Minneapolis, April 27, 2012The Walker Art Centers summer-long experiment, Open Field, is coming back for its third season, June 2- September 1. The community has helped shape Open Field into the ultimate mix of public spaces: a patio, a recreational field, a playground, a stage, a beer garden, a hangout, and every once in a while, a zoo. Its a different type of park, where town square meets community green meets cultural commons. Open Field is a place for social and creative exchangeeveryone is encouraged to share their talents and interests by organizing a public event on the Field. Visitors can check out the Open Field calendar to see whats going on, or simply show up and join in.

Open Field evolved from a desire to invite people to engage with the Walker and their community in a tangible way. Director of Education and Curator of Public Practice, Sarah Schultz, explains, What form of public park could emerge from the context of a contemporary arts center? There arent a lot of public places left in our lives where we can comfortably encounter people who, while they may not share our precise interests, hold in common an inclination toward engaged curiosity. In many respects, museums already serve this community, but an empty field provided us a rare opportunity to test something new.

Open Field features a shady courtyard and the Open Field Tool Shed, where visitors can check out picnic blankets, books, games, sports equipment, art materials, and other supplies. Garden Grill by DAmico offers freshly grilled barbeque favorites and summer beverages including a selection of local beers.

Be a Creator/Participate

In 2011, more than 100 individuals and groups contributed to this festival of community-sourced activities. Offerings included everything from poetry readings, art-making, music, and yoga on the lawn to skill-share lessons with a twist. Throughout the season, The Walker also commissions invites artistsin- residence to create and host activities involving hundreds of people of all ages. Open Field is a chance to make your mark, so add to the mix this year with a program of your own.

Hangout: Meet friends at the Garden Grill by DAmico, surf on our lawnthe green has free Wi-Fi; borrow fun stuff from our Tool Shed; or sprawl out on a picnic blanket with friends or a book. Join in on what the community creates or check out programs on Target Free Thursday Night like Drawing Club and Acoustic Campfire.

Organize your own activity to share with others and add it to the Open Field calendar. For more information about how to organize and schedule your activity this summer, visit the Propose Your Activity page:
www.walkerart.org/openfield/propose-your-activity/proposal-form/

Open Field and Walker Gallery Hours

TuesdaySunday, 11 am5pm
Open late Thursday, 11 am9 pm
Closed Mondays

Tool Shed

Open during gallery hours
Games, hula hoops, art supplies, sports equipment, books, radios, and moreall free for check out and use on the field. #toolshed

Garden Grill by DAmico

TuesdaySunday, 11 am5 pm
Thursday Happy Hour, 510 pm
Serving up summer classics from the grill, plus a variety of local beers, wines, soda, and lemonade.

Getting Here

Biking
entrances. Nice Ride has a station near the Hennepin entrance.

Parking

Paid parking is available at the underground ramp on Vineland Place at Bryant Avenue or in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden pay lot.

Public Transportation

Metro Transit bus lines 4, 6, 12, and 25 will bring you to the Walker and Open
Field.

Accessibility
The Walker is accessible to all visitors. For more information, contact us at 612.375.7564 or access@walkerart.org.

New on the Field

Tool Kits
Local residents are creating custom-made Tool Kits for Open Field designed to inspire the tinkerer in all of us. Keep your eyes peeled for a string figures kit by Mike Haeg and a personal postal service kit by Jenni Undis of Lunalux.

Phenologist-in-Residence
Exalt in the fleeting and investigate the earth underfoot with phenology fanatic Abbie Anderson. As an amateur naturalist, she will share her explorations of the field and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, cultivating a curiosity for city-dwelling wildlife.

Little Free Library
Take a Book, Return a Book. Enjoy some literary alone time, or read aloud to
a friend with our Open Field Little Free Library. www.littlefreelibrary.org

Analog Tweets
You Write it, We Tweet it. Analog Tweets mixes the tactile intimacy of the
handwritten note with the immediacy of social media. @analogtweet

Pop-Up Days
Keep your ear to the ground for spontaneous theme days throughout the
season. Check the website or just show up and be game for anything.

Weekly Events
All Open Field events are free!

Target Free Thursday Nights
Drawing Club, 48 pm
Free Gallery Admission, 59 pm
Happy Hour at the Garden Grill, 510 pm
Acoustic Campfire, 810 pm
Target Free Thursday Nights features an eclectic mash-up of events, both
inside the Walker and outdoors at Open Field. walkerart.org

Drawing Club
Thursdays, 48 pm

The first rule of Drawing Club: Whats made at Drawing Club stays at Drawing Club. Drawing Club is about the social experience of art making, collaboration and play. Come add your creative touch during weekly sessions open to local artists and the public alike. Here is how it works: Art supplies are provided on large tables in shaded areas of the outdoor Open
Lounge. Start a new drawing or select one in progress from the table. Slide it back into the pool, pass it around, and alter, edit or amend it until the group declares it complete. All ages, abilities, and aesthetics welcome. The finished works are collected and displayed throughout the summer at future sessions. There are no assignments, structured projects or formal processes for drawing club. This idea is to make collaborative workshowever that manifests itself and what can beat making art under a grove of trees with a cold drink! View past art work at www.tumblr.com/blog/openfielddrawingclub

