Edward Hopper OFFICE AT NIGHT 1940

The exhibition is organized into several groups of works, each a collection of short takes on an aspect of the American experience. George Segal's melancholy environmental sculpture The Diner (1964-1966) and Edward Ruscha's 23-foot-long accordion-fold photo book Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966) anchor a grouping that explores roadside and street-level realities. Kara Walker's antebellum silhouette figures The Means to an End . . . A Shadow Drama in Five Acts (1995) and Robert Rauschenberg's screenprints created from collages of newspaper clippings, Currents (1970), investigate some of the political and social issues that animate our daily experience. How we construct our homes--physically and metaphorically--is touched on by objects such as Louise Nevelson's Case with Five Balusters (1959) and Dan Graham's architectural study Alteration to a Suburban House

George Segal THE DINER 1964-1966

(1978/1992). The urban, suburban, and rural environments are represented by paintings such as Joseph Stella's stylized portrait of the Brooklyn Bridge in American Landscape (1929), Georgia O'Keeffe's Lake George Barns (1926), and Mark Tansey's Constructing the Grand Canyon (1990). Personal narratives involving the body, gender, and sexual identity and the passages associated with self-discovery are explored in Dorit Cypis' My Father's Nudes (1989), Collier Schorr's The Well #1 (White) (1991), and Ron Vawter's Roy Cohn/Jack Smith stage set and video. Finally, an installation of several diverse works suggests a mock "clubhouse"--a private, interior gathering space complete with the pinups of Richard Prince's Girlfriends (1992) and a pool table courtesy of Sherrie Levine's La Fortune (after Man Ray: 3) (1990).

Over the course of the exhibition, eight films selected from the Walker's Edmond R. Ruben Collection will be presented in the gallery, offering up still other American stories. This month's film is James Benning's One Way Boogie Woogie (1977). Future screening highlights include George Kuchar's Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966), Helen Levitt's In the Street (1952), and Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963). Visit the Walker monthly for a new installment of American stories. See the complete listing at below.



NEW EACH MONTH: SPECIAL PUBLICATION AND FILM
The exhibition's many visual tableaux are accompanied by an eight-part publication that explores the American experience through the written word. Each issue is built around a theme--Lament, Muscle, Fortune, Burn, Beauty, Outskirts, Strip, Notorious--and features a Walker-commissioned short story by a prominent local writer as well as curatorial commentaries on works in the exhibition, film notes, and suggestions for further reading. Over the course of the exhibition, eight films selected from the Walker's Edmond R. Ruben Collection will be shown, offering up still other American stories. Highlights include films by Kenneth Anger, Helen Levitt, Bruce Baillie, and George Kuchar. Visit after the first of each month to pick up each new edition of this exciting, free publication and see the latest film screening continuously in the gallery.