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Walker Art Center began to exhibit films in the late 1940s, but it was not until the early 1970s, under the leadership of the museum's first film/video curator, John G. Hanhardt, that the museum established a formal media exhibition program. Today Walker's Film/Video Department is widely recognized for an innovative approach to the moving-image arts that embraces the full range of classic and contemporary cinema, independent and avant-garde work in film, video, and animation. As it entered the 1990s, the Department's programming has also become more interdisciplinary, a direction which came with the art center's new mission to focus attention on the international arena, multidisciplinary practices and diversity in its curatorial approach.

A central activity of the Walker's film/video program is the exhibition of the most innovative and accomplished work in film and video. In addition, the Walker also hosts seminars, panel discussions, and an extensive visiting artists program. These programs have enabled our audiences to participate in discussions with many prominent moving image artists.

Walker is also home to the Edmond R. Ruben Film Study Collection which contains several hundred titles--including a core collection of experimental work from the 1960s and 70s which are screened periodically through the Ruben Cinematheque and Videotheque series. In addition, audio documentation of all lectures presented at Walker is available for study through the Walker Art Center library.

The museum has developed a number of nationally circulated exhibitions focusing on the achievements of national cinemas such as the AFI Presents the BFI, as well as an overview of the seminal period of U.S. "independent production," The American New Wave: 1958-1967. Since the mid-1980s, the Walker has organized and circulated five retrospectives highlighting the careers of both master and maverick figures including: Of Angels and Apocalypse: The Cinema of Derek Jarman, Dennis Hopper: From Method to Madness, The Films of John Cassavetes, Cinema Outsider: The Films of William Klein, and Keith Carradine: In Retrospect. Over the past decade, these have been circulated to more than 50 sites in the US, Europe, and Japan.

The Walker was the first U.S. museum to exhibit the work of the seminal video artist Nam June Paik and has continued to champion developments in artists' video and electronic installation ranging from acquisitions of single-channel work to exhibitions of major pieces by artists Mary Lucier, Wendy Clarke, Steina Vasulka and Graham Weinbren. The Walker has commissioned several installations including video sculptures by Nam June Paik (66-76-89) and Paul Kos (Chartres Bleu) and a large-scale collaboration between architect Arata Isozaki and designer Eiko Ishioka for an electronic performance space for the Tokyo: Form and Spirit exhibition. More recently the museum has acquired film and video installation works by the Irish artist James Coleman (Box and So Different...and Yett), Bruce Conner (Television Assassination) and Nam June Paik (TV Bra and TV Cello).

In the 1980's, the museum was active in media production commissioning works ranging from Skip Blumberg's award-winning portrait of the Walker's Art on Parade to Bruce Charlesworth's film-noir Dateline for Danger. Its most extensive production was the 1985 debut season of the nationally recognized Public TV series Alive From Off Center, produced in collaboration with KTCA (Minnesota Public Television).