Visual Arts

One of the gems on display at the Walker now is Paper Trail, a great but low-profile showcase of works on paper added to the Permanent Collection in the last decade. Among standout works by Amy Cutler, Glenn Ligon, Adrian Piper, Thomas Hirschhorn, Santiago Cucullu, and Elizabeth Peyton (who did a sweet portrait of Rirkrit Tiravanija as a boy) is Olafur Eliasson’s Your House, a hand-bound, editioned laser-cut book that renders the negative space of the artist’s house at a scale of 85:1.

Zak Smith’s 2004 book-inspired piece, Pictures of What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, is also in the show. Just as the title says, the work features one drawing for each of the 755 pages of Pynchon’s thick tome (detail at right). Smith’s drawings are now compiled in a book of his own: Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow. At the Amazon.com listing for the book, Minneapolis resident J. Vculek makes a plug for the Walker’s show:

If you live anywhere near Minneapolis get yourself over to the Walker Art Center, where every single one of Zak Smith’s drawings/paintings/sculptures (yes, some are three dimensional) for this project are displayed on one wall. (All are in the permanent collection of the Walker.) How do I know it’s all 750+ artworks? Because I counted. 45 columns by 17 rows. You could spend hours staring at them and not exhaust this monumental project. I’m not sure how long they’ll remain on display so don’t put it off.

The answer to that last question: Paper Trail closes September 23.

Update: Taylor finds this shot of Smith’s Walker installation, winner of a Beautiful Capture Award, on Flickr.