Late in 2016, Mia was given a crazy quilt, the kind comprised of many tiny pieces, usually unrelated and unmatched. It was made around 1882. As the registrar at Mia in charge of processing new art acquisitions, examining every object being considered for addition to our collection, it was my job to look over every detail of the quilt. My thoughts  ...

With its colored lights and uncanny vibrations, Mia’s Divining Rod appears to work the same way its ancient inspiration did in ostensibly helping people find fresh water—with a little magic. In fact, the winning proposal of the third annual 2016 3M Art and Technology Award has an internal logic, powered by the kind of like/dislike feedback we’ve become accustomed to  ...

Some of the first scientific instruments and experiments, like those shown in the “Science and Sociability” exhibition in Mia’s Georgian drawing room (seen above), attempted to understand the nature and origin of electricity. George Adams, Jr.’s friction machine, for instance, from 1780, rotated a glass cylinder against a silk flap to generate and store static electricity. Benjamin Franklin,  ...

A few years ago, Omer Fast was presented with a dilemma. The Israeli-born filmmaker had been invited to create a solo show at the Martin Gropius-Bau, a prominent contemporary art space in Berlin, Germany, where he has lived since 2001. He would have seven galleries to fill—a tall order in any case, but they were also all in a  ...

“Rose is A Rose is A rose is A rose.” Gertrude Stein’s famous line illustrates our propensity for collapsing words and images into universal meanings, identities that need no interpretation. When we see the word “rose,” she suggests, we picture the rose in our mind’s eye. But a Cherokee rose is not  ...

I was a cub reporter at the Minneapolis bureau of the Associated Press when historic flooding inundated the Red River Valley between Minnesota and North Dakota in the spring of 1997. It followed a historically cold winter in Minnesota, full of blizzards and record-low temperatures, that left a massive amount of snow still on the ground in April—when it  ...

Mia recently revamped its display of Buddhist temple sculpture, in Gallery 200 on the second floor, with the help of dozens of art fans who sent us their questions about Buddhist art. We condensed the list, had our fans rank their favorites, and asked Aaron Rio, Mia’s A.W. Mellon Assistant Curator of Japanese and Korean Art, to respond. Here’s the top  ...

Last spring, the Propeller Group opened “Reincarnations” at Mia, a music video installation that abstractly captures the surreal, sensual, thumping nature of funeral traditions in Vietnam. This summer, a group of Twin Cities media students from the SPNN program toured the installation, then worked with local artist Xiaolu Wang to make their own video in response. It’s  ...

Last spring, the Propeller Group opened “Reincarnations” at Mia, a music video installation that abstractly captures the surreal, sensual, thumping nature of funeral traditions in Vietnam. This summer, a group of Twin Cities media students from the SPNN program toured the installation, then worked with local artist Xiaolu Wang to make their own video in response. It’s  ...

Mia recently opened “I am Somali,” the first major museum exhibition of work by contemporary Somali artists in the Midwest if not the United States. The title refers to one of Somalia’s best-known poems, Soomaali baan ahay, or I am Somali. Poetry, after all, has long been Somalia’s preferred medium for artistic expression—it is often called “the land of the bards.”  ...