RADICAL PRESENCE: BLACK PERFORMANCE IN CONTEMPORARY ART, GROUNDBREAKING SURVEY FROM 1960s TO PRESENT, OPENS AT THE WALKER ART CENTER ON JULY 24 WITH WEEKEND OF PERFORMANCES AND EVENTS

MINNEAPOLIS, June 25 2014--The Walker Art Center is pleased to present the groundbreaking survey Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, on view July 24, 2014 through January 4, 2015 in the Target and Friedman galleries. Radical Presence chronicles the development of black performance in contemporary art beginning with Fluxus and Conceptual art in the 1960s and extending to the present. While this tradition has previously been contextualized from the perspective of theater and popular culture, its prevalence in visual art has gone largely unexamined until recently. Organized and first presented by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Radical Presence was co-presented in New York by The Studio Museum in Harlem and New York University's Grey Art Gallery. The final opportunity to view the exhibition will be at the Walker.

Radical Presence launches on July 24, a Target Free Thursday Night, with live performances at the Walker by contributing artists Senga Nengudi, Pope.L, and Jacolby Satterwhite. Performances continue on Saturday, July 26 with Maren Hassinger and Jamal Cyrus, in addition to a lively panel discussion hosted by organizing curator Valerie Cassel Oliver and contributing artists Adam Pendleton, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Xaviera Simmons that addresses the role of performances in their larger artistic practice.

A range of performances and events continue beyond the opening weekend and throughout the run of the exhibition. Beginning in September 2014, the Walker and The Bindery Projects will host Theaster Gates' See, Sit, Sup, Sip, Sing: Holding Court (2012), while additional performances include Benjamin Patterson's activation of Pond (1962), a performance lecture by Coco Fusco, and Trenton Doyle Hancock's Devotion (2013).