A World Cup tribute: art from around the globe

It’s on. If you haven’t been watching, in the fake favelas at the Nomad World Pubs in Milwaukee and St. Paul or at home (is soccer best enjoyed in private, so you won’t miss a goal or among others, to pass all the time between goals?), it’s a kind of super-focused Olympics: one sport, many nations. And, at least until the United States starts to take professional soccer more seriously, a little more democratic. (Never mind all the cheating.)

Museums like the MIA often describe themselves as encyclopedic, which has lost some meaning in a time when encyclopedias are most readily spotted at garage sales for a buck a set. It just means the MIA is a comprehensive museum, with art from A to Z, soup to nuts (if you really want to date yourself), Argentina to Zimbabwe.

Along those lines, and in honor of the unusual convocation of countries taking place in Brazil, we rounded up a significant work of art at the MIA from each of participating country (save one, Uruguay, unfortunately unrepresented in the collection). Enjoy, then get back to the TV.

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Argentinian artist Silvia Levenson’s “Cinderella Shoes,” on view in gallery G240.

Algeria: Wall Hanging

Argentina:  Silvia Levenson

Australia: Djunmal

Belgium: James Ensor

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Photo of city by French photographer Gilles Peress

Brazil: Vik Muniz

Cameroon: Elephant Mask

Chile: Roberto Matta

A "fantasy coffin" from Ghana, shown here with no allusion to Ghana's loss to the U.S. It's on view in the MIA's African galleries, G250.

A “fantasy coffin” from Ghana, shown here with no allusion to Ghana’s loss to the U.S. It’s on view in the MIA’s African galleries, G250.

Colombia: Female Figure

Costa Rica: Vessel

Cote d’Ivoire: Wrapper

Croatia: Saddle Bags

Ecuador: Standing Female Figure

England: James Tissot

France: Hubert Robert

Germany: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

A crouching lion sculpture—a tomb guardian—from a cemetery north of the Acropolis. On display at the MIA in gallery G241.

A crouching lion sculpture—a tomb guardian—from a cemetery north of the Acropolis. On display at the MIA in gallery G241.

Ghana: Sowah Kwei

Greece: Crouching Lion

Honduras: Vase

Iran: A King Picnicking in the Mountains

Italy: Giovanni della Robbia

Japan: Portrait Sculpture of Priest Gyōki

Korea Republic: Yang Gihun

Mexico: Rufino Tamayo

Rufino Tamayo's painting "The Family," from 1936, on view in gallery G376.

Rufino Tamayo’s painting “The Family,” from 1936, on view in gallery G376.

Netherlands: Jacob Jansz.

Nigeria: Shrine Head

Portugal: Smallsword

Russia: Vassily Kandinsky

Spain: Pablo Picasso

Switzerland: Paul Klee

United States: Philip R. Goodwin