As a child, I was captivated by the mystery of Easter Island after reading a short story in my fourth-grade reader. This was 1975, so Easter Island was still a distant and perplexing place, full of unanswered questions as weighty as the statues that dotted its slopes—the first commercial flight to the island had landed  ...

If you walk into gallery 340 on the third floor, you might notice that one of the things there is not like the others. In a space dominated by tapestries, sculpture, and armor from the 15th to 17th centuries, Helena Hernmarck’s 1974 tapestry, Glimpse, was recently included as one of the MIA’s ReMix installations, a  ...

If you walk into gallery 340 on the third floor, you might notice that one of the things there is not like the others. In a space dominated by tapestries, sculpture, and armor from the 15th to 17th centuries, Helena Hernmarck’s 1974 tapestry, Glimpse, was recently included as one of the MIA’s ReMix installations, a  ...

Hard to believe we used to joke about “Made in Taiwan” labels—where was Taiwan exactly, where Godzilla was from?—back when that was an exotic rarity, largely limited to cheap toys. The tables turned a long time ago, and the flood of manufacturing jobs from America to overseas factories appears inexorable—5.8 million since 2000, the vast  ...

Hard to believe we used to joke about “Made in Taiwan” labels—where was Taiwan exactly, where Godzilla was from?—back when that was an exotic rarity, largely limited to cheap toys. The tables turned a long time ago, and the flood of manufacturing jobs from America to overseas factories appears inexorable—5.8 million since 2000, the vast  ...

The MIA has a remarkable collection of banks, of the piggy-bank variety. And one of the most popular themes (aside from piggies) is Santa Claus. Because nothing says saving like a fat home invader in a red suit. Of course, saving for Christmas was serious business for 20th century Americans, especially during the Depression, when  ...

Clare Vivier wants to know if there will be snow for Christmas. Not in Los Angeles, where she lives now with her husband and son, but back in St. Paul, where she grew up and will soon return for family, friends, and Northern Grade @ MIA Presents: From Maker to Market, a December 26 discussion  ...

As promised, here’s the second installment of intriguing alley names from Andy Sturdevant’s popular MAEP exhibition Alley Atlas. These are largely alleys in Uptown, the Lyn-Lake area, and downtown Minneapolis. And as much as South Minneapolis residents seemed to name their alleys for kindly neighbors or nefarious creatures (human and animal), capturing a kind of  ...

That’s W. Eugene Smith’s gorgeous portrait (above) of Bob Dylan, circa 1965, from the MIA’s photography collection. Smith was the ultimate photojournalist, of course, his images of war for Life magazine setting the standard for documentary photography when Dylan was still in diapers in Duluth. Five years before this photo was taken, no one knew  ...

That’s W. Eugene Smith’s gorgeous portrait (above) of Bob Dylan, circa 1965, from the MIA’s photography collection. Smith was the ultimate photojournalist, of course, his images of war for Life magazine setting the standard for documentary photography when Dylan was still in diapers in Duluth. Five years before this photo was taken, no one knew  ...