Avant Gaard

Minneapolis-based painter Frank Gaard's work, on display at the Walker Art Center, invites spontaneous discovery

Minneapolis-based painter Frank Gaard's work will be on display at the Walker Art Center through May 6.

Image credit: Frank Gaard, via Walker Art Center

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I stood in The Walker Art Center’s Burnet Gallery, examining the large wall of luminous portraits by Minneapolis-based painter Frank Gaard, the force behind the museum’s latest exhibit, Frank Gaard: Poison & Candy.

“What’s the idea behind the subjects’ long noses? They are really funny,” I blithely asked the exhibition curator Betsy Carpenter.

“They’re penises,” Carpenter whispered back. I laughed uncomfortably, my chuckles reverberating loudly between the neon paintings. 

Embarrassing as my gaffe was, it may be the perfect example of how the Walker wants its visitors to view their newest exhibit – by spontaneously uncovering the comical and occasionally naughty facets of Gaard’s work.

The exhibit, which runs through May 6, showcases more than 100 of Gaard’s pieces from the 1980s onward. Pieces include hundreds of glowing, decorated vinyls, portraits of his family and friends that walk a fine line between reality and caricature, as well as canvasses that meld his thoughts on pop culture and religion.

Gaard’s palette is so fluorescent and flamboyant that each painting seems as if it could provide its own light source.

“[Gaard] creates what I describe as cacophony of color,” Carpenter says. “Like almost as if color and sound were coming together in here. It's loud. It's boisterous. It's fun.”

Poison & Candy also examines Gaard’s impact on the Twin Cities’ arts community since he arrived here in 1969, amidst the Pop Art phenomenon, a trend that still reflects through his work today in his repetitive panty, pony and penis motifs.

"He is one of those artists who, no matter what the current art-world trend or no matter what people are thinking about him, he just kept on working. He just kept on painting,” says Carpenter.

Video by Adam Marks

+ The Walker Art Center's Frank Faard: Poison & Candy will be on display until May 6, and a gallery talk will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 9. Learn more at walkerart.org.