In lots of ways, the year-end list represents the worst of the internet: quick, easy, consumerist, cliche. But at the Walker Art Center, I saw the format’s opportunity to both engage with readers and fulfill the museum’s values as a diverse, multidisciplinary, global, and questioning place—and one committed to spotlighting the voices of artists. I also thought of it as a sort of Trojan Horse, using a form most associated with capitalist choices and popularity to serve up unexpected and unusual perspectives.

In 2012, The Year According to… was born, albeit with just four voices. For each of seven ensuing years, we added more voices and committed more resources—paying contributors and branding each edition—to turn it into a robust and beloved annual ritual. The prompt for artists was simple: let us know about the best… stuff you encountered in the preceding year: stellar books you’ve read, best music you witnessed, key political moments, noteworthy personal milestones, top joys and frustrations and inspirations, etc. It wasn’t about things to buy but about inputs, new or old, that contribute to the creative or personal lives of those invited to participate.

The mix of contributors, culled from recommendations by Walker staff, sometimes included well-known figures (Claudia Rankine, Jim Jarmusch, Alec Soth, Dessa), but the overall thrust of the project was anti-celebrity, giving equal weight to figures regardless of their popularity, geography, or discipline. Some were artists tied to past or future Walker programs (Ralph Lemon, Mario García Torres, Grant Hart, Christine Sun Kim, LaTasha Diggs), while others were voices we simply admire. And some, like 2019 participant Pao Houa Her, would go on to be part of Walker programs (in 2022, the year of her Walker solo exhibition, Her was named Minnesota Artist of the Year).

In the process, some wonderful perspectives emerged. The collective Art + Museum Transparency writing in 2019 about the wave of museum unionizations, a movement that would hit the Walker itself a year later. Jim Jarmusch singing the praises of mycelium. Indigenous artist Andrea Carlson celebrating the name change of Minneapolis’s Bde Mka Ska (a lake long named after a white segregationist who never set foot in the city). Abraham Cruzvillegas celebrating the birth of his daughter Ana in 2012. And the great (and, sadly, late) Jack Whitten, celebrating his mentor, painter Norman Lewis. Radical, personal, political, aesthetic: the range and depth of contributions were always a surprise.

View all 119 artist lists of The Year According to…: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.