Spring 2020 talks and lectures

Walker Dialogue: Julia Reichert with Eric Hynes
February 29, 8pm
Join award-winning documentary maker Julia Reichert with Eric Hynes for a conversation about her documentary films, inspirations, and collaborations.

Julia Reichert: 50 Years in Film is organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts with the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and curated by Wexner Center Director of Film/Video David Filipi. Special thanks to Chicken & Egg Pictures for its support.

The Walker’s Dialogue and Retrospective program is made possible by generous support from Anita Kunin and the Kunin Family.

Design Insights Lecture Series
Redefine your understanding of graphic design with the Insights Design Lecture Series, presenting leading designers from around the world. Copresented by the Walker Art Center and AIGA Minnesota. 

Leland Maschmeyer, Chobani
March 3, 7pm

Daniel DeSure, Commonwealth Projects/Total Luxury Spa
March 10, 7pm

Hassan Rahim, 12:01
March 17, 7pm

Veronica Ditting, The Gentlewoman/Studio Veronica Ditting
March 24, 7pm

Ruben Pater, Untold Stories
March 31, 7pm
Free

Watch anywhere. The lectures will be webcast live and archived on walkerart.org.

Talking Dance with Wendy Whelan
April 5, 3pm
Free
Join legendary ballerina Wendy Whelan, widely considered of the world’s leading dancers, for a convivial conversation on her life and international career.

Presented as part of the Gertrude Lippincott Talking Dance Series, made possible by generous support from Judith Brin Ingber.

Mack Lecture Series
Throughout the month of April, artists, writers, and other great thinkers at the forefront of their fields share their vision on diverse topics.

Annie Dorsen and Catherine Havasi with Simon Adler
April 8, 7pm
Writer-director Annie Dorsen tries “to make perceptible how ideas change over time: where they come from, how they influence and are influenced by politics and culture, and how they take root in the body, physically and emotionally.” For this conversation, she explores the intersection of algorithms and live performance with artificial intelligence researcher and computational linguist Catherine Havasi, moderated by Simon Adler, a producer for WNYC’s Radiolab.

JD Samson
April 15, 7pm
Genderqueer political activist, visual artist, and musician JD Samson is perhaps best known as leader of the band MEN and one-third of the electronic-feminist-punk band Le Tigre. As a self-defined “gender outlaw,” she will investigate the precarious masculinity of the butch/masculine-of-center body, play with traditional concepts of ownership and destruction, and break down the charged heteronormative history of queer sex dynamics.

Charles Ray
April 22, 7pm
Making the commonplace strange is central to the work of Los Angeles–based artist Charles Ray. Redefining the boundaries of sculpture since the 1980s, his subversive and painstaking style has shifted over the past 20 years to a figurative approach paired with highly technical strategies of fabrication. In this lecture, Ray weaves together sculptural art, its creation, and its meaning in civic space and time.

Jon Ronson
April 29, 7pm
Fascinated by madness, strange behavior, and the human mind, Jon Ronson shares tales from a life spent exploring mysterious events and meeting extraordinary people. The award-winning filmmaker and journalist is a regular contributor to BBC and the popular NPR program This American Life. He is also the author of eight books, including The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Psychopath Test, and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.

The Mack Lecture Series is made possible with the generous support of Aaron and Carol Mack.

Exhibition talk: Laura Hoptman on Michaela Eichwald
June 4, 6pm
Free
To celebrate the opening of Michaela Eichwald’s first US museum exhibition, curator and writer Laura Hoptman offers a lecture surveying her artistic practice. Looking across the German artist’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures, Hoptman will discuss recurring key motifs and subject matter.

Live podcast: Black Market Reads featuring Seph Rodney
June 4, 7:30pm
Free
Rodney shares insights from his new book The Personalization of the Museum Visit, which suggests that art museums have moved toward a new paradigm of public engagement. Rodney considers how this change has come about, examining factors such as the onset of a new museology, an experience economy, and a marketing revolution.