July 12, 2003-February 14, 2004
THE SQUARED CIRCLE: BOXING IN CONTEMPORARY ART
Exhibition
GALLERY A
   
Boxing, provocatively called the red-light district of sports, has often provided white-hot inspiration for artists interested in the essential dramas of race, class, sexuality, (homo)eroticism, gender, politics, nationality, and civilization often staged in the ring. Films such as Raging Bull, Rocky, and Girlfight as well as literary works by authors including Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin Young further demonstrate the world's collective obsession with this emotionally, psychically, and physically complex sporting endeavor. If, as Oates writes, boxing is "a knot of sorts, tightly, cruelly knotted, there to be untied," the exhibition The Squared Circle: Boxing in Contemporary Art attempts to untie boxing as metaphor, as spectacle, and as poetic yet slightly absurd dance of dualities--violence and beauty, triumph and failure, life and death.
 
 
Image
Jean-Michel Basquiat
UNTITLED (SUGAR RAY ROBINSON)
1982
Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT
  

Image
Gary Simmons
EVERFORWARD...
1993
Collection Walker Art Center
Minneapolis. Anonymous
Gift, 2001
Including artworks from the past 33 years, the exhibition is loosely bracketed by Muhammad Ali's reign in the early 1970s and the current glory of his boxing daughter, Laila Ali. The Squared Circle features more than 40 works by 30 international artists in media ranging from painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography to video, film, and sound installation. Casting both boxers and boxing fans as protagonists, this show restages the journey that takes some people from the gym's punching bags to the ring, and others to vicarious fantasies of violence, grace, and triumph through the fists of fighters like Ali, Dempsey, and Tyson. Like the sport itself, the artworks resonate with ambiguity, contradiction, and unexpected outcomes.Teasing out the tangled dynamics of male vulnerability and female empowerment, The Squared Circle provides a new and reinvigorating context for a broad and diverse artistic conversation on the subject. While some artists investigate the pervasiveness of the sport's racial, gender, and power issues, others focus on ways that politics, popular culture, and class are played out in the spectacle that boxing offers. A significant nuance is added to the exhibition by the focused inclusion of several women artists whose works engage themes of desire, femininity, physical strength, and gender expectations. Just as these complicated concepts that permeate public consciousness are confronted in the ring, the exhibition sheds light on boxing as a potent if unexpected vehicle for art.


Image
Stefan Banz
SELECTIONS FROM THE MUHAMMAD ALI'S
1999-2000
Courtesy Galerie Zink & Gegner, Munich, Germany


RELATED RESOURCES
MINNEAPOLIS PUBLIC LIBRARY
Reading list compiled as a complement to the Walker exhibition.


OCTOBER EVENTS
WORLD PREMIERE
MATTHEW SHIPP TRIO BOXING AND JAZZ
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2003, 8 PM, $18 ($15), AUDITORIUM
 Free jazz pianist Matthew Shipp and his hard-hitting trio--William Parker (bass) and Guillermo E. Brown (drums)--perform music they created for Combinations, a new documentary by Patrick Gaucher illuminating the parallels between two American obsessions: boxing and jazz.

FREE TOUR
THE SQUARED CIRCLE: BOXING IN CONTEMPORARY ART
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2003, 8 PM, AUDITORIUM
 Exhibition curator Olukemi Ilesanmi and free-jazz pianist Matthew Shipp bob and weave through The Squared Circle to explore links between boxing and jazz.

FREE TOURS
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2003, 2 PM
Join the Walker Art Center's knowledgeable tour guides for a lively, engaging, and informative tour of the exhibition.

SEPTEMBER EVENTS
COMMUNITY CELEBRATION
UNDISPUTED CHAMPIONS: CELEBRATING MINNESOTA BOXING HISTORY
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 3 PM FREE, AUDITORIUM
 Join us for a presentation honoring Minnesota's boxing community and its history.

FREE TOURS
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2 PM
Join the Walker Art Center's knowledgeable tour guides for a lively, engaging, and informative tour of the exhibition.


JULY EVENTS
WALKER AFTER HOURS/PREVIEW PARTY: PUT UP YOUR DUKES
FRIDAY, JULY 11, 7-10 PM
$14 ($7 WALKER MEMBERS); $5 AGES 20 AND UNDER
Step into the ring and celebrate the new exhibition with an evening of fisticuffs and fun.

CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS' LUNCHEON
FRIDAY, JULY 11, 5:30-7 PM, $25 PER PERSON
 Walker Contributing members and friends are invited to join Walker curators for a special preview of the exhibition, followed by Walker After Hours. For reservations or Contributing membership information, call 612.375.7655.

OPENING-DAY TALK: GERALD EARLY
AMERICAN PRIZEFIGHTING: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE LONESOME ART OF MANHOOD
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2 PM, $8 ($6 WALKER MEMBERS), AUDITORIUM
 Join essayist-scholar Gerald Early for a discussion about the reviled and revered role of boxing in American culture.

BELOW THE BELT: BATTLE OF THE UNDERAGE
THURSDAY, JULY 24, 6-10 PM, FREE, AUDITORIUM
 Inspired by themes in The Squared Circle, artists under age 21 compete in 10 categories ranging from hip-hop dance to slam poetry.

SUMMER MUSIC & MOVIES: PULLING PUNCHES
MONDAYS, JULY 21-AUGUST 25, FREE, LORING PARK
This year, the series focuses on boxing.

COMING IN OCTOBER: WORLD PREMIERE
Matthew Shipp Trio's Boxing and Jazz

FREE TOURS
SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 26, 2 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 10, 2 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 2 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2 PM
Join the Walker Art Center's knowledgeable tour guides for a lively, engaging, and informative tour of the exhibition.







THE SQUARED CIRCLE: BOXING IN CONTEMPORARY ART IS MADE POSSIBLE BY GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM MARSHALL FIELD'S.