Over the past few years there has been increasing discussion in the arts and cultural community about the shifting roles and expectations of audiences, and how they impact the creation of art as well as the relationship of cultural institutions with their audiences. Last year, for example, ARTnews published “Reshaping the Art Museum,” a story that covered myriad strategies that arts institutions are…

Notes The High Museum of Art exhibition Alec Soth: Black Line of Woods (August 8, 2009–January 3, 2010) featured twelve large archival pigment prints. Soth was the sixth artist to be chosen by the museum to participate in its Picturing the South photography series, in which artists are invited to make work inspired by the rural American South. The other artists selected so far are Dawoud Bey, Emmett…

As a museum registrar, I subscribe to the Packing, Art handling & Crating Information Network (PACIN). The forum is a great way for art handlers to receive information and pose questions about the many conundrums we encounter in our line of work. Following up on a recent conversation on the PACIN listserve about what to do with old crates, the artist collective Red 76 has temporarily landed its…

On June 28 the McKnight Foundation named Siah Armjani as the 2010 recipient of the Distinguished Artist Award—an honor that recognizes individuals “who helped lay the foundation for Minnesota’s rich cultural life” and “despite opportunities to pursue their work elsewhere, they chose to stay — and by staying, they have made a difference.”  And providing a foundation for the arts in Minnesota is exactly…

Guillermo Kuitca: Everything—Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008 opens at the Walker this Saturday after presentations at the Miami Art Museum and the Albright-Knox Gallery (it travels to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden this fall). “The greatest artist in the world” Why not start with the superlative to end all superlatives? Ben Lewis, the British filmmaker and art critic for Prospect…

“Sigmar Polke, an artist of infinite, often ravishing pictorial jest, whose sarcastic and vibrant layering of found images and maverick, chaos-provoking painting processes left an indelible mark on the last four decades of contemporary painting, died yesterday in Cologne, Germany.” – from the New York Times‘ Arts Beat blog The Walker enjoyed a long history with Polke, whom former Walker chief curator…

David Lamelas’ simple theatrical spotlight, illuminating a darkened gallery in the new exhibition The Talent Show, has been described as “an implicit and alluring invitation.” We’re making that invitation more explicit: Commemorate yourself with a free portrait tomorrow night (April 22), as Walker staff photographer Cameron Wittig shoots visitors beneath Lamelas’ spotlight at Target Free Thursday Night…

1964 — the exhibition — recently opened in the Friedman gallery (named after director emeritus Martin Friedman, who was four years into his 30-year tenure at the Walker in 1964), with a basic idea that …

Abstract Resistance, an exhibition that opened about a week ago at the Walker, brings together some four generations of artists, including now-legendary names like Francis Bacon, Philip Guston, and Willem de Kooning. But curator Yasmil Raymond notes that her thinking about this show originated with a group of young artists—including Gedi Sibony, Rachel Harrison, Cathy Wilkes, Andro Wekua—and their use…