The Walker registrar faces myriad challenges — from “weeping Barbie syndrome,” which plagues art made from PVC, to cold storage for a famed choreographer’s fur coat — but none is more prevalent than the problem of paint: protecting and preserving outdoor sculptures ravaged by sun, time and water.

What’s lacking in the 2011 Istanbul Biennial, writes Walker director Olga Viso is “an indefatigable spirit of generosity and faith in the potential of art to not only transcribe the exigencies of the present moment but transcend them too.”

IN ALL THE ARTS THERE IS A PHYSICAL COMPONENT WHICH CAN NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED OR TREATED AS IT USED TO BE, WHICH CANNOT REMAIN UNAFFECTED BY OUR MODERN KNOWLEDGE AND POWER. FOR THE LAST TWENTY…

The following e-mail correspondence between Walker visual arts curator Siri Engberg and Alec Soth took place as they organized From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America, on view at the Walker Art Center September 12, 2010–January 2, 2011. Excerpts appeared in “How to Be Alone and Loved by Millions,” in the September/October 2010 issue of Walker magazine. Siri Engberg What led you to photography? Alec Soth …

With a new commission and works dating back to the 1950s, the exhibition Abstract Resistance brings together now-legendary figures as well as younger artists who have revolted against the aesthetic orthodoxies of their times. While these pieces do not conform to a single theme, they are united in challenging what is expected of art, from the way it looks to the role it plays in society at large…

Over the years, the Walker has invited more than 200 artists from different disciplines to spend time at the institution working on various projects. This fall, in conjunction with her solo exhibition, Haegue Yang arrived with several new twists on the artist-in-residence concept, which, as she says, “normally implies an artist visiting to provide the institution with something—a commissioned work, a…