Creating Spaces Fit for Giants

April 11, 2025—When you walk into a museum and see a striking exhibition, how much thought do you give to the lighting, the distance between artwork and viewer, or the weight capacity of the floor beneath you? To the untrained eye, these are cursory details—secondary, if considered at all, to the masterpieces our visitors come to see.

Yet for the registration and installation teams at Mia, they are critical questions—necessitating months of planning and precision. This was especially true for Mia’s current special exhibition, “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.” The monumental artworks in the show traveled from the Brooklyn Museum, in New York, to Mia’s galleries, in Minneapolis, requiring thoughtful consideration at every stage.

Regulating the Environment

Loans to museums are typically outlined in a written contract that specifies how the artworks should be packed, shipped, displayed, and protected during the loan period. “Giants” was no exception. Mia worked diligently to follow industry best practices and collaborated with the lenders to ensure that their requirements for climate control, lighting, security, and a host of other details were fully met.

Mia’s facilities team had already planned upgrades to the Target Wing; the preparations for “Giants,” however, accelerated their timeline. In particular, certain walls of the Target Galleries needed to be reinsulated with more modern materials, in keeping with the museum’s sustainability commitments.

“Sustainability is a large, multifaceted concept,” explains Ken Kornack, head of facilities. “It encompasses various elements, both small and large. These range from simple actions, like recycling, to significant initiatives, like geothermal energy. Exciting advancements like updated LED lighting systems are included, as well as more mundane but vital improvements, such as insulation in the walls. All these efforts contribute to a more sustainable Mia.”  

Though fast and reliable, the methods used to construct Mia’s Target Wing in the 2000s had left gaps in the insulation layer. Proper insulation is crucial to maximizing the effectiveness of upgraded energy systems. The museum needs to keep the air conditioned—whether heated, cooled, humidified, or dehumidified—to protect the artwork. In this case, small gaps between the insulation panels in the walls were allowing moisture-rich air to infiltrate areas where it wasn’t wanted—namely, the galleries.

Mia’s facilities team identified an opportunity to address the issue for the long term. The team first removed the existing sheetrock and plywood from the walls and then the old insulation. Finally, they filled all the nooks and crannies with spray foam, creating a continuous insulation layer. 

Moisture and humidity can gravely damage works of art. In creating this protective “envelope” around the building, Mia ensured the safety of the works in “Giants.”

“Big Things Come in Big Boxes”

Works of art are finicky; each has its own peculiar needs. Mia’s installation team had to identify the specific requirements of the objects in the show and then design the exhibition to meet them. This resulted in many meetings with the team’s counterparts at the Brooklyn Museum, and a methodical, detail-oriented installation process to ensure everything was executed accurately and safely. 

Aptly titled, “Giants” comprises works of immense scale. “Big things come in big boxes,” says Kara Furman, registrar of exhibitions. “And the big boxes have to go someplace. So I get a lot of help from our in-house installations team to measure each object and assess, will this crate make this turn at this height, length, and width? You have to prepare a lot in advance, double-check measurements, and make sure everything physically fits in the doors.” 

Once everything was in the building, registrars conferred with curators to decide where the objects would go. Their choices had to balance enhancing the viewer experience with protecting the artwork. Some pieces needed to be enclosed in cases, while others had to be hung at a specific distance from viewers.

“We might need stanchions to protect a certain piece, but we don’t want to create a tripping hazard. We have to keep things safe for people…and from people,” laughs Furman. 

Such deliberation extended to the lighting design of the galleries. Light damages almost all objects, in different ways and at different rates.

“Works on paper—which would be graphite, pastel, photographs—have a limit to how much light they can be exposed to over a duration of time. So we have to consider that in how we design the lighting in the space and how we position the works,” says Head Preparator Charles Capistrant. “It’s all part of protecting the pieces in the show and keeping them in excellent condition.”

Installing the Wheel

It’s a really big wheel, and it’s the first thing visitors encounter as they make their way to the “Giants” exhibition. Its installation in Mia’s ​​Bruce B. Dayton Rotunda was a massive effort, requiring an engineer to evaluate whether Mia’s floors could support the weight of the 6,000-pound tire and the 2,500-pound gantry required to hoist it. 

Fun fact: This is the first time Big Wheel I (2018), Arthur Jafa’s mammoth work, has traveled out of New York.

“It’s the heaviest object I have ever worked to install,” says Capistrant, who has over a decade of experience installing exhibitions at Mia. The team used a forklift and two additional material lifters to set up the multiple components of the gantry. They had to be mindful that the forklift and the wheel were never close to each other, the combined weight of 14,000 pounds being too great a load for the museum’s marble floor to bear. 

Final Flourish—It Isn’t Just the Art

A traveling exhibition, “Giants” came to Mia with many of its installation specifications already outlined. However, Mia’s design team wanted to add an element that would give the exhibition a unique visual identity over the course of its run here in Minneapolis.  

They turned to Adinkra, Ghanaian symbols used to express the connection between the verbal and the visual in Akan culture. The team combined different elements to produce a custom motif rich with meaning, paying homage to the many diasporic African artists in the show. They then partnered with local signage artist Kelsi Sharp to hand paint the pattern onto the wall outside the exhibition. The result is an eye-catching visual texture, befitting a space that celebrates the creativity of Black artists.

 

A great deal of labor goes unseen in the production of an art exhibition. For most of the people who work at the museum, tasks typically conclude when the show opens. For Mia’s dedicated registration team, however, the work is far from over.

“That’s the interesting part about what we do,” says Furman. “The work isn’t done until everything comes down off the walls and goes out the door.” That’s another carefully choreographed process, as the pieces in the show are dismantled, moved out of the galleries, and packed into crates, sent on to be enjoyed by audiences at their next destination.

About the Exhibition

“Giants” is a groundbreaking exhibition that marks the first major showcase of the Dean Collection, owned by renowned musicians and cultural icons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. 

Organized by the Brooklyn Museum, “Giants” highlights nearly 100 significant works by Black diasporic artists, including Gordon Parks, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, and more. The exhibition reflects the Deans’ passion for supporting established and emerging artists while fostering important dialogues about art, culture, and identity.

“Giants” is organized by Kimberli Gant, curator, modern and contemporary art, and Indira A. Abiskaroon, curatorial assistant, modern and contemporary art, Brooklyn Museum.

The exhibition is on view at Mia now through July 13, 2025. Tickets are available for purchase.