In exit interview with The Rake magazine’s Julie Caniglia, outgoing Walker director Kathy Halbreich discusses how Walker exhibitions affect the art market, her non-art dream job (running the Minneapolis Farmers Market), and the myriad “creative giants” the art world can no longer afford to ignore. A snippet:
The world is much smaller than when I began. The collection at Walker then was basically Euro-Canadian-U.S. It can't be that anymore. With Hélio Oiticica, we were the only museum in the U.S. to show his retrospective in 1994; people thought I was absolutely crazy. But he is going to be considered one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. This country just didn't understand because they didn't know.
What are the powerful countries of the future? Brazil, China, India. Brazil is an enormously fertile ground--that country and Japan have the longest history of really modern art, and the most interesting. China's later, and India I would say even later still. But these places now are extremely alive.
The Helio Oiticia installation was one of my most happy memories of art during Kathy’s tenure. The joy the color the economy of means led me to believe we were going to be on a different trip than we had been on, Kathy saw the past and the future merge when we retrieve the likes of Oiticia from the recent past. The spectacle of his art, the costumes the experimentation need to be recalled in our commodified present day. Kathy brought us magic then and all along the way and a little bit of Brazil that should never be forgotten.
Comment by Frankie Gaard — 10/3/2007 @ 4:14 pm