Jasper Johns, Flags I, 1973, Courtesy of The Walker Art Center.
Jasper Johns, Flags I, 1973
The Walker Art Center announced its upcoming exhibitions for this year, with plenty of exciting displays that are certain to make you ponder and question what you know.
From February 14 until September 2021, the Walker is going to re-contextualize pieces from their collection into five different themes–Self, Inside, Outside, Everyday, and Everything–pulling together paintings, sculptures, drawings, photography, and video installations from the recent past and the present to illustrate how art can be seen differently through a new lens.
Joan Mitchell, Posted, 1977. Courtesy of The Walker Art Center.
Joan Mitchell, Posted, 1977.
Debuting on the same day as “Five Ways In” is “Chalk,” an installation by Puerto Rico–based collaborators Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. Life-size sticks of chalk (64 inches long, and about 100 pounds) will fill an interactive chalkboard room that covers the ceiling to the floor. Participants will be able to write and draw on the surface using the chalk, creating an exchange of ideas that allows the space to reflect how the community expresses itself.
Allora & Calzadilla, Chalk, 1998/2019. Courtesy of The Walker Art Center.
Allora & Calzadilla, Chalk, 1998/2019
A retrospective of Jasper John, one of the great American artists of the 20th century whose paintings of targets and flags brought him acclaim in 1958 while bridging the gap between abstract expressionism and pop art, will be on display February 16 into September 2020. “An Art of Changes” will showcase six decades of his printmaking work (about 90 pieces in total) from the Walker’s complete collection of his prints, and will then travel to three national venues.
Other highlights? Catch the large-scale abstract paintings in the retrospective of Julie Mehretu and contemplate what separates the physical from the virtual world in “The Body Electric” in March. Also, find time to view the first major U.S. exhibition of Theaster Gates in September, whose work converted decaying buildings in Chicago’s south side, and explore how the body is portrayed in drawings across 100 years of expressionism come November.
