Mn Artists Presents: Marcus Young
Thursday, May 4, 5-9 p.m.
Walker Art Center, Free
How is art a resource for daily life? When does our own behavioral practice of life become art? Mierle Laderman Ukeles reminds us not to undervalue the mundane work of maintaining life: “After the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?” But what if there isn’t going to be a revolution? Or what do we do with our minds, bodies, and spirits while we work on that revolution, especially at a time when the world is in need of healing? With conversations, viewing experiences, guided meditation, protest singing, and more, the evening’s events explore how behavioral practice becomes healing becomes art.
The evening features amplified Skype conversations with two artists who have explored the maintenance of life and healing: Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who personally said, “Thank you for keeping New York City alive,” to 8000 sanitation workers in NYC in the 1970’s, an act of gratitude that took 11 months; and Emma Sulkowicz, a performance artist known for Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), a work of endurance performance art conducted as her senior thesis during the final year of her visual arts degree at Columbia University in New York City. Begun in September 2014, the piece involved her carrying a 50-lb mattress wherever she went on campus. She said the piece would end when a student she alleges raped her in her dorm room was expelled from or left the university. Sulkowicz carried the mattress until the end of the Spring semester as well as to her graduating ceremony in May 2015.
Other activities include an acupuncturist doing live acupuncture in the museum; meditation teachers/healers Dr. Joi Lewis and Myra Rucker facilitating a meditation space; meditation teachers/healers leading mindful art tours with Walker tour guides; a vocal performance by Passed Presents (Jayanthi Kyle and Alicia Steele) in the meditation space. Local performance artists Reb L. Limerick and Laura Torgeson, both current students at the University of Minnesota, will re-enact Emma Sulkowicz’ behavior by carrying a mattress around the Walker and facilitating visitor interaction.
Marcus Young is an multidisciplinary artist making work for the concert stage, museums, and the public realm. His work seeks new tones of belonging and liberation through design of behavioral and social forms, through shifts in systems and in awareness that turn things into art. From 2006 to 2015, he served as City Artist in St. Paul, MN. Since 2008, he has been creating Don’t You Feel It Too?-a participatory street dance practice of social healing and inner-life liberation. He is ongoing Collaborating Director with Ananya Dance Theater, and a recipient of awards from the McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations.
Exhibition Opening
Katharina Fritsch: Multiples
May 11, 2017-October 15, 2017
Burnet Gallery
Celebrated as one of the most innovative sculptors of our time, Katharina Fritsch (German, b. 1956) mines the history, myths, and fairy tales of Germany as well as her own thoughts and dreams to explore the nature of human perception and experience. By using everyday objects as subject matter-small animals, body parts, religious figurines, and other elements from the made and natural worlds-and altering them through unexpected shifts in scale, color, and materials, Fritsch evokes a sense of wonder and blurs the boundaries between the ordinary and the deeply symbolic.
Katharina Fritsch: Multiples spans the artist’s career, from early examples from her student years at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie to later pieces, providing a look into her long-standing themes and ideas through some 40 works drawn from the Walker’s collection.
The show is presented as a companion exhibition to celebrate the installation of Fritsch’s monumental new work in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The 20-foot-high ultramarine blue Hahn/Cock(2013/2017), the artist’s largest public art piece in a US museum collection, will be unveiled in the newly renovated Garden in June 2017.
Opening-Day Talk: Katharina Fritsch: Multiples
Thursday, May 11, 6 p.m.
Burnet Gallery, Free
Join exhibition curators Pavel Pys and Victoria Sung for an in-gallery talk about the new exhibition. Then head to the Bentson Mediatheque for a closer look at the multiples in the context of the artist’s larger practice, presented by Rachel Jans, assistant curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Katharina Fritsch: Multiples is made possible by generous support from Aedie and John McEvoy, Michael J. Peterman and David A. Wilson, Robert and Rebecca Pohlad, and Elizabeth Redleaf.
