Walker Art Center's Summer Music & Movies, Inspired by International Pop Exhibition, Returns Mondays, July 27-August 17

Minneapolis, May 7, 2015— The ever-popular Summer Music & Movies offers a sparkling sampler of live music and films under the stars. Local bands kick-start each night, and this year’s films are adaptations from comic books and stories of adventure inspired by the artists in the International Pop exhibition. On August 17, a special closing event features Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed, a delightful silent animated film with a live score by Mark McGee’s ensemble MAKR’s Coven.

Music begins at 7 pm; movies begin at dusk (approximately 8:45 pm). In case of rain, events move to the Walker Cinema.

Summer Music & Movies: Bigger Than Life

Loring Park, Free

Monday, July 27

Music: Gary Louris and Friends

“Gary Louris is one of the unsung heroes of contemporary roots music.”
– Paste Magazine

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Gary Louris has built a deeply compelling body of music whose artistry and integrity has won the loyalty of an international audience and the respect of both critics and his peers. Best known for his seminal work with The Jayhawks, Louris showcases songs spanning his entire 30-year career.

Film: Barbarella

Directed by Roger Vadim

“about equal doses calculated camp comedy and unintentional hilarity”
—Slate

Barbarella (Jane Fonda) must capture Doctor Durand-Durand from another constellation to protect Earth from his evil weapon—the Positronic Ray. In a string of outrageous events, she encounters a group of vampire dolls and takes refuge in the wings of a blind angel (John Phillip Law) in this goofy science fiction fantasy. Based on a French comic strip, its rambling structure, ultra-sexualized characters, and deliberately over-the-top effects make Barbarella the cult film it is. 1968, video, 98 minutes.

Monday, August 3

Music: Chastity Brown Band

“Melding bits of soul, jazz and rootsy Americana into a potent stew, at times Chastity sounds like a young Mavis Staples, but with an edgy urgency instead of any retro affectation.” – Jim McGuinn, 89.3 The Current

Throw all genres and hyphenates together you want to describe her–indie, roots & soul, rock, blues & country–they are all right, and also not enough. Chastity Brown writes songs that are carried deep in the American psyche, the hunger, desperation and confidence that runs through our times.

Film: Danger: Diabolik

Directed by Mario Bava

“When he springs into action, however, the film springs with him.” —A.V. Club

John Phillip Law is Diabolik—a dashing masked anti-hero living underground with his partner in crime Eva (Marisa Mell) running from the law for his many burglaries. Valiantly, the two never harm the innocent and remain genuinely in love. This B-movie is based on an Italian comic strip and bears the familiar dynamic action, carefree sensuality, and campy pop art set design of other films from the decade. 1968, video, 105 minutes.

Monday, August 10

Music: All Tomorrow’s Petty

“Buy me a drink, sing me a song. Take me as I come ’cause I can’t stay long.” – Tom Petty

All Tomorrow’s Petty is a loose-knit, all-star collective that gives Petty songs a postmodern twist via all manner of late-20th and early-21st century indie rock filters. Affectionately covering selections from the vast Petty canon rendered with a variable degree of interpretive license, the core group includes members of Halloween Alaska, The Pines, Gramma’s Boyfriend, Ginkgo, Rogue Valley, et al.

Film: Batman: The Movie

Directed by Leslie H. Martinson

“a witty homage to the Dynamic Duo’s exaggerated exploits” —New York Times

Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) must battle sharks, a submarine shaped like a penguin, and the Penguin himself when they are lured to a yacht to save the Commodore Schmidlapp. This spirited feature adaptation of the 1960’s television series features most of the original cast members and other familiar enemies like Catwoman, the Joker, and the Riddler. The “Dynamic Duo” delivers hilariously straight performances amidst outlandish scenarios. 1966, video, 105 minutes.

Monday, August 17

MAKR’s Coven with The Adventures of Prince Achmed

This live music + film program begins at dusk – approximately 8:45 pm.

“McGee’s musical fingerprints are all over the modern musical sounds being generated throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul.” —City Pages

Mark McGee aka MAKR (Father You See Queen, Ronia, Marijuana Deathsquads), Fletcher Barnhill (Joint Custody, FUGITIVE), Katharine Seggerman (B.O.Y.F.), Aaron Baum (Night Moves, Tiny Deaths), and Nicholas Larkins Perez (Perez) join forces to present a new live Walker-commissioned score for The Adventures of Prince Achmed, “one of the great classics of animation—beautiful, mesmerizing and utterly seductive” (Milestone Films).

German animator Lotte Reiniger’s hand-cut silhouettes are photographed movement by movement to create the flowing storyline of Prince Achmed—a man who mistakenly saddles an enchanted flying horse while trying to protect Princess Dinarsade from a sorcerer. No original print remains, but the National Film Archive houses the oldest colored nitrate version of the classic silent animated film from which this video transfer was made. 1926, video, silent, German intertitles with English subtitles, 67 minutes.

Related Exhibition: International Pop

April 11, 2015 – August 29, 2015

Organized by the Walker Art Center, International Pop chronicles the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the early 1970s. While previous exhibitions and prevailing scholarship have primarily focused on the dominance of Pop activity in New York and London during this time, this exhibition examines work from artists across the globe who were confronting many of the same radical developments, laying the foundation for the emergence of an art form that embraced figuration, media strategies, and mechanical processes with a new spirit of urgency and/or exuberance.

This groundbreaking exhibition follows the trajectories of Pop and its critical points of contact with global developments in art such as Nouveau Réalisme (France), Concretism and Neo-Concretism (Brazil), the Art of Things (Argentina), Anti-Art (Japan), Capitalist Realism (Germany), Happenings, and Neo-Dada. As such, the landmark exhibition recaptures the energy and inquisitiveness of this moment in art, expanding the frame of its influence and diversity while reenergizing questions around the true significance, breadth, and definition of Pop art.

Created in dialogue with an international array of curators and scholars, International Pop features some 140 works from 14 countries as well as a dedicated film/video program daily in the galleries.

The Walker-produced exhibition catalogue offers an in-depth study of the international Pop phenomenon with essays by scholars, film critics, and curators from Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Britain, the United States, Hungary, and Italy; an extensive visual chronology; a roundtable discussion; and a selection of stunning images, many rarely seen outside their countries of origin.

Following its presentation at the Walker, International Pop will tour to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art through 2016.

Curators: Darsie Alexander with Bartholomew Ryan

Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow: Mia Lopez

Acknowledgments

Summer Music & Movies is presented by the Walker Art Center in partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board. Support is provided by the Bentson Foundation.