Walker Art Center deconstructs interior decor in 'Question the Wall Itself'

Though the title sounds like a punk anthem, Walker Art Center's new exhibition takes as its subject something far more mannerly and middle-class: décor. Curator Fionn Meade (who is also the Walker's artistic director) posits that interior space, so inherently constructed, can be a site of social commentary, offering up as evidence 23 international artists who make work conceived of as inhabitable rooms. On preview, the idea is a tepid one — suspiciously akin to "Ordinary Pictures," the Walker's recent rumination on stock imagery, which would have made a more interesting essay than it did an art show. But it does take as its anchor point the great Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers — a personal favorite, with his wordplay and sinister wit — whose theory of "esprit décor" suggests spaces are more than they seem. At any rate, the show should feel right at home in an architecture-obsessed town that has always conflated art with design. (Opens Sat. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tue.-Wed., 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thu., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri.-Sun., $9-$14; free for 17 and younger, and for all Thursday evenings.)