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…

February 28, 2018

Seven Folds from Tires to Roof

“If big things come in small packages, what comes in a 10 pound, seven ounce, brown paper package that measures 2 feet by 2 feet by 5 1/2 inches? A 10 foot 3 1/2 inch[-tall] 36 foot 2 inch-long life-size poster of a Greyhound bus, what else?” That was the beginning of an article…

February 14, 2018

Bits and Pieces

Life is so often in the details, all the little things mixed up together that make your life yours. Artist Lawrence Weiner may have put it best in his public artwork formerly on the exterior of the Walker Art Center: “Bits and pieces put together to present a semblance of a whole”. Many art exhibitions…

February 8, 2018

WAM Files

WAM Files Phase II began this summer, an archival and interpretive project that will make archival records accessible. These curatorial, educational, and administrative records, office files and museum staff correspondence, architectural drawings, press clippings, and ephemera will give the public a secret window into WAM’s past and present. This project is a continuation of a…

February 2, 2018

Power, Mutiny and Monster Island

While processing the archival materials of the curatorial department of the Weisman Art Museum, I came across an article from MN Daily called Imaginative Immersion: Three Days, Five Artists, which was about an atypical exhibit at the Weisman Art Museum in February of 2008. These five artists were part of a group independent study with UMN’s art…

January 25, 2018

Library Amnesty Success

As with any loan from a library, a bank or otherwise, unexpected things can happen. The University of Minnesota’s permanent art collection has long had an art rental program and at one point in time there were no rental fees to University employees. It happened one day in 1969 that a loan gone awry…

January 22, 2018

Jacob Lawrence: Thirty Years of Prints

Jacob Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an artist, storyteller, educator and chronicler African American life in America. Lawrence’s works are in collections such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, Art Institute Chicago, and Seattle Art Museum. Locally, Lawrence’s works are included…

January 15, 2018

In the Spirit of Martin

Fifteen years ago this weekend, the anticipated exhibition In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opened at the Weisman Art Museum with a full schedule of events. The purpose of the exhibition is clearly stated in the invitational brochure: “By juxtaposing accounts in Dr. King’s life with visual…

January 10, 2018

Time Capsules: A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota

Photography has a curious way of encapsulating and immortalizing what might otherwise be a fleeting moment. Contemporary architectural photography is often devoid of people, sometimes placeless and gives a sense that the structures exist outside of time. While processing hundreds of photos for A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota, these uncropped, raw, pre-published versions…

January 8, 2018

Hard Lines: A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota

Straight lines, crisp angles, geometric forms, and openly planar surfaces in buildings become an embodiment of human’s power over the elements and ability to manipulate materials and environments. A Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota defines most of the buildings included in this post as Moderne (Art Deco) Style, International Style,…