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CALL FOR ENTRIES

Multiples Mall: A Bookish Fair

DEADLINE: MONDAY, DECEMBER 15

This winter the Walker Art Center turns bookish with a season of events surrounding Text/Messages: Books by Artists, an exhibition of works from the museum’s collection and library opening on December 18.

Minnesota artists are invited to submit an application for participation in the fair portion of Multiples Mall. Organizers are looking for work that exists within the elastic discipline of book arts, including artist-made books, chapbooks, fine press work, graphic design, artful zines, and multiples that claim a relationship to the form or concept of the “book.”

Each selected artist will have 4 feet of table space to display their wares and the opportunity to have work for sale by the Walker shop during the event.

SUBMISSIONS PROCESS

Participants will be chosen based on the appropriateness of their work for this event by a panel of

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INVITED AUDITION

David Gordon Pick Up Performance Company (NYC)
UNCIVIL WARS: MOVING W/BRECHT & EISLER

Audition: Thursday, November 6, 6 – 9pm
Walker Art Center’s McGuire Theater

David Gordon is looking for a cast of local community members that “look like the world that we live in.” All ages, sizes, shapes, ethnicities. These cast members will be part of the last scene of Uncivil Wars which takes place in a courtroom, and calls for a look of a general population. Stage experience is not necessary but you do need to have the ability to listen and respond to direction and information.

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This is the time of the year when WACTAC sorts through the a huge number of applications. This year’s batch of apps was quite impressive…so impressive that it made me dig through the archives. Here are some of my all time favorites.

Eric Luken, WACTAC 1999-2000

Shannon Joyce, 2005-2006 WACTAC member.

Blue Delliquanti, WACTAC 2006-2007 (you can see Blue’s full application here)

Laura Gantebein, WACTAC 2005-2006

…and the Top 3 20 Under 20 Artists are

1st Place: Jess Nelson

2nd Place: The Velveteens

3rd Place: Sarah Beth Ryther

Thanks to all of the 20 Under 20 Artists! Check out more photos at the Walker’s flickr site.

WACTAC is looking forward to our 3 day Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson love fest in May:

Aside from their artist talk at the Walker on May 1st, Chris and Jo will be presenting CONCLUSIONS ON BOUNDARIES, an art exhibition featuring their painting, sculpture, found materials and video at ART OF THIS gallery in Minneapolis. The exhibition opens MAY thizz-erd at 7pm and runs until June 1st!

To hype up the exhibition the WALKER ART ROBOT will be screening the documentary “BEAUTIFUL LOSERS” on May 2nd - two showings: 7pm and 9pm. Since we’re real cool here on WACTAC we spent a whole meeting sticking it to the man and reserving tickets for high school students, so make sure to bring your student I.D. since the rest of the tickets might be sold out AND you get a discount! Purchase advance tickets here.

Here’s a trailer that I guarantee will make you go bananas:

If you don’t know about BEAUTIFUL LOSERS, look no further than first flute at the next school assembly…

But honestly, lifted straight from my paps Big Walker:

Beautiful Losers is a documentary film celebrating a loose-knit group of American artists–Shepard Fairey, Ed Templeton, Margaret Kilgallen, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Thomas Campbell, Harmony Korine, Stephen Powers, and Geoff McFetridge–who emerged from the 1990s underground youth subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock, and hip-hop. The film tells the story of these independent-minded individuals, each with a passion for making and a DIY sensibility, and the incredible impact they had on the worlds of art, design, fashion, music, film, and pop culture. 2008, U.S., 35mm, 91 minutes

SO to recap the 3 day Chris and Jo Love Fest:

Thursday, May 1st, 7 PM: Chris Johanson & Jo Jackson Artist Talk at the Walker

Friday, May 2nd, 7 & 9 PM: Beautiful Losers Film Screening at the Walker

Saturday, May 3rd: Chris Johanson & Jo Jackson Exhibition at Art of This

During the run of WACTAC’s Hot Art Injection IV at the Soap Factory, several WACTAC members got the opportunity to meet artist Alexa Horochowski and her pimped out low rider bed.

This April, Alexa will be teaching a workshop here at the Walker for high school students (ages 15-19), based on sampling from popular 70’s and 80’s album covers. Check out the flyer for more info and then sign up (space is limited to 15 participants) by emailing teenprogams@walkerart.org.

On October 23rd, I went along with the Teen Arts Council to see the Builder’s Association’s “Continuous City.”

The advertising picture was a little different from the performance. Not to say I felt cheated in any way. Because I always do. Life is a gamble, you know? Sure, you can buy a scratch n’ win, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never lose. They should be called “Scratch n’ win sometimes.”

