Blog
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.
The Latest
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Rita Mehta on her style, her vision for the Store at Mia, and her favorite holiday gift ideas
Rita Mehta had worked for Target for seven years—touring factories abroad, learning about sustainable sourcing, assessing product quality from Asia—when she realized she wanted to do the opposite of all that. She wanted to rediscover America—American-made products—specifically for women. Guides to men’s goods had already swung toward American brands; Mehta would do the same for women. She ...
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A king comes to Mia
In its hundred-year history, Mia has hosted a number of royals. Early on, they hailed from Europe: the queen of Romania, in 1926, and the crown prince of Sweden that same year. More recently, however, the monarchs have come from Africa. On November 30, the King of Kings for the entire Congo Basin paid a visit ...
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The art of dissent: How Mia’s “Resistance, Protest, Resilience” photography exhibition came together
“Resistance, Protest, Resilience,” an exhibition of about 60 photographs connecting the protest movements of the 20th century to today’s political, social, and racial conflicts, opened at Mia on November 5. My interest in images of protesters can be traced to my three-year exploration of the avant-garde art and photography of 1960s and 1970s Japan for ...
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We traveled to Standing Rock to deliver aid and support. We returned home with something greater.
By Jill Ahlberg Yohe
They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. —Sitting Bull, 1875 In the Hunkpapa land of Sitting Bull, history is always being made. On a warm, sunny day in August, ...
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Why is this curious mask in the Martin Luther show? The reformer’s brave take on the plague
By Tim Gihring
Don’t be surprised if the most popular image to emerge from “Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation,” Mia’s comprehensive look at the objects and art behind Luther’s 16th-century revolt against the Catholic Church, is not of the pulpit from which he preached his last sermons, or the life-size model of his ...
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Artist Andrea Carlson on the unspoken history, unseen stories, and awkward moments behind her Mia project “Let: an act of reverse incorporation”
Andrea Carlson wasn’t sure the museum would go for it. After all, as she puts it, the participants and collaborators in Let: an act of reverse incorporation are “kicking in the front door of historic institutional power.” Carlson, who grew up in Minnesota and now lives in Chicago, has long drawn on her Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), ...
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Next in line: An election-year look at power, succession, and chicanery in Mia’s collection
“Well, he’s never gonna be president now…that’s one less thing to worry about.” Thomas Jefferson’s taunting of his rival in the hit musical Hamilton has reverberated through the end of this never-ending election season, along with serious questions about the fitness of candidates and political traditions. And it’s prompted the Mia staffers in the museum’s ...
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Once at Mia: A mummy and her secrets
Lady Tashat had roommates at first, fellow mummies, perhaps three or five altogether. They almost certainly didn’t know each other in life, but in death they were inseparable. In the late 1800s, mummies, statues, and other ancient objects were flowing out of Egyptian digs to Europe and America, to museums and millionaires. The director of the ...
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Art Inspires: Kao Kalia Yang on Lucretia
He entered my room quietly. I was at my desk. He closed the door behind him. It was just the two of us. He carried a book in his hand. He said, “How are you?” I did the polite thing. We had a conversation. In the light from my desk, he was handsome, this dorm ...
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Once at Mia: Touching the past
The Minneapolis Society for the Blind was touring Mia in October 1951 when they stopped in front of the museum’s ancient Assyrian relief and laid hands on it. The relief, being a relief, is perfectly suited to tactile appreciation. It was carved from stone more than eight centuries BCE, one of many such panels found in ...