Blog
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.
The Latest
On basketball and art museums: Why seeing yourself on the wall matters
I like to play basketball at the school near my house. There’s a soccer field, some baseball diamonds, a playground, and a basketball court. A lot of the time, I’ll go there after working at Mia. It gives me something to think about besides photographs and art history, since that’s mostly what I do, as ...
Indigo expertise: Malian artist Aboubakar Fofana examines Mia’s West African textiles
By Nicole LaBouff, associate curator of textiles at Mia, and Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers, curator of African art at Mia and head of the Department of the Arts of Africa and the Americas ••• This past May, Mia welcomed Malian artist Aboubakar Fofana. He was at the museum to discuss a potential exhibition in Mia’s Charleston period rooms, in ...
A one-of-a-kind wedding at Mia
Last year, when Mia was installing its Qing gate at the entrance to the museum’s Chinese galleries, Joyce Sun visited with her father. They were planning Sun’s wedding, still nailing down the venue, when her father noticed the gate. It came from Shanxi, a neighboring province of Shandong, the province where he and his family ...
The Paper Chase: A curator’s obsession with paper in paintings
Art Inspires: Carter Meland on “6EQUJ5”
Mia deepens understanding of immigration with “Your Story, Our Story”
Four takeaways from Bryan Stevenson’s talk on justice and healing at Mia
What’s the future of Afrofuturism—and museums?
Among the accomplishments of Black Panther—first all-black superhero movie, 10th highest-grossing film of all time—is something that African-American artists have awaited for a long time: the mainstream emergence of Afrofuturism. A movement borne in the cultural margins of the 1970s, now on the big screen in multiplexes around the world. Blending African history with technology ...
The curious history of Mia’s beloved jade mountain, now starring in "Power and Beauty"
In the penultimate room of Mia’s current exhibition, “Power and Beauty in China’s Last Dynasty: Concept and Design by Robert Wilson,” sits a large, greenish rock. The room is dark—and stormy, for that matter, rattled by thunder—and the wallpaper that wraps around it suggests the craggy mountains of Chinese lore. The boulder adds to the mystique, carved into ...
Essma Imady and the art of anxiety
When I first met Essma Imady, she was pacing through a mostly empty gallery, glancing among her unassembled installation pieces, and occasionally fidgeting with her singular dinosaur earring. Her art was scattered along the perimeter of the long, rectangular gallery, most of it unfinished. A large, white teddy bear sat propped against a white wall; it ...