MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- In cooperation with a group of Native curators, knowledge keepers, artists, and arts professionals including individuals of Dakota descent and enrollment, the Walker Art Center announced the establishment of an Indigenous Public Art Selection Committee. The committee is currently working with the Walker to shape a process and ultimately select a Native artist who will be commissioned to create a new work to be located in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden or on the Walker campus.

The selection committee and upcoming project grew out of commitments made by the Walker and artist Sam Durant to a group of Dakota elders during last summer’s mediation regarding Scaffold, a controversial outdoor sculpture by Durant. Under the agreement, Scaffold was removed from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the artist transferred intellectual property rights to the Dakota Oyate.

In order to keep the selection process moving forward with integrity and focus, the committee has requested that their names and tribal affiliations not be released until an artist has been chosen. An open call for artists will be announced this summer. The public artwork will be installed in spring of 2020.

Siri Engberg, the Walker’s Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions Management, notes: “We are extremely fortunate to be working with the expertise, knowledge, and creative thinking of this committee, who collectively will help bring an important new work of art to the Walker Art Center collection and to the Twin Cities.”