Exhibitions

Upcoming Exhibitions

Collectors Fay Gallus and Richard Sweet recently gave Mia an exceptional group of photographs: works by Eugene Atget, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Walker Evans, Irving Penn, Alec Soth, Weegee, and other celebrated photographers of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. This show honors the generosity of these collectors in supporting Mia’s mission of collecting, preserving, and making accessible outstanding works of art. At the same time, it underscores the strength of Mia’s photography collection, which continues to grow from important donations like this one, enriching the communities the museum serves.

A Generous Outlook: Gifts from Fay Gallus and Richard Sweet

The night before Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, the demon king Narakasura is burned in effigy. In this exhibition, Roshan Ganu uses immersive videos and paintings to explore the mythology and contemporary celebration around this ritual and her own fascination with the night.
Ganu is a multimedia narrative artist who seeks to recontextualize history, culture, and biography into dynamic and immersive experiences. She received the Jerome Early Career Award in 2022 and was recently in residence as part of the Out of the Circle group in Cairo, Egypt. She has exhibited widely across the region, including exhibitions at the Franconia Sculpture Park, Rochester Art Center, and Soo Visual Arts Center. She received her MFA from from the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2020.
This exhibition is part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program.
Support provided by RBC Wealth Management.

Roshan Ganu: रातराणी: Night Blooming Jasmine

Living on an archipelago, surrounded by water on all sides, the Japanese have always had a close relationship with the sea. The marine life depicted in Japanese art, however, is often more symbolic than real, meant to convey literary, visual, or seasonal associations. Sometimes, even the connections to the sea are abstract, such as geometric patterns meant to evoke fishnets or scales on dishes and clothing. This exhibition explores the sea creatures that permeate Japanese art and culture, and dives into their deeper meaning.

L2024.29.1

Catch of the Day: Humans and Marine Animals in Japan

An aristocratic transplant to the bohemian haunts of Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec captured the nightclubs and cabarets of Montmartre in the 1880s and ’90s, setting to canvas and paper their glittering lights and dazzling entertainments. Among his favorite spots were Le Chat Noir, Le Mirliton, and, above all others, the Moulin Rouge. One of his most remarkable paintings, At the Moulin Rouge, captures a night at the legendary nightclub with a band of regulars, including several of its most famous performers and Toulouse-Lautrec himself.
On loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, At the Moulin Rouge is at the center of this exhibition about Toulouse-Lautrec, his circle of fellow artists, and how they depicted the transformation of Parisian nightlife at the turn of the century. The exhibition features a dozen rarely seen works from Mia’s collection, including French posters and drawings from the era.
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Major Sponsor:
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At the Moulin Rouge

A potter from Kha&#8217;p&#8217;o Owingeh (Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico), Jody Folwell has revolutionized Pueblo pottery—and Native art more broadly—over the past five decades. While pushing the boundaries of form, content, and design—becoming the first Pueblo artist to place personal, political and social narratives on her pottery—she has remained while remaining firmly within the art traditions of her community.
This exhibition, &#8220;O’ Powa O’ Meng&#8221; (“I came here, I got here, I’m still going”), was organized by Mia and the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia. These iconic works span the breadth of Folwell&#8217;s groundbreaking career, demonstrating the arc of her artistic development and integrating a trailblazing Native American artist within the wider canon of contemporary American art.
This exhibition was organized by the Fralin Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
This catalogue and exhibition are made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Major support for Mia&#8217;s presentation provided by Lorraine R Hart.

O’ Powa O’ Meng: The Art and Legacy of Jody Folwell

&#8220;Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room: The Alice S. Kandell Collection&#8221; includes more than two hundred gilt-bronze sculptures, paintings, silk hangings, and carpets that were created in Tibet between the 1300s and early 1900s. Buddhist ritual objects are displayed in the context of an elaborate private household shrine, a space used for offerings, devotional prayer, rituals, and contemplation. With its flickering candlelight, sonorous chanting, and the subtle smell of incense, the glittering room provides an oasis for peaceful contemplation within the galleries at Mia.

