
Because suburbia occupies a dominant presence in so many lives—a place of not only residence but also of work, commerce, worship, education, and leisure—it has become a focal point for competing interests and viewpoints. The suburbs have always been a fertile space for imagining both the best and the worst of modern social life. more
Drawn Here: Sean Griffiths of FAT
Target Free Thursday Nights
Thursday, March 6 7:00 pm
Escape to the Suburbs!
Free First Saturday
Saturday, April 5 10:00 am to 3:00 pm
Next Exit: The Shifting Landscape of Suburbia
Target Free Thursday Nights
Thursday, April 24 7:00 pm

All essays are originally from the companion book for this exhibition, Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes. Some essays appear in excerpted form where noted.

American, b. 1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts; lives and works in New York
Adam Cvijanovic’s large-scale mural paintings evoke the sublime grandeur of nineteenth-century land- scape painters such as Frederic Edwin Church and Caspar David Friedrich as well as the German mural- ists who crafted the vast cyclorama canvases of the Franco-Prussian War. Often painted on sheets of Tyvek—the synthetic material used for products ranging from waterproof FedEx envelopes to the vapor-permeable barrier or “house wrap” in new home construction—his work takes on architectural proportions. But unlike traditional murals and frescoes, his canvases are easily transported and can be adhered to walls and ceilings much like wall- paper, capturing the monumental quality of the subject matter in an immersive scale—from scenes of transcendent nature such as Niagara Falls, deserts of the American West, and the glaciers of Greenland to the ruptured landscapes of suburban America. In 2005, he began a series of works that capture the detritus of modern suburban life: tract houses ripped from their foundations, cars lung into the air along with all sorts of debris, including soda bottles, detergent packages, furniture, signs, and clothing. Cvijanovic’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions at organizations such as MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, North Adams; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Creative Time, New York; and Bellwether, New York.
We asked people to make a video telling us about the suburbs and put it on YouTube. Selected videos are showing in the gallery at the Walker Art Center during the run of the exhibition.
Do you live in a suburb? Do you work or go to school in one? What is your experience of the “burbs? ”…
Whether you love them or hate them we’re interested in your thoughts on the phenomenon of the American suburb. We invite you to make a 5-minute video about strip malls, cul-de-sacs, office parks, and green lawns or whatever suburbia means to you. A select number of videos will be chosen to screen as part of the exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes in the Target Gallery from February 15 to May 18, 2008.
To participate, upload your video to YouTube and add the tag “walkerworldsaway” or post it as a response to our video above. We’ll feature all videos on the Walker’s YouTube page. To be considered for gallery screening, entries must be 5 minutes or less and be online by January 18, 2008.