On March 24, 2020, the day before Minnesota’s shelter-in-place order, Piotr Szyhalski went into his basement studio, took out a sheet of paper, some ink, and a brush, and began drawing. When he finished, he had an image of a severed head, plants sprouting from the eye sockets, with the hand-lettered  ...

By Ian Karp In 1988, after a life of relocation, the punk artist, writer, teacher, activist, and squatter Fly Orr—known as Fly—landed on New York City’s Lower East Side. Soon after, she moved into an East Village squat (an illegally occupied building, usually neglected, vacant, or abandoned) and became involved with the community art space  ...

(An audio version of this story can be heard in season 2 of Mia’s The Object podcast, as Unspeakable Love: The Rebel Who Went Too Far.) On the night of February 11, 1873, Simeon Solomon is arrested. He’s 32 years old. He’s handsome, with dark red curly hair and a short wispy  ...

I began working at Mia in 2018, specifically because I felt its free admission made it an accessible museum, so that anyone who wants to visit can visit. Since then, I’ve realized that financial access is only one layer of accessibility, and what is represented inside also impacts the way visitors  ...

In a fast-paced and divisive world, we can be quick to make judgments. In fact, we often make decisions based on biases or first impressions. At Mia, we believe that art has the power to open up our minds, introducing us to the stories of people across space and time. And  ...

When Mia acquired its Shiva Nataraja sculpture, in 1929, there were only a couple others in American museums. The legendary art dealer C.T. Loo had loaned it to Mia with the idea that someone would step forward and make the arrangement permanent. Someone did: Sarah Belle Pillsbury Gale, who lived just  ...

On the first day of class, last fall, Natasha Pestich had her students at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design get their hands dirty. They made stencils out of Mylar or paper, cutting out letters or designs. Then they took the stencils outside and used paint rollers and sponges to  ...

To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends I wanna offer my love and respect till the end —Adam “MCA” Yauch, Sure Shot, 1994   Twice 10 years old, not fully told Since nature gave me breath My race is run, my thread is spun Lo here is fatal Death. —Anne  ...

Chaka Mkali, also known as I Self Devine, is a musician, MC, community organizer, racial-justice trainer, graffiti artist, muralist, and director of organizing and community building at Hope Community in Minneapolis. He is also the co-curator of “Rituals of Resilience,” an audio-visual experience at Mia featuring new music by Mkali and  ...

Keegan Xavi is a visual artist, art historian, and producer in North Minneapolis, and when she recently visited “In the Presence of Our Ancestors: Southern Perspectives in African American Art,” a new exhibition at Mia featuring the work of Black artists from the Deep South, she felt something  ...