Archive Articles
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Articles

David Gordon Pick Up Performance Co(S.)
Articles
Mar 2009
German dramatist Bertolt Brecht viewed most wars as a political panacea for economic downturns and a purposeful division of people by color, religion, language, and geography—a timely perspective in an era defined by the “war on terror,” fears about immigration, and ethnic conflict worldwide. For this reimagining of Brecht and composer Hanns Eisler’s rarely performed music-theater work Roundheads and…
PA
Articles

Out of This World
Julie Caniglia
Mar 2009
In presenting the world premiere of The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success) at the Walker this April, Cynthia Hopkins completes a trilogy of music-theater journeys that have taken this singer/performer/director—and her devoted audiences—farther and farther afield. First there was the earthy, Southern-gothic road tale_ Accidental Nostalgia_ in 2005, whose narrator steals an identity and…
PA
Articles

All-American Experiments: Out There 2009
Articles
Jan 2009
There is singing, dancing, music, theater. There is impassioned oratory (and, possibly, some less charismatic speakers). There are urgent messages of social import, and opportunities for self-improvement. There are groups of locals coming together in a special, even sacred place to feel a sense of belonging, or to open themselves to transformation—spiritually, morally, intellectually. There is ceremony and…
FV
Articles

In the Realm of Oshima
James Quandt
Nov 2008
Much parsed and puzzled over, Shohei Imamura’s famous pronouncement, “I’m a country farmer; Nagisa Oshima is a samurai” may be ambiguous in tone and intent—is it ironic, invidious, deferential?—but it emphasizes the directors’ differences: class, stylistic, and otherwise. Often paired as twin avatars of the Japanese New Wave, a term Oshima (born in Kyoto, 1932) took every opportunity to spurn and…
VA
Articles

Collecting Energy
Articles
Aug 2008
In the view of artist Tomás Saraceno, there’s nowhere for society to go but up. His floating sculptures employ principles from engineering, aeronautics, and architecture that rethink the way we experience space and relate to forms and to one another. Indebted to the ideas championed by visionaries such as architect Buckminster Fuller and artist Gyula Kosice, he makes objects and installations that…
AD
Articles

FlatPak in the Garden
Articles
Aug 2008
If you’ve ever biked along the Cedar Lake Trail, you’ve probably encountered a modern house set among the stately Victorian homes in the Kenwood neighborhood. Built in 2004–2005, the home is a prototype for FlatPak, a prefabricated system for residential architecture designed by Charlie Lazor of Minneapolis-based Lazor Office.
The idea for FlatPak emerged from Lazor’s prior work with Blu Dot, a…
VA
Articles
Composing the Contemporary Collection
Articles
Jul 2008
In a Walker exhibition of the not-too-distant future, you’ll see a piece by San Francisco–based artist Trisha Donnelly. In 2005 the Walker acquired its first work by Donnelly—a drawing entitled Bend Sinister (2004)—and over the past two years has added two additional pieces, including the video Untitled (1998–1999). In it, the artist, dressed in white, performs in slow motion the signature “rock star…
PA
Articles

Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton
Matt Peiken
May 2008
Meredith Monk can chart every bead of inspiration on her new necklace of voice, music, and theater. She points to poet Norman Fischer’s translations of the Psalms, which Monk stitched to her own fascination with the human impulse to “ascend.” She tells of reconnecting with visual artist Ann Hamilton, a past collaborator, after hearing she was creating a tower. What Monk can’t do is say how Songs of…
VA
Articles

Trailer Made
Philippe Vergne
Apr 2008
The word “picnic” comes—though nothing is cast in bronze—from the French verb piquer (“pick” or “peck”) is associated with the rhyming nique (things of little importance). Richard Prince’s latest work, Untitled (Upstate), which made its premiere at the Walker, picks on and transcends things of little importance that populate the world. A full-sized basketball hoop and pole pierce the center of a beat-up old…