Innovation is ground into the foundations of the Walker Art Center, the first public art gallery in the Upper Midwest. Early on, it hopped on board the Modern Art “train”, building up an impressive collection of important pieces by the likes of Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Since then, it has embraced contemporary art forms like performance and moving image, and has pioneered bringing modern art into the community. Some now reckon the Walker Art Center to be one of the “Big Five” US modern art museums.
The two main buildings were built over three decades apart (in 1971 and 2005). But they almost appear to have come from the same design pen due to their sharp angles and towering blocks. Inside, there is the more of the same “de-constructivism”, with sharply sloping walls and challenging spaces. Much of the sculptural and painting artwork also focuses on the abstract and graphical. Widely recognised modern artists, like Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono and Roy Lichtenstein, sit alongside “alternative modernist” artwork from the mid-20th century, schools that are often overlooked by other museums.
The Walker also has an outstanding collection of film and video art from the 1920s to the present day. Many of these have been digitised and can be viewed at daily screenings in the Walker’s Lecture Room.
Performance art has always been a big part of the scene at the Walker too. Everything from spoken word to contemporary music to modern dance is performed here, and the Walker is rarely without one or more ongoing shows.
Perhaps the best-known feature of the Walker Art Center, though, isn't even under its roof. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, just across the road, is home to one of the city's newest icons – the Spoonbridge and Cherry. This giant water feature – a silver spoon bent into a bridge shape and topped with an enormous cherry – was installed in 1988. Bold, irreverent and quirky, the best shot of Minneapolis' skyline has to be the one with the cherry in the foreground.
