas, when looking at the pieces I don't get it. I can try to come up with my own ideas, which is an important part of art to have my perception, but I still just wonder, "What were they thinking?" I like how the piece "Yearning Melancholy Red" affected my senses in so many different ways. It had fans for sound and feel, infrared heat for feel, the moving red lights gave a mysterious feels as I walked through the maze miniblind rows. I want to go back to see for the tour of this exhibit for clearer understanding of it. Check it out here: http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=4668

Lastly I saw the minimalism exhibit Elemental. My one line response would be, "Interesting to see and experience, but do not care if I never saw it again." It was neat how simple an art piece can be. But it did not evoke any real feelings for me.