Related Events

L2023.76.198

Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room: The Alice S. Kandell Collection

Domestic Idols

Dwelling in Mountains: Reclusion in Chinese Landscape Painting

Tanaka Ryōhei: Portrait of a Home

Thomas Putzier: Grief &amp; Bureaucracy

A colossal puppy, an abandoned tricycle, an unnaturally manicured lawn: are these the markers of a suburban idyll—or signs of something more complicated, even subversive? The artists gathered here question symbols of domestic perfection by rendering them unnerving, strange, or potentially menacing. By disrupting our associations with everyday objects, these artists encourage us to examine the society that produces and upholds them.

The idea of retreating from society into mountainous landscapes has a long history in China. Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian followers all regarded mountains as sacred places where one could become spiritually fulfilled, far from restraining social burdens.
This exhibition features classical Chinese paintings from Mia’s permanent collection that express the idyllic life of mountain dwellers, from recluses in their mountain huts to scenic lakes with fishermen who represent a life of freedom and spontaneity. Many paintings depict cascading waterfalls, a reference to the Confucianist and Daoist analogy for facing life’s troubles: to gaze into a waterfall is to gaze into one’s mind.

Tanaka Ryōhei (1933–2019) was a prolific Japanese printmaker who specialized in etchings. Born and raised in Takatsuki, he grew up surrounded by the rural landscapes of western Japan, which would become the subject of his prints. This exhibition features prints by Tanaka given to Mia from the extensive collection of Sue Y. S. Kimm and Seymour Grufferman.
Tanaka began etching in his thirties after meeting Furuno Yoshio (1909–1978), the founder of the Kyoto Etchers Association. At the time, etching was far less common than woodblock-printing, the primary mode of printing in Japan for centuries. Tanaka learned the basics of etching from Furuno, soon developed his own methods through experimentation, and continued to make and print his own etchings until 2013.
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2019.78.325

Thomas Putzier&#8217;s sculptures and paintings address the social longing for change despite insurmountable bureaucratic obstacles. Using utopian imagery and architectural forms, Putzier allows the visitor to imagine new possibilities.
Based in Greater Minnesota, Putzier works across various media as an artist and designer. His practice examines the complex relationships between social, political, and economic structures that shape society. His work has been exhibited at the CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea; Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota; the I-Park Foundation in East Haddam, Connecticut; the Neon Museum in Las Vegas; and the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas. His work is in the permanent collection of the Neon Museum.
This exhibition is part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program.
Support provided by RBC Wealth Management.

Current Exhibitions

Collage/Assemblage Part II: 1990-Now

Destined for Mia: A Collection of Dutch Paintings

Racism as a Public Health Crisis: Teens Reimagine the Collection

Engineered for Domestic Bliss

This exhibition examines the closely related techniques of collage, assemblage, photomontage, and found object sculpture. The diverse selection of artworks, drawn from Mia&#8217;s collection and local private collections, are by leading national and international artists and showcase the recent resurgence of interest over the past several decades in these art forms. The exhibition highlights both formal and conceptual experimentation and demonstrates how these interrelated techniques are particularly suited to exploring social, political, cultural themes and content.

This is a collage piece on a board of wood. There are hand-drawn cowboys with pieces of floral paper.

2020.96.7

Two Twin Citians have promised a remarkable collection of Dutch paintings, currently on loan to Mia, as a gift to the museum. To celebrate their generosity, this exhibition presents the core of the collection: a richly varied group of pictures painted in the Netherlands during the 1600s. Landscapes, still lifes, scenes of daily life, and other imagery transport us to a time when the Dutch were pressing for independence from Habsburg Spain, striving to assert their national identity through art focused on local people, places, and customs. At the same time, many Dutch artists were avid travelers and infused their work with visions of distant places, especially Italy. Marked by touches of humor—and occasionally danger—this delightful collection rewards close looking.

L2022.99.1

This exhibition features paintings, drawings, prints and more by local high school student artists who participated in a program focused on the impacts of racism as a public health crisis, sponsored by Mia&#8217;s partner, Blue Cross® and Blue Shield® of Minnesota. Students were asked to reimagine a work in Mia&#8217;s collection under the lens of racism. Artists Kprecia Ambers, Nancy Ariza, Lissa Karpeh, Juan Lucero, Jacob Olson, and Akiko Ostlund, whose work is also on view, worked with students during multiple visits to create this powerful exhibition.
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An antique gray and gold television with rounded corners and a red speaker.