Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Weisman Art Museum Celebrate International Museum Day May 18
The Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), and the Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, will participate in the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) celebration of International Museum Day on Tuesday, May 18. During museum hours, the Walker will offer free gallery admission throughout the day; MIA will waive its admission fee for the special exhibition Until Now: Collecting the New (1960–2010); and the Weisman will discount the cost of an annual membership by 20 percent. Participation by AAMD member museums focuses attention on the important roles that art museums serve in their communities, increasing opportunities for audiences to engage with their many programs.
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis
walkerart.org
Gallery hours on Tuesday, May 18: 11 am–5 pm
Selected Exhibitions on View
The Talent Show
Works by 18 artists explore competing desires for notoriety and privacy.
1964
From Pop, Fluxus, conceptual art, and Minimalism to underground film, 1964 mines the aesthetic innovations and strategies of dissent that artists were pursuing during this brief, but extraordinary moment in our country’s history.
Hélio Oiticica/Rirkrit Tiravanija: Contact
Visitors swing in hammocks surrounded by a Jimi Hendrix soundtrack or congregate to solve a giant jigsaw puzzle in two immersive installations that invite them to relax, reflect, and socialize.
Benches & Binoculars
This floor-to-ceiling salon-style installation of nearly 90 paintings raises questions about changing tastes over time and what it means to be “contemporary.”
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis
artsmia.org
Gallery hours on Tuesday, May 18: 10 am–5 pm
Selected Exhibitions on View
Until Now: Collecting the New (1960–2010)
Get a dynamic look at five decades of contemporary art. Key works by acclaimed international and American artists build on the strengths of the museum’s collection, prompting new insights, interpretations, and aha! moments on the art of our times.
Foot in the Door 4
Held once every 10 years, this exhibition, open to all Minnesota artists, celebrates the diversity and enthusiasm of Minnesota’s visual and media artists with work that must fit within one cubic foot.
New Pictures 2: Marco Breuer
Marco Breuer manipulates light-sensitive paper to create unique experimental abstract images that invite us to ponder “What is a photograph?”
Southern Exposure: Photographs of the American South
Diverse work from the time of the Civil War to the present by the Deep South’s indigenous and visiting photographers presents a rich collage of enduring images depicting the landscape, architecture, and inhabitants of one of America’s most distinctive regions.
Weisman Art Museum
333 East River Road, Minneapolis
weisman.umn.edu
Gallery hours on Tuesday, May 18: 10 am–5 pm
Selected Exhibitions on View
Surface Quality
This exhibition showcases examples of diverse attitudes about surface in works from the Weisman collection.
Common Sense: Art and the Quotidian
Works from the collection by Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, Nina Katchadourian, and Isabel Bishop reveal how art throughout the last century celebrated and investigated ideas of the everyday.
Everyday Life at the Crossroads of the Ancient Mediterranean
This exhibition features everyday objects from Greece, Rome, and elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean dating from 3000 B.C.E. to 1100 C.E—antiquities that served ritual or ceremonial purposes, giving them a sense of import.
AAMD member museums—located across the United States, Canada, and Mexico—include smaller regional museums as well as large international institutions. International Museum Day is organized annually around the world by the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
“We believe that art museums are crucial to our understanding of world history and cultures, and provide a unique and irreplaceable public service,” said Michael Conforti, president of AAMD and director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. “AAMD is committed to exploring new ways to underscore the value of the visual arts in civic society, and we are excited that the Walker, MIA, and Weisman museums are joining with us and the global community of museums to focus on this message of public service.”
A comprehensive list of participating AAMD member art museums will be available in the newsroom of the AAMD Web site (aamd.org/newsroom/). Note that while ICOM’s International Museum Day is formally held each year on May 18, some institutions shift their celebrations to adjacent dates. More information about ICOM’s International Museum Day can be found at icom.museum/imd.html.