These words, from a presidential citation read when Martin Friedman was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 1989, underscore the former Walker Art Center director’s impact, both in Minneapolis and in the art world at large. In celebration of our 75th anniversary as a public art center, Friedman shares a selection of unpublished reflections on his encounters with art and artists during his tenure here.
Come in from the cold and see some art: Free gallery admission January 10–February 7.
“For opening the doors of his museum to the best of all of the arts in our time—from painting and sculpture to film, video, and performance—and for opening our eyes to the vital connections between these forms of expression.”
About Martin Friedman
Director of the Walker Art Center from 1961 to 1990, Martin Friedman (1925–2016) shifted the museum’s focus to contemporary art, a move that grew its reputation globally. Among his many accomplishments are the expansion of education programming, overseeing the construction of the 1971 Edward Larrabee Barnes–designed building, and spearheading the development of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, which opened in 1988. Friedman’s dedication to the art and artists of our time—a legacy still activated today—brought critical early support to creators such as Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. His special relationship with artists is the focus of this selection of reflections.
Martin Friedman
Animating Space: On the Sculpture Garden
With an apprehensive glance, Oldenburg slowly removed the layers of Kleenex to reveal a captivating object: a spoon, whose bowl rested on an island in a small pond and contained a rubicund cherry. More
Martin Friedman
“It’s Art If I Say So”
“And what exactly is it that you do, Mr. Duchamp?” That question was posed to the Walker’s guest one fall evening 49 years ago during a dinner in honor of Duchamp and his wife, Teeny. “Well,” the 78-year-old exemplar of Dada coolly responded, “I play chess.” More
Martin Friedman
Indeterminate Adventures with Cage
Composer John Cage’s visits to Minneapolis often veered toward the unexpected—from a late-night reading of James Joyce with Tony Smith to Sunday-morning mushroom hunting in a church yard. More
Martin Friedman
ONCE, Not Again
“It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen daredevil events before,” recalls former Walker director Martin Friedman of a lone 1965 performance by the ONCE Group in the Walker lobby, “but this was the first time I was responsible for them, all in the name of art.” More
Martin Friedman
Cornell Boxes and Cake: A Visit to Utopia Parkway
Mesmerized by boxes containing “fragments of the everyday world that alluded to fragments of imaginary ones,” he set out in the rain from Manhattan one day in 1967 to visit their wizardly creator at his home on Utopia Parkway. More
Martin Friedman
Il Treno di John Cage
A 1978 trip to Bologna to witness “a prepared train”—a happening on wheels, featuring John Cage and a host of Italian collaborators.