When Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center opens its striking new addition to the public next month, it will likely be a big deal in the Twin Cities. But anyone looking for the locally popular Walker to capitalize on the attention by hosting huge touring shows shows and trying to draw massive crowds would be missing the point. “Welcome to the contrarian world of the Walker, a place that prefers artful provocation to blockbuster entertainment, privileges the obscure and experimental over the tried-and-true, and cultivates a willful insouciance about the forces that govern most big museum establishment… [The museum’s] insistence on creative independence has meant turning down a chance at tens of millions of dollars in state support, despite a financial crisis that has crippled the Walker’s endowment and led to painful staff cuts.”