All ages and skill levels are welcome to work along with local artists and add to a pool of collectively created artworks. #drawingclub

June 7: Farida Hughes, David Rathman
June 14: Chris Pennington, Jamie Solberg, Todd Balthazor
June 21: ART SQUAD: Michon Weeks, Carolyn Swiszcz, Elaine Rutherford, Laura Stack, Mary Berg, Monica Reede
June 28: Josh Norton, Andy Ducett, Jamie Solberg, Todd Balthazor
July 5: Clea Felien, Joe Sinness, Hannah Frink, Josh Stulen, Vanesa Windschitl
July 12: John Fleischer, Ruben Nusz, Pam Valfer, Allen Brewer
July 19: Andy Sturdevant, Todd Balthazor, Margaret Pezalla
July 26: David Hamlow, Lauren Herzak-Bauman, Margaret Pezalla
August 2: Pete Dreissen, Alyssa Beguss, Natasha Pestich, Robyn Awend, Erik Ullanderson
August 9: Adam Erickson, Lisa Bergh, Andy Nordin, Noah Harmon
August 16: Dead or Alive with Silverwood Park
August 23: Hannah Frick, Vanesa Windschitl
August 30: Death Metal Drawing Club Finale with surprise hosts

Acoustic Campfire
Thursdays, 810 pm
Local musicians perform acoustic sets as the sun set on the Field.
Twitter: #acousticcampfire

June 7: Hummingbirds (sweet, folksy harmonies)
June 14: Cruel Haiku (roots folk rock)
June 21: Aria Sing-along with Music:Baroque (sounds like it is)
June 28: Mixed Precipitation, Picnic Operetta (food and horticulture meet operatic theater)
July 5: Prairie Fire Lady Choir (harmony meets democracy)
July 12: Dear Data (soulful melodies with electronic beats)
July 19: Hill Tribe (hip-hop trio), Jonathan Zorn (sound-bounce performance)
July 26: Cardboard Dreams (chamber pop)
August 2: Adrian Freeman (costume karaoke)
August 9: Jim Walsh with the Mad Ripple Hootenanny (80s revival rock)
August 16: Lynn OBrien (solo Hummingbird), HOLLY (cheerful indie-pop)
August 23: Tango Pohjan Tähden (Finnish tango)
August 30: Brian Laidlaw and the Family Trade (sweet, sweet bluegrass)

Free First Saturdays
Family fun on the first Saturday of each month, 10 am3 pm

June 2: Citizen Science
July 7: Kids Democracy Day
August 4: Garden Quest
September 1: Get Up and Read with Nancy Carlson

Artists-in-Residence at Open Field
Kitchen Lab: A Mobile Hearth for Collectivist Action
June 1829

Over the centuries, the kitchen has evolved from a fire pit and a flat stone into an elaborate place for storing, making, and eating food. But in recent years, notwithstanding the rise of the foodie, it has devolved for many to little more than a microwave and a sink. We eat out or on the run, and when we do use kitchens, prep work has been outsourced to backroom workers making convenience foods, as science and technology streamline food production from field to table. But go to any gathering or party, and youll know exactly where guests and hosts will be hanging out.

This June, Carl and Betsy DiSalvo (designers and researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology) focus on reconceiving the kitchen: its ingredients, structure, and functions. Teaming up with local experts and students, they will consider that space from an array of vantage points: studio art, landscape architecture, food systems, urban planning, design, ceramics, public health, cultural studies, theater, engineering, and more. Participants will design and build a new kind of kitchena modular, multifaceted public lab with tools for use on Open Field and in the citythat welcomes people for experiences with food, and in the process sparks new kinds of social interaction and civic engagement.

Thursday, June 21, 510pm
Bring your favorite locally produced beverage, produce, meat, or cheese, which the DiSalvos will incorporate into a playful presentation and discussion about serving and eating, participatory design, and informal learning.

Thursday, June 28, 510 pm
Join the Kitchen Lab team for a food event in their new modular kitchen. What theyll serve is bound to go beyond your average tuna surprise!

ROLU
July 1729

Join members of Minneapolis-based design studio ROLU to create an openair version of a Walker gallery on the field, complete with artworks from the collection. The undertaking is part of their residency exploring a series of what they call living ideas, such as when does something become something else? Its also a vivid reminder of the fact that most art objects, so carefully situated and protected inside a museum, were at some point made by a personoften by hand, and from relatively commonplace materials. A host of other activities rounds out their residency.

