If you don't know much about Minneapolis, Minnesota, you might be inclined to groan when your boss at the Baxi Company tells you that you have to go there on a business trip. To those not in the know, Minneapolis might seem like a boring backwater. But it's actually a savvy, sophisticated city that's got plenty of attractions, many of them arts related. One of the main attractions is the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. To learn more about the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and what you might find when you visit, let this article be your guide.
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is an enormous museum that spans almost eight entire acres. In the front it looks much like a courthouse. The building itself is a work of art too. It wasn't just repurposed from a lead-lined sheetrock factory, it was specially designed by an architectural firm in 1915. The museum itself has been around since 1883. Because it receives government funding, the museum does not charge an entry fee and you're able to take photos inside. The only time you might need to pay a fee is if they have a special exhibit you want to see.
In its earliest years the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts had just 800 pieces. Today there are over 80,000 works of art housed within its walls. That's well beyond the capacity of a company that does brochure printing online. These works are not limited by era, national origins, culture, or media, because the museum's collection spans them all. There's pottery, paintings, sculptures, textiles, photography, drawings, etc. from over 5,000 years of human history across the globe. To properly take in everything the museum has to offer, you'd have to spend your entire week's vacation there, so it's best to choose a few galleries you're interested in and focus on those.
In addition to its permanent collection, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts also houses revolving exhibitions that may be traveling around the world from museum to museum or compiled by museum staff to represent a specific interest group, like people who want to learn to speak English in Canada. Some past special exhibitions that the museum has put on include Art of the Native Americans, Picturing Global Wealth, and 300 Years of Designing the Chair, so stop in often if you live there to see the new exhibits.
If you want to learn more about art, you can take a break from your tube cutting job and sign up for a program at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. The museum does group tours for adults and children and special events, they also offer adult classes on a wide variety of art related topics, and host lectures. There are art workshops for kids and teens as well, and the popular Art in the Park series brings art workshops out into the community for everyone to enjoy.
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