When the Walker founded its film department 33 years ago, curatorial decision-making revolved around expanding its new Edmond R. Ruben Film and Video Study Collection and programming a series of screenings that balanced contemporary movies with experimental films. Today, the job of Walker curators is decidedly more complex. A rich collection of experimental works is inherently tied to the classic…

During a visit to the Walker in 2003, artist Jem Cohen presented a three-screen video work, Chain X Three, which linked anonymous scenes of corporate architecture ranging from malls to fast-food restaurants to parking lots. With this month’s presentation of Chain, the feature-film version of that work, we revisit a conversation between Cohen and assistant film/video curator Dean Otto from September…

Spencer Nakasako, a Walker artist-in-residence in 2001 and 2002, has developed a unique style of filmmaking that is inextricably intermeshed with social consciousness and community engagement. In his home base of San Francisco—a city with a long history of Asian immigration and diverse ethnic groups—he has been working with largely Southeast Asian, at-risk teenagers in the disenfranchised…

Abigail Child is a New York-based artist whose work in montage and sound/image relationships pushes the envelope of film and video with its humor and ephemeral beauty. Child’s The Future Is Behind You will be screened during the Women with Vision festival as part of Experiments: A Series of Short Films. Her films Cake and Steak and Dark Dark are featured in the Walker’s Lecture Room throughout…

Paul Silburn has seen the best of British television advertising from both sides of the judging table. A former board member of the British Television Advertising Awards (BTAA), he worked for Leo Burnett London, where he received numerous honors, including BTAA’s the ITV Award for Best Television Commercial of the Year. His projects included a spot for John West Salmon that featured fisticuffs…

Camille LeFevre writes about the rare and beautiful performance of Space, Time, and Illusion presented at the Walker as part of Women with Vision 2005. Read the review on mnartists.org.

Now open are two new areas for screenings of rare film prints, videos, and media installations. The Best Buy Film/Video Bay and the Lecture Room offer visitors a chance to see new acquisitions from the Walker’s Edmond R. Ruben Film and Video Study Collection, classic movies, and projects by artists-in-residence each day during regular gallery hours. In the Lecture Room through August 20…

Working with American avant-garde filmmakers in the 1960s and ’70s was thrilling, says Sally Dixon. A creator of “film poems” in the 1960s and later one of the country’s first curators of avant-garde film, Dixon recalls her days of deep personal and professional connection with luminaries such as Stan Brakhage, Hollis Frampton, Bruce Baillie, Carolee Schneeman, Paul Sharits, Kenneth Anger, James Broughton…

“By dint of declaration the so-called Cinema Verité is devoid of verité,” Werner Herzog stated at the Walker on April 30, 1999. “It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants.”