The Walker Art Center, a modern art museum located in Minneapolis, recently opened a new exhibit titled I am you, you are too. This exhibit focuses on the works from the Walker Art Center’s collection. According to the Walker’s webpage, “[they] explore contemporary life through themes of citizenship and belonging, borders and barriers, and ways in which everyday life informs our understanding of ourselves.”
This exhibit is an assortment of diverse, multigenerational, and international group of artists, that questions societies understanding of the social, geographical, and political framework that shape us. The Walker is a great resource for art, history, social issues, and to learn more about our local community. They focus on visual, performing, and media arts of our time.
It has four main art exhibits open at the moment, many of them help to raise essential questions surrounding ongoing social issues. We also visited an interactive exhibit that allowed visitors to draw. Each exhibit has a different theme that changes frequently to add new and unique artwork. The Walker has art for all ages as well as many different forms of art including paintings, videos, posters, photographs, sculptures, and interactive exhibits.
Wolfgang Tillmans, an artist well known for photography, posters, and images, makes collages and groupings with a wide variety of topics. This German artist loves creating art for social, political, and observational aspects. The piece above is called, “Pro-EU anti-Brexit Poster Campaign” which is located in the I am you, you are too exhibit. This series of posters was released in 2016 to support an anti-Brexit campaign. Brexit stands for British Exit which alludes to the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union. The goal of this project was to raise awareness among voters, but more specifically younger voters and encourage them to become more aware of their political choices.
Out of all the pieces in the exhibit this piece caught our attention because of its huge size and its bright colors as well as how current it is in our society. It is a powerful piece because when political opinions and commentary is expressed through art, it can often motivate the viewer to learn more and make a change. All of the posters come together to help bring this message to life in a new and unique way as well as stand out among the rest of the artwork in the gallery.
