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Fresh perspectives on art, life, and current events. From deep dives to quick takes to insightful interviews, it’s the museum in conversation. Beyond the walls. Outside the frame. Around the world.

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“The Shape of Time” reveals the creative spirit behind South Korea’s rapid rise

By Tim Gihring

The year 1989 is remembered for many things, like the birth of both the World Wide Web and Taylor Swift, though perhaps primarily for the protests in support of democracy that were by turns successful (the fall of the Berlin Wall) and unsuccessful (the uprising in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square). Often overlooked  ...

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Mia marks Women’s History Month with “Cheering Woman” in lobby

Sokari Douglas Camp, born in Nigeria, moved to Great Britain as a child and trained as an artist in Oakland, California, and London. This dual identity, split between Africa and England, has informed her art. Often, she honors traditional African art forms, though in working with welded steel—a traditionally “male” medium—she is crossing gender boundaries  ...

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Tooth, claw, fire, rain: A beginner’s guide to dragons

By Tim Gihring

The Year of the Dragon, in the Chinese zodiac, began on February 10—the same day that Mia opened “Year of the Dragon: Mystical Creatures of the Sky.” In sculpture, paintings, robes, and other objects, the exhibition traces the evolution of Chinese dragons over thousands of years, from a kind of folkloric  ...

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Mia marks Black History Month with Sanford Biggers sculpture

Sanford Biggers’ Semaphore sculpture is now on view in Mia’s first-floor lobby. Made in 2019 and acquired by Mia the following year, the installation is part of the museum’s Black History Month celebration honoring the work of artists who interpret Black American stories through creative expression. Biggers, a Los Angeles native who has lived and  ...

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Lisa Bergh on life as a rural artist and arts advocate

By Laura Silver

Lisa Bergh, whose colorful, abstract sculptures and assemblages are now on view at Mia (“Topography”) as part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, never intended to be a rural artist. But for close to 20 years, she has made a life, and a living, as a working artist and arts advocate  ...

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The Minnesota legacy of Gordon Parks, a life of seeing and being seen

By Tim Gihring

The last time Robin Hickman-Winfield saw Gordon Parks was in 2006, shortly before his death at 93. They were in New York, in the elegant apartment that Parks bought in 1971 after directing his second film, Shaft. Parks made dinner, as he liked to do. Played the piano. Yet something was  ...

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How Mia is melding Native and American art, an experiment in seeing one another

By Tim Gihring American art has not usually encompassed Native American art. Until recently, these collections at Mia were under separate departments and displayed in separate galleries. Now, that relationship is changing. In 2021, the museum created an Arts of the Americas department, comprised of Valéria Piccoli, curator of Latin American art; Jill Ahlberg Yohe,  ...

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Jaida Grey Eagle, co-curator of “In Our Hands,” reflects on the future of Indigenous photography

By Jaida Grey Eagle

The special exhibition “In Our Hands: Native Photography, 1890 to Now” is on view at Mia through January 14, 2024. The following essay has been excerpted from the exhibition catalogue, available from The Store at Mia.  Growing up, I never knew there were so many Indigenous photographers out there, past and present. I barely ever  ...

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Mia’s staff art show celebrates the talent within

Mia’s Community Corridor, just off the first-floor lobby, is currently lined with art by museum staff, from security guards to front-of-house folks, educators to exhibition designers. Turns out that spending the day procuring, protecting, or interpreting art goes a long way toward inspiring one’s own, and the dozens of pieces in the show suggest that the  ...

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Mia’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide

For many of us, this may be the most robust holiday season in years: bigger gatherings, perhaps bigger stockings. Or maybe you came to appreciate a more subdued season, and want to carry on (quietly). Either way, the Store at Mia has you covered with artful objects for celebration and contemplation, festing and nesting. Come  ...

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