Walker Art Center Annual Report 10 11 Contents Letter from the Executive Director 3 Measures of Success 9 Annual Fund 14 Financial Statement 31 Board of Trustees 35 Installation view of the exhibition Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers A Year of Creative and Civic Accomplishment Letter from the Executive Director BY OLGA VISO As a catalyst for the creative expression of artists and the active en- gagement of audiences, the Walker takes great pride in offering varied platforms for the creative exchange of art and ideas in contemporary cul- ture. Looking back at the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, we are pleased to report on the contributions of hundreds of artists working across our di- verse programming areas, acknowledge a number of new cross-disciplinary collaborations, and share the successes of many audience engagement initiatives, which have all been made possible through the dedication of passionate and talented staff and the generosity of numerous contributors, members, and sponsors. Last year, nearly 590,000 people visited the Walker and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden to experience more than 1,400 artistic pre- sentations and engagements, 10 exhibitions, more than 75 performances, 170 film screenings, and countless public, school, and tour programs. In ad- dition to our 172 community partnerships, we reached more than 290,000 visitors with our touring exhibitions and performing arts events in 15 cities around the world–demonstrating our commitment to serving artistic com- munities, whether down the street or around the world. The excellence, innovation, and vitality of our extensive programming across disciplines are critical to affirming the Walker’s position as one of the top five most-visited Olga Viso modern and contemporary art museums nationally, and among the top 10 most popular tourist attractions in Minnesota. While crossing borders–geographically and artistically–has been part of our mission, the past year has been particularly productive for advanc- ing cross-disciplinary and cross-departmental collaborations. Most visibly, the Walker acquired the Merce Cunningham Dance Company Collection in March 2011, bringing in more than 2,000 objects representing some 100 dances, including set pieces, costumes, painted drops, and props. Contextualizing, preserving, and presenting this historic collection–which features costumes worn by the late Cunningham, and décor and cos- tumes created by artist-collaborators such as Jasper Johns and Robert Cunningham research fellow Abigail Rauschenberg–has truly been, and will continue to be, a Walker-wide Sebaly catalogues items from the endeavor. Research into the collection is ongoing in Visual Arts, while Walker’s Merce Cunningham Dance preservation and storage was the Registration department’s key charge. A Company Collection—the single largest residency by the company and its Minneapolis farewell as part of the final acquisition of visual art in the Walker’s Legacy Tour were spearheaded by Performing Arts. A series of exhibi- history tions based on the acquisition is shared between curatorial departments. And, in September 2010, the Walker Film/Video department premiered Charles Atlas’ Ocean, which documented the dance company’s epic mounting of a Walker-produced performance staged in a granite quarry near St. Cloud. From December through March, the galleries highlighted Cunningham’s work through a six-channel film installation by Tacita Dean, entitled Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS (in three movements) to John Cage’s composition 4‘33” with Trevor Carlson, New York City, 28 April 2007 (six performances; six films). We are incredibly grateful to a number of close friends for underwriting this major acquisition, related Installation view of Tacita Dean’s Merce programming, and the study and care of the collection, and are pleased Cunningham performs STILLNESS… (six to acknowledge the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Barnett and performances; six films), 2010 Analee Newman Foundation for their major support. 3 The same kind of interdepartmental and interdisciplinary cooperation guided the November 2010 performance of Naked by artists Eiko & Koma. Historically, the Japanese husband-and-wife team performs their works in theatrical settings, but this piece presented a monthlong “living installation” within one of our collection galleries, offering visitors an arresting, surpris- ingly vulnerable meditation on life, death, and the longing of the soul. In conjunction with this commission, the Walker’s design and publication team organized the artists’ most complete catalogue of their work, Eiko & Koma: Time Is Not Even, Space Is Not Empty, which chronicles the artists’ impact and influence over the past 40 years. Midnight Party, an exhibition drawn primarily from our collections, de- buted with a series of mesmerizing displays and intimate installations that examine the more subjective side of modernism, from the psychologically charged portraits of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to the surreal multimedia works of Matthew Barney. Taking its title from Joseph Cornell’s 1938 film of the same name, Midnight Party explores myriad artistic dreams, fantasies, visions, and meditations. Although punctuated throughout its galleries by films from the Walker’s Ruben/Benston Film and Video Study Collection, the exhibition is itself a highly cinematic, immersive, and engaging experi- ence. The show was made possible by Judy Dayton and guest curated by Joan Rothfuss. The Merce Cunningham, Eiko & Koma, and Midnight Party projects rep- resent the kind of genre-blurring work that epitomizes the Walker’s role at the forefront of new thinking about art and artistic practices. Transcending the limits of any single discipline, this kind of creative synergy and collabo- ration among various Walker departments allows the institution to uniquely present ambitious projects from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Internally, too, the Walker has been crossing traditional departmental lines. Under the auspices of Walker chief curator Darsie Alexander, the Programmatic Think Tank is a cross-departmental initiative to seed new ideas, projects, and initiatives of mutual interest that arise through dialogue and exchange. An example of such an initiative between the Visual Arts and Film/ Video departments is Artists’ Cinema, a new series of screenings and pub- lic programs made possible by Elizabeth Redleaf that explores the status of the moving image in contemporary art. This dialogue between visual and media arts was echoed in filmmaker John Waters’ characteristically idiosyn- cratic and occasionally irreverent take on the Walker’s collection. Invited to curate from our collections, Waters aptly named the exhibition Absentee Landlord–a show marked by pairings of artworks that create relationships, much like roommates, which can be friendly or belligerent, unruly or re- served, supportive or indifferent. The year-old Audience Engagement and Communications division– which consists of the departments of Design/Editorial, Education and Community Programs, New Media Initiatives, and Marketing and Public Relations–continued its efforts to connect audiences with art and artists John Waters in a gallery of his Walker through a shared focus on interpretation, integrated communications, and exhibition Absentee Landlord, 2010 the visitor experience. Building upon visitor research undertaken with the assistance of General Mills, the division began a comprehensive reassess- ment of its communications; expanding its capacity for online publishing and multimedia interpretive content; and enhancing visitors’ experience of the building and campus. In May, we partnered with D’Amico, a leading pioneer in the local restaurant scene, to create Gather, a new fine-dining experience at the Walker. Recently named one of the city’s best new restaurants, Gather invites a renowned guest chef each month to create a new small plates 4 menu–and host a free tasting one evening–for our popular Target Free Thursday Nights, sponsored by Target. This spirit of invitation, sharing, and trying something new embodies our own values, creating a dynam- ic atmosphere of social conviviality. These kinds of cross-departmental collaborations are emblematic of changing ways that the organization operates–a process set in motion by a generous grant from the Bush Foundation to rethink how we engage both artists and audiences. The Walker’s role in the civic life of the community has been part of the organization’s mission since its founding as a public art center in 1940. The Walker partnered with the University of Minnesota to work with the Richard and Larry D’Amico in the Minneapolis Parks Foundation on their Next Generation of Parks initia- Walker’s new restaurant, Gather by tive, which examines the question of what this century’s park system will D’Amico need to address. The project began as a lecture series inviting speakers to discuss the transformation of green spaces in cities such as New York, Chicago, and London, and concluded the season with an internation- al design competition to reimagine the upper Mississippi Riverfront in Minneapolis. The finalist teams presented their concepts and visions for this five-mile-long space in the Walker Cinema–the beginning of a venture that will span several years. Our engagement with the civic life of the city was also a vital compo- nent of Open Field, an initiative spearheaded by the Walker’s Education and Community Programs department, which was made possible by gener- ous support from Margaret