Commissioned in 1979 to make a piece for the Walker collection, Jud Nelson took two years to carve from marble a garbage bag bursting with familiar throwaways from the latter half of the 20th century.

With registrar Joe King and registration technician Evan Reiter we took a trip to art storage to see the first 5 works by women to enter the Walker’s collection.

About the artist: Todd Balthazor is a satirical, often anthropomorphic illustrator, fine artist, muralist and children’s art instructor from St.Paul, MN, with a BFA in illustration from the College of Visual Arts (CVA).  He has done artist residencies at Jackson Elementary and the St. Paul University Club, and his work has been displayed in venues both locally and abroad, including: illustrations in…

One day in early 2005, I spotted Frank Gaard getting off the bus on Hennepin Avenue. Toting a pink-painted plank under his arm, he was headed my way, to the temporary offices Walker staff was occupying during construction of the new expansion. We greeted, and he showed me what he had: a going-away present for Philippe Verne, then senior curator and Visual Arts department head. It was a sign that…

The newest video by St. Vincent, who performed here in October, has a distinctly Walker vibe. Set in a white-walled gallery, singer Annie Clark is presented as a gigantic and uncannily realistic sculpture, one the video’s director, Hiro Murai, says is inspired by the work of Ron Mueck, whose Crouching Boy in Mirror is in our Lifelike exhibition. Pitchfork caught up with Murai and asked about the…

“A few people have donated their bodies to the project to be eaten by mushrooms.” – Jae Rhim Lee, visual artist/designer/researcher. College Art Association celebrated its 100th year with 5,000+ people gathered in downtown LA last Wednesday-Saturday for “the world’s best attended international art conference.”  The city’s convention center buzzed with art talk, escalators, ipads, coffee shakes — most of…

This past week, the McGuire Theater has been occupied with the unpacking, photographing, and re-rolling of many of the Cunningham backdrops.  The drops came to the Walker folded down and packed in portable touring -friendly hampers and bags (imagine a large sleeping bag in a small scrunch sack).  But now that they are here to stay, they are being rolled flat on long cardboard cylinders, to eliminate…

Like any run-of-the-mill church-basement folding chairs, the ones in our Lifelike show are stenciled to show ownership. “NFTH” reads the black-spraypainted ID on the backrest of Robert Therrien’s gigantic steel chairs. But what do they stand for? We’re told there’s a secret story about the letters’ personal significance to Therrien, but he’s not about to tell it. Mostly, the acronym just…

Chuck Close’s Big Self Portrait (1967-1968),which is featured in the Lifelike exhibition, also recently made a sojourn (in postcard form) to Nepal and India. His presence incited a few double-takes and queries from the locals –Who is this smoking guy? Do you worship him? Close said of his portraits in 1970, ”I am not trying to make facsimiles of photographs. Neither am I interested in the icon of the…