Exhibitions

Upcoming Exhibitions

Spanning almost a century of creativity, &#8220;Transcendent Clay&#8221; offers a panoramic look at the achievements of the Kondō family of ceramicists based in Kyoto, Japan. The legacy of porcelain-making began with Kondō Yūzō (1902–1985) in the 1930s and continued with his sons Yutaka (1932–1983) and Hiroshi (1936–2012), who broke free to pursue original, individual expressions. Ultimately it was the grandson Takahiro (born 1958) who emerged as the family’s greatest innovator by developing the secret technique of applying a “silver mist” (gintekisai) of metallic droplets to his modern forms.
This exhibition brings together a wide range of works including freehand-painted vases, pure-white jars, and Takahiro’s dramatic shapes and textures, which he describes as “water born from fire.” Most of the works are from the collection of Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz, long-time supporters of Mia.

Transcendent Clay: The Kondō Family’s Path of Porcelain Innovations

In 1897, the French painter Claude Monet made four paintings of the chrysanthemums in his garden in Giverny, capturing them not in a vase but en plein air—painting the flowers as they grew. He had been an avid collector of Japanese prints since the 1870s, and his unexpected, expressive use of space in this experiment recalls the Large Flowers series of prints made between 1833 and 1834 by Katsushika Hokusai. This exhibition brings the Large Flowers and Chrysanthemums series into conversation, exploring the symbiotic artistic connections between Japan and France in the nineteenth century.

74.1.210 Hokusai | Monet

A treasure of Mia’s collection is a set of ten tapestries woven in Paris in the early seventeenth century. The tapestries tell a fictionalized story of the historical Queen Artemisia of Caria (reigned c. 480 BCE). Here, we present the first four tapestries in the story; the next four will be displayed in 2026.
The figure of Artemisia was conceived as a tribute to Queen Catherine de Medici (1519–1589). Catherine was regent of France, mother of three kings, and one of the most powerful women of the Renaissance. Mia’s tapestries include ones added to the cycle when a distant relative of Catherine, Marie de’ Medici (1575–1642), was herself regent of France.

The Story of Queen Artemisia: Part One

In the final years of the 1400s, printed representations of European cities began to appear more frequently. Some of the images seemingly place the viewer on a hill, looking across the countryside to the city. Others offer a bird’s-eye view. Mia is fortunate to own some of the great landmarks in the development of these trends, such as The Nuremburg Chronicle (1493), which illustrates dozens of cities, and Jacopo de Barbari’s View of Venice (1500), which shows the island city on an imposing scale and in minute detail. As the ancestors of Google Earth and other mapping apps, they offer an aesthetic and civic experience lacking in their electronic counterparts.

City Views

Yōzō Hamaguchi (1909–2000) was a master of color mezzotints, a technique that allowed printmakers to reproduce complex details of an artwork. Photography had rendered it obsolete by the 1900s, but Hamaguchi revived the technique after encountering it during a stay in Paris in the 1930s. There, he met American poet e.e. cummings, who gifted him a tool to achieve the signature tones in mezzotint. In the 1980s, Hamaguchi paid homage to the poet with the “e.e. cummings suite” of prints titled with lines from the poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town.”
This exhibition explores how Hamaguchi transformed the ordinary into the uncanny, featuring prints generously donated by Charles and Robyn Citrin and Bill and Roberta Stein.

And more by more they dream their sleep: Mezzotints by Yōzō Hamaguchi

Collectors Fay Gallus and Richard Sweet recently gave Mia an exceptional group of photographs: works by Eugene Atget, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Walker Evans, Irving Penn, Alec Soth, Weegee, and other celebrated photographers of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. This show honors the generosity of these collectors in supporting Mia’s mission of collecting, preserving, and making accessible outstanding works of art. At the same time, it underscores the strength of Mia’s photography collection, which continues to grow from important donations like this one, enriching the communities the museum serves.

A Generous Outlook: Gifts from Fay Gallus and Richard Sweet

The night before Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, the demon king Narakasura is burned in effigy. In this exhibition, Roshan Ganu uses immersive videos and paintings to explore the mythology and contemporary celebration around this ritual and her own fascination with the night.
Ganu is a multimedia narrative artist who seeks to recontextualize history, culture, and biography into dynamic and immersive experiences. She received the Jerome Early Career Award in 2022 and was recently in residence as part of the Out of the Circle group in Cairo, Egypt. She has exhibited widely across the region, including exhibitions at the Franconia Sculpture Park, Rochester Art Center, and Soo Visual Arts Center. She received her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2020.
This exhibition is part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program.
Support provided by RBC Wealth Management.

An image from Roshan Ganu's show of images projected onto the walls and ceiling

Roshan Ganu: रातराणी: The Night Blooming Jasmine

Bizen: Contemporary Expressions of an Ancient Japanese Pottery

Dark Visions

Splendid Patchwork: Buddhist Monastic Robes

Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room: The Alice S. Kandell Collection

Bizen ware, characterized by its rich reddish-brown clay with natural ash glaze, is one of Japan’s six pottery traditions. Originating from today’s Okayama prefecture on the Seto Inland Sea, its history reaches back to the 14th century. It peaked during the late 16th century when the tea masters in and around Kyoto, the center of culture in Japan, found it most appealing. With the modernization of Japan in the mid-19th century, Bizen almost disappeared, but the tradition was revived in the 1930s and many artists since have explored its potential. While some have stayed closer to conventional forms, others have surprised with new shapes while staying true to the core of Bizen. This exhibition showcases the journey in Bizen from the 16th century to the 21st.