Anyway. I was expecting more of a non-linear, less narratively structured abstract performance. You know, doin’ it up Walker style. Instead, I was served up a 2 hour long play utilizing screens and newer technology to create interactions between characters on and off stage.

Even though, visually, the performance was pretty dimensional, I thought that overall, the storyline and objective was pretty plain. A half hour through, you had a good idea of what it was about, and an hour in, you knew what the directors/artists were getting at. The extra hour was kind of unnecessary. But I guess without it the whole play might have seemed rushed.

I came back from vacation and found my desk covered in cellophane.

I will get my revenge…after I find out who did it. Maybe it was this guy.

Check out some of the films that will be shown on Saturday at the All City Youth Film Festival.  You may be able to see them on youtube, but come on, what’s better a crappy low-res youtube video or a full screen version in the Walker Cinema?

Karma by Hannah Bates

Writing Backwards by Jack Anderson

Next week, we get the pleasure of meeting artist Tomas Saraceno. This will be the first of several visits to Minneapolis for Tomas. During his residency, he hopes to work on his ongoing Museo Aero Solar project, a solar-energy balloon made of reused plastic bags. Check out the video below and if you want to get more info click here.

Gap and the Whitney Museum of American Art have teamed with some of my favorite artists to create some cool Tee’s for Men and Women. I am very excited that today I went to the Walker Art Center instead of ordering offline or dragging myself into my local gap store to purchase my Marilyn Minter Tee.

Featured artists tees are :

Hanna Liden

Chuck Close

Jeff Koons

Marylin Minter

Kenny Scharf

Glenn Ligon

Sarah Sze

Kiki Smith

Barbara Kruger

I must admit I am not one to usually enjoy art and retail or art and advertising but after I heard the Walker was selling the shirts and it benefited the museum, I was on board. All the shirts sold at the Walker benefit the museum, and they are the same exact price as Gap!The shirts are 100% cotton,they run kinda large..and they are super soft.$28 dollars and you can have your favorite art on a shirt.

The above photo of Skullphone’s reported billboard hack ended up being a paid for ad (as reported by Wired Magazine). I guess it pays to do your fact checking before reporting.

Many museums, including the Walker (check out the images below), have bought billboards to place art on. I have to admit, I’m not bothered by him paying for it. Does it bother you? Do you think it’s still art of it’s paid for commercial space?

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Over the last 5 months WACTAC has been working with artists Matthew Bakkom and David Bartley to amass a collection of objects that speak to corruption. We will be unveiling the collection on Thursday, April 17 at 5:30 PM. Come and check it out.

From the moment I step into the big gray building at 6:55pm on this quiet November evening, I am lured into a world of croisee’s and leaps, hip rolls and splits, breaking and popping. There are dancers at every corner of the earth and the tapping and sliding of feet along the marble floors become the only sounds in existence as each and every subtle movement sets off a pulse in my veins. On every single day of the year, except today, this world stretches from Saint Paul to Minneapolis, and perhaps even through the quiet suburbs of the metro area. But today, its widely acclaimed routines and respected dancers will fill the hallways and the McGuire Theater at the Walker Art Center for a night of exceptional independent dance. This is Choreographer’s Evening 2008.  The show begins as soon as you walk into the Walker with an installation called “Dances You Might Remember” by Galen Treuer. There are dancers in the hallways leading up to the McGuire Theatre, each with their own unique style. Once everyone is seated in the theatre, a video called “..Found You” by Patrick Pryor features dancers/choreographers Emily Tyra and Caroline Fermin. It was a film which involved dancers utilize paint in their choreography. This combination of mediums is very representative of the beauty of a place like the Walker. I could feel that this was going to be a great performance… and it was. The show, curated by accredited dancer Sally Rousse featured 13 diverse performances. There were a couple of performances which I felt lacked substance while other performances really struck me. One of my personal favorites were the “Battlecats”. Their spin moves, popping and breaking was truly impressive and the choreography was exceptional. Their dance was entitled “revolution” and featured music by Damien Marley. Their dance was not only fit to my taste, but also seemed to ignite the entire audience. Another one of my other favorites was, “The Evolution of Story” by Dustin Haug & Tamin Totzke, which is also a representation of merging mediums because it was theatrical as well as musical. This was actually an overarching theme at the Choreographer’s Evening. Choreography is more than a collection of movements; it is visual art, theatre, music, even film. I would like to congratulate curator Sally Rousse in her success and encourage you all to check out more performing arts events at the Walker.

Tetsumi Kudo: not as conventional as he looks.

