5 not-to-miss artworks in Walker Art Center's reinstallation of its permanent collection

Wild blue horses, Native revisionist stories, abstract gems and more offer a peek into the 12,000+ works in the permanent collection.

By Alicia Eler Star Tribune

June 20, 2024 — 5:00am

The word "permanent" calls to mind forever-feeling artworks in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, but the reinstalled permanent collection show at Walker Art Center, titled "This Must Be the Place," is enduring yet flexible.

Chief Curator Henriette Huldisch has been busy sifting through the art center's permanent collection of nearly 12,000 works by 2,300 artists. Working with senior curator Siri Engberg, the two selected 120 pieces, centering the show on ideas of "home," with an emphasis on community, the urban environment and the natural landscape.

But still, this prompts the question: Why create an exhibition featuring a museum's permanent collection?

"We wanted there to be a clear sort of identity that sets it apart from the temporary exhibitions and makes it something that's hopefully a bit of an anchor, and something that people will come to again and again," Huldisch said.

It's been five years since the Walker last reinstalled its permanent collection, and this new show will be up through 2029. Everything old is new again, except for an Alice Neel that continues to be on view from the previous five-year show.

Here are five works you have to see, but don't worry — there is no rush. They'll be there when you're ready.

Wild Blue Horses

"Die grossen blauen Pferde" (The Large Blue Horses), a 1911 painting by German Expressionist artist Franz Marc, visually melds the curvy bodies of muscular horses with a colorful landscape. Purchased in 1942, it is the Walker's most requested piece but hasn't been on view for eight years because it was galloping around New York and Switzerland.

"It's one of the earlier works in our permanent collection, which is not primarily focused around early 20th century works," Huldisch said. "It is probably our most beloved painting. The front of house staff said that people frequently come in asking where you can see it."

Jim Denomie

In his colorful, whimsical and surreal paintings, Ojibwe artist Jim Denomie used dark humor to deliver serious social commentary from a uniquely Native American perspective. His 2009 work "Custer's Retreat," takes a Native revisionist approach to U.S. histories of colonialism.

"The so-called Battle of Little Bighorn has often been defined as 'Custer's noble last stand' against the Native Americans, but it was actually a decisive defeat for U.S. artillery by various Native tribes.

"In this painting, you see Custer and his horses retreat in these comical go-karts — they're careening around in this ludicrous way," Huldisch said. "It's an Indigenous riposte, if you will, of ideas of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny."

Underrecognized female minimalist Sylvia Stone

Sylvia Stone was an important female minimalist artist who was overshadowed by male colleagues. "It's a familiar story, unfortunately," Huldisch said. Stone's floor piece "Untitled," 1971, is a large, opaque and transparent plexiglass and aluminum triangle intersecting a curve.

When staffers took it out of storage, "everybody was kind of blown away by how great the work looked," she said. Stone was one of the artists featured in the Walker's 1969 show "14 Sculptors: The Industrial Edge," which opened in Dayton's auditorium.

Nuyorican artist Pepón Osorio

Osorio's sculpture "100% Boricua" looks like a New York-based Puerto Rican grandmother's collection of tchotchkes inside a cabinet that has photos of the NYC skyline and beaches of Puerto Rico printed on the front of it. Speaking to the Puerto Rican diaspora, Osorio's work highlights complexities of the immigrant experience.

"I've always said that if you wanted to know about your history, go to your grandmother's cabinet," Osorio said. "She has it right there. She keeps track of history from your entire family and her family. … I wanted to become a grandmother and collect issues about different people in the community."

Mark Bradford

In his work "Analog," 2004, Bradford used discarded materials like billboard images and end papers from hair treatments to create an abstract work that echoes the aerial map of an urban center. The end papers reference Bradford's mother's hair salon, where he worked as a teenager.

"That's a way it knits together, quite literally, images and feelings of the city and urban materials, but then also growing up in an urban environment," Huldisch said.