November 15, 2022

Weisman Art Museum receives a grant of nearly $240,000 from the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services to support a Truth and Reconciliation project with Indigenous communities

Exterior photograph of Weisman Art Museum

Weisman Art Museum (WAM) is pleased to announce that the museum has received a grant award in the amount of $239,912 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), as part of the agency’s competitive Museums for America program. WAM is one of 120 organizations across the country to receive a Museums for America…

June 28, 2022

On The Nature of Shoreham Yards: An Interview with Gudrun Lock and Boris Oicherman by Miranda Trimmier

Artist Gudrun Lock an curator Boris Oicherman stand side by side, in front of Lock's "wall of underpants" in a recent exhibition at WAM.

“This interview has been edited for length and clarity”: It’s a throwaway phrase, a quick way of indicating that a printed conversation has been pruned of the false starts, fillers, tangents, and rabbit holes that might have unfolded in the three-dimensional dialogue on which it’s based. The process of smoothing and shortening interviews is…

May 4, 2022

A Dozen Curatorial Careers Launched at the Weisman

Composite graphic with black-and-white headshots of previous years' O'Brien Curatorial Fellows' headshots against a background image of the Weisman Art Museum

In 2009, Weisman Art Museum (WAM) established the E. Gerald and Lisa O’Brien Curatorial Fellowship. For over twelve years, the O’Brien Fellowship has been launching curatorial careers by enabling recent graduates to achieve their first paid curatorial museum staff position, as they consider continuing toward an advanced degree. Art history majors from across the…

April 15, 2022

Essay: After Progress by Miranda Trimmier

After Progress An activist investor is leveraging his stake in Canadian Pacific to force the company into climate action, my friend Gudrun Lock tells me. This news overlays our walk through the patchwork of forest, park, and grassland that surrounds the CP-owned Shoreham Yards train and truck site in northeast Minneapolis. The air smells like…

March 21, 2022

WAM Student Staff Profile: Sage Caballero

A polaroid animation of Sage Caballero with a WAM gallery visible in the background and abstract colorful shapes

Sage Caballero (he/they) is a senior majoring in psychology, with minors in art history, and gender, women & sexuality studies. Sage is particularly interested in how all these subjects intersect within museums. They hope to work to create a more accessible museum space in the future. They are a researcher and musician and love experiencing…

March 21, 2022

COVID Updates and Announcements

Photo of the exterior of Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Masks Are Welcome, But Not Required March 21, 2022: As of today, masks are welcome, but not required for visitors and staff at the Weisman Art Museum (WAM) and WAM Shop, in accordance with University of Minnesota policy and current public health guidance from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

October 28, 2021

ESSAY: Counterspaces in Medicine

A vivid blue and black poster design, bisected with a black silhouette of a gymnast against a blue background; on the right, blue text against black background that reads: Suni's gold medal was not the first Hmong contribution to America.

the wider you are the emptier and the more innocent of any signal the more precious the text feels to me as I make my way through it reminding myself listening for any sound from you [1] —From To the Margin, W. S. Merwin The speaker in W.S. Merwin’s poem, To the Margin, addresses the margin…

October 19, 2021

Meet the 2021-2022 WAM Collective Officers

Headshots of the 2021-2022 WAM Collective officers

Meet the 2021-2022 cohort of WAM Collective Officers—a dynamic group of University of Minnesota students who care deeply about the role of art & museums in social change. The WAM Collective meets weekly to discuss the museum field and to plan programming for the campus community which includes activities like study nights, art-making opportunities, and…

September 15, 2021

Alejandra Peña-Gutiérrez is Named the New Director of University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum

WAM's newly named director, Alejandra Pena-Gutierrez, looks directly into the camera. She's standing in front of a dark, blurry background.

September 15, 2021, Minneapolis, MN — Executive Vice President and Provost Rachel T. A. Croson has announced that Alejandra Peña-Gutiérrez will be the next director of the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum (WAM). Peña will begin her new role at WAM on November 29, 2021. An internationally accomplished museum leader and arts professional,…

June 3, 2021

Arts Access: Beyond the Senses

A group of seven people stand in a semi-circle around a sculpture. At the right of the circle, Liza is signing. Some are looking at Liza directly, others are looking intently at the sculpture.

Every experience is a multi-sensory experience, whether we actively perceive it as such or not. Changes in sensory input, likewise, change our composite experience of the world. Even so, people with sensory loss are rarely consulted during the planning process of collective experience-creation; not included in the development of those experiences, people with sensory…