At the risk of sounding trite, Tetsumi Kudo is one dope dude. In the Walker’s exhibition “Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis” (October 18, 2008 - March 22, 2009) I saw, what in my mind is true contemporary art. In describing Kudo’s work, a lot of different words come to mind- abstract, simple, complex, revolting, alluring, inspiring, incongruous. The exhibition is undoubtedly one of the most interesting solo artist shows I’ve seen at the walker, displaying a variety of objects, sculpture, installation, drawing, and painting—covering the entire path of his career, from the late 1950s through the late 1980s.

Some of my favorite pieces within the exhibit were the birdcages, the cocoons, the room full of penises, the photos from his giant installation a penis carved into the side of a rockface, the walk in box filled with blacklights and neon flowers, and the many other components that’s made you ask yourself, “What the hell?”

There is footage of Kudo 40 or so years ago with some friends explaining that in 20 years the penises in his work will not be seen as penises, but simply as symbols. As insightful and thought provoking such an ideology is, they still look like penises.

Go see this exhibit and spend some time to take it all in. Just don’t plan a meal right afterwards.

Not to be confused with the yet to evolve Ponyta, the pony tail is a hair term. Well, I guess it is also and animal term.

The ponytail is a simple and easy way to make your hair look good, and, gosh darnit, stay out of your eyes. I wanted to learn more about ponytails, so I turned to the smartest man in the universe, Charles Wikipedia III. Here’s what it had to say:

“In the late 1980s, a short ponytail was seen as an edgy, “in-your-face” look for men who wanted to stand out from the crowd while keeping most of their hair flat and functional. Steven Seagal’s ponytail in “Marked for Death” is an example of such.”

Woah! I completely forgot how badass Steven Seagal did look with a short ponytail. How embarassing would it be to get your ass handed to you on a shiny platter of fists by a slightly large man in a pony tail that looks like he might spend his off time learning the bar chords to the old Star Trek theme? You have to be a man to embody that look… And the only way you can become that kind of a man is to rock a PONYTAIL!!!

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Emmanuel, I read you loud and clear, but I want to stand out from the crowd.”

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There are a ton of art related projects/protests scheduled for the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul on September 1st through the 4th. A bunch of activities are being planned at theunconvention.com

One project is being organized by artist Sharon Hayes. Hayes is asking for 100 volunteer performers to recite (as a chorus) a 10–15 minute text about love, politics, gay power, and gay liberation (written by Hayes) over a period of approximately two hours. The performance will take place in a public space in proximity to the Convention.

If you are interested, submit the following information by email to rnc@creativetime.org:

1. Contact information: Phone (home/cell) & e-mail address

2. Do you have any additional resources that you would like to bring to the project?

3. Are you affiliated with any organizations that would be interested in spreading the

word?

4. Do you have any technical or stage management skills?

For more information about the project, click here.

We are looking for 8 new WACTAC members for the 2008-2009 school year. Print out the application below, answer the questions, and send it to Walker Art Center, c/o Teen Programs, 1750 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55403. Deadline for submissions is Monday, June 30.

A direct link to the WACTAC application can be found at http://teens.walkerart.org/wactacapp

DEADLINE HAS PASSED!

CALL FOR ARTISTS (19 AND UNDER)!

Are you sick of the only bonuses of your teenage years being driving, R-Rated admissions and legalized lung-cancer? Well, we have the solution. 20 Under 20′ is a competition for artists, filmmakers, dancers, graffiti writers, spoken word poets, musicians etc. Over 100 selected artists representing a variety of media will compete in two showcases at the Northern Warehouse in Lowertown Saint Paul on Saturday, May 10 and the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in on Saturday, May 17.

At these two showcases, a panel of celebrity judges and the audience will select the top 20 artists to be featured in a final showcase at the Walker Art Center on Thursday, June 12 at 7 PM.

So if you are into it, submit your work. Think of it as a chance to show the world you’re more than a shopping demographic. Think of it as a party. Think of it as a great extra curricular’ application filler. 20 under 20 is brought to you be the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council, creators of Hot Art Injection and Below the Belt: Battle of the Underage. So you know it won’t be too corny.

Submit your artwork by sending your name, phone number, email address, and a link to your Myspace page, Youtube, JPEG file, etc. to teenprograms@walkerart.org by Monday April 14th. Participants must be 19 years or younger on Monday, April 14.

Check out teens.walkerart.org for updated information about 20 under 20. If you have any questions or want further information please email teenprograms@walkerart.org or call 612-375-7683.

Yes! At least thats what writer and director Gus Van Sant says in his Paranoid Park, his adaptation of Blake Nelson’s novel.

This movie is the next in a series of movies that Gus Van Sant has made since he supposedly “broke out of Hollywood.” It follows the story of Alex, a teenager (more like tween); who is supposedly disconnected, like you know most teens are nowadays, and I guess for that reason can’t seem to formulate a sentence that includes more than a subject and a verb.

If you want to know more, then keep reading!
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