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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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Who is Tim Yip, the Oscar-winning designer behind “Eternal Offerings”?

By Tim Gihring

When Tim Yip won the Academy Award for art direction, for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in 2001, he was so nervous—as Catherine Zeta-Jones handed him the Oscar—that he was only able to thank his family and the film’s director, Ang Lee, before the band played him off the stage. It was  ...

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“Kitchen Dance,” a film inspired by Mia’s iconic Frankfurt Kitchen, debuts in March

By Diane Richard

Three years after it was created, Kitchen Dance has finally moved to the front burner. In the spring of 2020, when the pandemic sent many of us home to our collective sorrow and sourdough starters, it postponed the premiere of a seven-minute film inspired made through an enterprising collaboration. It will now  ...

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How love grows cold: The curious adage behind a visiting painting

By Tom Rassieur Mia’s recent exhibition “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence” prominently featured a painting by Luca Signorelli (c. 1450–1523) with the title Allegory of Fertility and Abundance. Painted in various shades of gray, it resembles a relief sculpture carved in stone, its five figures—three adults and two children—all in some degree of nudity. A woman  ...

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Self-guided tour celebrates African-American art history at Mia

For Black History Month, Mia has created a self-guided tour exploring three centuries of art by African-American artists now on view at the museum. Pick up a tour guide on your next visit or take the virtual tour here online. Gallery 304 Joshua Johnson, Portrait of Richard John Cock, c. 1817 What is the first  ...

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Camille Billops’ playful sculptures debut at Mia during Black History Month

Mia acquired the whimsically animated figures of Remembering Vienna III, by Camille Billops, in 2021. They’re now on display, for the first time at Mia, in the lobby. Billops was a pillar of New York City’s Black cultural community from the 1960s onward—an artist, filmmaker, archivist, and educator. She was a lifelong social activist committed  ...

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“I wanted people to know”: The moving history behind Winfred Rembert’s “The Beginning”

By Diane Richard

Winfred Rembert had a tumultuous life in which he experienced the full force of American racism. At 19, he survived a near-lynching and spent seven years incarcerated. He started to draw in prison. He later married, had eight children with his wife Patsy, and began making art based on his life  ...

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What does Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” have to do with Botticelli?

By Anna Dilliard

Renaissance literally means “rebirth.” The term most famously refers to the flowering of arts, culture, and science that began in 1400s Italy, when the idea of humanism (an emphasis on human—versus religious—values) took hold and the culture of patronage flourished. Artists looked to ancient Greek and Roman marbles and myths for  ...

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Homer in Love: A New Year’s Tale

By Tim Gihring

(This is a transcript of an episode of The Object podcast, produced by the Minneapolis Institute of Art and originally released on December 31, 2020. You can listen to it here.) There are a lot of things you might want to do this New Year’s Eve. Not sure I want to  ...

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Q&A with Valéria Piccoli, Mia’s first curator of Latin American art

By Tim Gihring

For its first century-plus of existence, Mia never had a dedicated curator of Latin American art. Now, thanks to the support of longtime benefactors, the museum has Valéria Piccoli, the former chief curator of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, in Brazil, one of the most esteemed art museums in  ...

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How JPMorgan Chase helped bring the Uffizi to Minnesota

By Tim Gihring

When Pilar Oppedisano, the market manager and executive director of J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Minneapolis, learned that Mia was planning the exhibition “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi,” now on view through January 8, she recognized a rare opportunity—and knew exactly who to call. Because not only is  ...

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