Linda Mack has a fantastic story in today’s Star Tribune about Minneapolis’ beloved and world-reknowned Walker Art Center, which recently had much more than a facelift.

She hit the nail on the head when deconstructing a first-time visitors complete and utter sense of loss in “owning” their own art-going experience. Prior to its revamp, I’d been to the Walker, but during our first visit back, my wife and I found ourselves lost even with a map!

And the parking lot is indeed atrocious if you are over the age of 40. We had the unpleasantness of arriving at the same time as an afternoon performance of Cirque de Solie was starting, and the clueless senior citizens in the ramp absolutely could not figure the ramp out and started double parking so they wouldn’t be late.

I’m all for modern architecture and a huge supporter of the Walker, but I think they should invest in a). Better visual guides along the route and b). More docents to help guide those of us looking for art but whose instinct keeps leading them outside to Hennepin.

Read the entire article HERE.

Right now check out Huang Yong Ping’s “House of Oracles,” a retrospective of the artist’s drawings, sculptures and installations from 1985 to the present, including a piece featuring live snakes, scorpions, spiders and crickets. And also “Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962-1964″ that highlights both the influential artist’s move from creating individual paintings to using the silkscreen process and his interpretations of the effect the nightly news and tabloid reports had on society in the early ’60s. Just allow plenty of time for parking.
(Photo Bruce Bisping, Star Tribune)

UPDATE via MNSPEAK.COM: here’s a link about the failure of the garage graphics