“Culturally, I’m a cold-hearted colonialist,” says Andy Messerschmidt, whose work borrows ideas from world religions, from Buddhist mandalas to Indonesian shamanistic rituals to American holidays, in his art. The tendency is on display in his new Walker commission, which he says explores the “compression of loaded symbols of divinity and how they work in moire to create a meta-symbol of the divine.”

“When an object is discarded by a person, it’s valueless,” says Abraham Cruzvillegas. “For autoconstrucción, it could be seen as prime matter.” The Mexico City-based artist gives such “dead” objects a new use by “revealing instead of hiding their nature.” Here Cruzvillegas discusses how this idea of “self-construction” underpins his artistic practice and offers a metaphor for the creation of his own identity.

The resolute materiality of painting continues to attract artists, says Painter Painter co-curator Eric Crosby. “It’s a vivid contrast with our daily routine, where we experience so many images by using a cursor. Painting resists this kind of experience,” he adds. “A lot of artists today embrace that notion, going where the materials take them, not where the history of painting tells them to go.”

“Non participation,” say Karen Mirza and Brad Butler of the central idea in their upcoming Walker exhibition, is evident “when, for example, people encounter something they believe is valid or necessary—say, homelessness, the right to protest, the Iraq War—but in that simultaneous moment they ignore it or reject it.” In a new interview, the UK-based duo discusses their approach to art and resistance.

In a traditional museum, art is presented in the context of singular art history, says the Van Abbemuseum’s Steven ten Thije. But “if you start to see works themselves as contexts, then each work starts to be not just a story of itself, but to offer a perspective on the world—a different background against which things can be ordered.” Here he discusses the museum’s evolving thinking on curation.