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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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Once at MIA: The "Mad Men" museum
Somewhere in these renderings, surely, is a pod chair with speakers piping atonal music. This is how architect Kenzo Tange’s 1974 minimalist addition to the MIA was expected to play out: the museum as mod social hub. Tange was a starchitect before anyone had thought of the term. He blended Le Corbusier’s modernism with traditional ...
Once at MIA: The “Mad Men” museum
Somewhere in these renderings, surely, is a pod chair with speakers piping atonal music. This is how architect Kenzo Tange’s 1974 minimalist addition to the MIA was expected to play out: the museum as mod social hub. Tange was a starchitect before anyone had thought of the term. He blended Le Corbusier’s modernism with traditional ...
Maxed out: Subduing an arch rival for the Habsburgs show
Anyone entering Phil Barber’s studio in the belly of the MIA recently might think they had stumbled upon a Habsburgian Montessori class. On the floor were 190 pieces of paper that Barber had cut from the pages of a battered, leather-bound portfolio. Somehow the shapes would fit together to become the Triumphal Arch of Maximilian ...
Once at MIA: Spring of ’69
Paul Wunderlich had some groupies. Though it’s more likely that these art-loving young ladies scaling the MIA in 1969 were on the prowl for fellow Wunderlich fans, not the artist himself. It’s not hard to understand why: The German surrealist painter, printmaker, and sculptor, whose name literally means “strange” in his native tongue, was known for ...
Once at MIA: The Collectors
They stand close, but not too close, pillars of the museum with plenty of ideological daylight between them. This was January 12, 1955, amid a host of new acquisitions. Russell Plimpton (seated) had led the MIA as its director for 34 years. His soon-to-be successor, Richard Davis (on the right), was then the senior curator, already ...
The Hairy Family and the Habsburgs
By Tim Gihring
Of all the memorable images on view at the MIA in “The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces from Europe’s Greatest Dynasty,” the one that may haunt you—may send you scurrying to Google to assuage your curiosity—is a small portrait of a girl named Antonietta Gonzales. She is about 8 or 9 years old, ...
ISIS has declared war on cultural heritage. Is there anything we can do?
In the past few weeks, the media has been flooded with reports of the Islamic State, or ISIS/ISIL, destroying Iraq’s ancient heritage. They’ve smashed Mesopotamian treasures at the Mosul Museum, burned thousands of rare books and manuscripts in the Mosul Library, and bulldozed entire preserved Assyrian cities, including UNESCO World Heritage sites at Nimrud and ...
Once at MIA: Artful underwear
She might have stepped out of a painting, a goddess in satin unmentionables. Which is presumably what Munsingwear was going for with this August 1944 photo shoot in the MIA fountain court. Classy. Elegant. Underwear so beautiful it could be in a museum. Munsingwear, founded in Minneapolis in the 1880s, wasn’t known for sex appeal. ...
Once at MIA: An encounter of crowns
Only one of these three is lacking a crown, if not credentials. He’s Dr. Oswald Goetz, a medieval expert from the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1949, he accompanied his museum’s carving of St. Margaret of Alexandria to the MIA for an unprecedented show of sculpture from around the world. The MIA had hoped to duplicate ...
Art Inspires: Jim Lenfestey on the mysterious poetry of Cold Mountain, a voice in ink on silk
During my four-decade love affair with the voice of poet Han-shan, or Cold Mountain, I have seen many paintings of him. He was unkown in his lifetime—possibly even a legend. But his image became very popular in China. And of all the paintings I have seen, I love this portrait at the MIA the best. Not ...