2019.92.4

Some people go bungee jumping or cave exploring for fun, but most of us would rather watch a scary movie or listen to a ghost story when we need a little fright in our lives. It wasn’t much different in the 1700s and the 1800s. Artists reveled in the Sublime, the flip side of the Age of Enlightenment, in which Romantics opened themselves to the sensation of forces beyond human comprehension and control. They gave their audiences terrifying images—sometimes for giggles, sometimes for soulful contemplation. In this exhibition, artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francisco Goya, and William Blake stir the cauldron with images so peculiar that it was—and still is—hard to know what to make of them.

This magnificent group of robes from Mia’s collection belonged to high-ranking Buddhist priests. Known as kashaya, they were designed to be draped over the left shoulder, under the right arm, and fastened in front under the left shoulder, and are more elaborate than the robes worn by most Buddhist monks. Yet they were fabricated from small squares sewn together, symbolizing the humble nature of Buddha. Within these patchwork squares are various Buddhist motifs and sometimes imperial imagery in which dragons cavort in the celestial landscape. Rich with courtly symbolism, the robes were likely worn in Buddhist ceremonies at monasteries patronized by the court or within the Forbidden City itself.

&#8220;Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room: The Alice S. Kandell Collection&#8221; includes more than two hundred gilt-bronze sculptures, paintings, silk hangings, and carpets that were created in Tibet between the 1300s and early 1900s. Buddhist ritual objects are displayed in the context of an elaborate private household shrine, a space used for offerings, devotional prayer, rituals, and contemplation. With its flickering candlelight, sonorous chanting, and the subtle smell of incense, the glittering room provides an oasis for peaceful contemplation within the galleries at Mia.
Tour a selection of objects in this guide. 
<a href="https://app.smartify.org/en-GB/tours/welcome-to-mia?tourLanguage=en-GB"><button class="background-black">Explore</button></a> 
Prepare your students for a visit with this guide. 
<a href="https://images.artsmia.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/07105702/Tibetan-Shrine-Teachers-Guide_FINAL-10.2024.pdf"><button class="background-black">Download</button></a>
Step Inside the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room &#8211; 3D Virtual Tour 
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=eWZaBstkPhW" width="853" height="480" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Related Events

L2023.76.198

Current Exhibitions

Counter/Culture

Tanaka Ryōhei: Portrait of a Home

Goltzius &amp; Co.

Thomas Putzier: Grief &amp; Bureaucracy

The most frequented places are often among the least noticed–including the humble counter. In restaurants, kitchens, and stores, counters are sites of preparation, display, communication, and more. As a verb, “to counter” implies opposition, but also holds the potential for dialogue. The photographs in this exhibition center the counter as a dynamic site of interaction and labor, revealing to us both what has happened and what could happen in the future.

2020.84.64

Tanaka Ryōhei (1933–2019) was a prolific Japanese printmaker who specialized in etchings. Born and raised in Takatsuki, he grew up surrounded by the rural landscapes of western Japan, which would become the subject of his prints. This exhibition features prints by Tanaka given to Mia from the extensive collection of Sue Y. S. Kimm and Seymour Grufferman.
Tanaka began etching in his thirties after meeting Furuno Yoshio (1909–1978), the founder of the Kyoto Etchers Association. At the time, etching was far less common than woodblock-printing, the primary mode of printing in Japan for centuries. Tanaka learned the basics of etching from Furuno, soon developed his own methods through experimentation, and continued to make and print his own etchings until 2013.
&nbsp;

2019.78.325

Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) rose to become the hero of Dutch art in the late 1500s. He started his career as an engraver of copper printing plates, developing his skills to mind-boggling perfection, whether working in fine detail or with bravura gesture. Sometimes he engraved his own inventions; sometimes he worked from other artists’ drawings. He also had a remarkable aptitude for inventing new compositions in the style of other artists. Goltzius’s skill is yet more remarkable considering a serious childhood accident left him unable to open his dominant right hand. This exhibition looks at Goltzius’s mature printmaking and the circle of artists around him who came to rival his talent.

This is an engraved art piece of a figure dressed in prestigious clothing while holding a flag in their hand.

2023.32

Thomas Putzier&#8217;s sculptures and paintings address the social longing for change despite insurmountable bureaucratic obstacles. Using utopian imagery and architectural forms, Putzier allows the visitor to imagine new possibilities.
Based in Greater Minnesota, Putzier works across various media as an artist and designer. His practice examines the complex relationships between social, political, and economic structures that shape society. His work has been exhibited at the CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea; Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota; the I-Park Foundation in East Haddam, Connecticut; the Neon Museum in Las Vegas; and the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas. His work is in the permanent collection of the Neon Museum.
This exhibition is part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program.
Support provided by RBC Wealth Management.
Join us to learn more on Thursday, October 10, 2024 at 6:30pm for a <a href="https://new.artsmia.org/event/talk-with-maep-artist-thomas-putzier">Talk: with MAEP Artist Thomas Putzier</a>