Open Field Special Events

Members Night at Open Field
Saturday, June 2, 57 pm
Come for Free First Saturday; stay for a festive, members-only BBQ with food, drink, and activities. RSVP to 612.375.7655 or membership@walkerart.org.

Northern Spark: A Dusk-to-Dawn Festival of Art
SaturdaySunday, June 910, 9 pm6 am

By anyones measure, last years inaugural Northern Spark festival was a wild success as thousands of people discovered the Twin Cities in a new (night) light. Making the rounds throughout the night at outdoor art sites around St. Paul and Minneapolisincluding the Walkerthey paid some 50,000 visits to 100 projects by more than 200 artists.

The Walkers keeping the lights on again for this years dusk-to-dawn festival with a gathering inspired by the convivial, collaborative, and ephemeral atmosphere of Open Field. Gather around the campfire for concerts and storytelling performances by The Prairie Fire Lady Singers, Dear Data, the White Whales, Brian Laidlaw and the Family Trade, and other local writers and musicians. Grab a glow stick and join in a NIGHTclub edition of Drawing Club, or take a stroll around the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and Walker campus, where youll come upon artist interventions and other surprises. Inside the museum, galleries are open and feature one-night-only displays of artworks from the collection, while whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, an everchanging film noir from artist Eve Sussman, screens in the Lecture Room. Fuel up for the night with the Garden Grills food and beverages, including a smore bar, before crashing on the hill to watch the sun rise over the city skyline.

The Big String Thing
Thursdays, June 14, July 12, and August 30, 68 pm

Nothing binds the modern American family together so absolutely as a short length of rope.

Working together as a team, fingers and thumbs can make a lot with string the Hawks Foot, Two Boys Fighting for an Arrow, Pygmy Diamonds, and of course, a Cats Cradle. Be ye a finger or be ye a thumb, play the part of a digit to help make massive string figures on the field.

80s Night
Thursday, August 9, 710 pm
Come together to relive the best of the Reagan years through art and fashion and check out the exhibition This Will Have Been: Art, Love, and Politics in the 1980s ; attend a series of picnic-table conversations with local artists looking back on the Twin Cities scene during the80s. Drawing Club includes artists Adam Erickson, Lisa Bergh, Andy Nordin, Noah Harmon. Acoustic Campfire features Jim Walsh with the Mad Ripple Hootenanny the former City Pages music editor and St. Paul Pioneer Press pop music columnist spins songs and stories about the Twin Cities, circa 1980-89. Expect special guests and other surprises.

Silverwood Park at Open Field
Thursday, August 16, Noon9 pm
Join an afternoon and evening of creative park programs. Go on a cell phone photography hike with a naturalist, compete in the Clay Olympics, and try your hand at Drawing Club. Hang out with some special guests from the animal kingdom.

Summer Music & Movies: In Dreams
Monday, August 20, dusk
Movie: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with live score by Brute Heart
Tweet your buds, grab a blanket, and join us on the hill at dusk for another silent film + live score commission. Known for their primal rhythms and darkly mysterious songs, beloved locals Brute Heart will present a new live score for Robert Wienes 1920 German Expressionist classic.

Harvest Party
Thursday, August 30, 59 pm
Celebrate the last outdoor Target Free Thursday Night of the season with a cake-cutting ceremony, Death Metal Drawing Club, Viral Cat Video Festival and the Acoustic Campfire finale. walkerart.org/openfield

Garden Grill by DAmico
All grill items include kettle-fried potato chips

Certified angus beef burger $7.50
Turkey Burger $7.50
Black bean burger with pico do gallo (vegetarian) $7.00
All beef quarter-pound hot dog $6.00
Veggie Dog-soy pup soy dog (vegetarian) $6.00
Bratwurst-by Kramarczuks $6.00
BBQ Pork Sandwich $7.00
kids all beef hot dog $3.00
Picnic Lunch; any above item w/ whole fruit and cookie Add $2.00

Toppings
cheddar cheese $ .75
swiss cheese $ .75
cheeses from Cady Creek Farm
and Widner Dairy, Wisconsin
pepper and onions $1.00
smoked bacon $1.00

Sides
Coleslaw $2.50
classic potato salad $2.50
mixed fruit $2.50
kettle fried chips $1.00
house-made cookie $1.50

Beverages
iced tea $2.50
lemonade $2.50
soda $3.00
bottled water $3.00

Tap Beers
12 oz summit extra pale ale $5.00
red/white Wine $6.00
bottled beer (varies)
local craft brew
Happy Hour at the Garden Grill Thursdays, 5-10 pm

Enjoy drink specials on the outdoor patio at the Garden Grill every Thursday night.

Rachel Joyce 612.375.7635 rachel.joyce@walkerart.org
Online Press Room: press.walkerart.org
Twitter: WalkerArtMedia

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