The Object

Save the date: The next live taping of The Object podcast will be October 30 at 7 p.m. at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, absolutely free. Special guest and ticket info coming soon. Now, enjoy this encore episode about a story as old as life itself: things fall apart. But what really happened to all those ancient statues missing arms, legs, heads, and other appendages? And how have we come to tr...

Truth and fiction collide in two stories of museum life. One of a curator who goes missing in the 1950s. The other of a curator who finds himself in the aftermath of World War I, a life chronicled in diaries recently found inside a forgotten storage space. A life filled with beauty and tragedy and the redemptive power of art.  Save the date: The next live taping of The Object is October 30 at 7 p....

Save the date: The next free live taping of The Object podcast will be October 30 at 7 p.m.! Special guests and ticket info TBA. Now, enjoy this encore episode about one of the largest jade sculptures in the world, a 640-pound mountain commissioned by the Chinese emperor. In 1901, in the ugly aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, it ends up leaving China—only to resurface on the dinner table of a lumb...

The Renaissance, which began in Italy some 700 years ago, may be one of the last true ideals we have. It's this beacon of beauty and truth that led us out of the Dark Ages. It gave us Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. But the Renaissance was also extremely, delightfully weird. A story of what happens when repression recedes and freedom moves in—and how this strangeness gave us our mode...

Truth, beauty, transcendence. For millennia, people think they know the rules of great art. Then, in the 1950s, a guy named Bob breaks every one of them, declaring car tires and Coke bottles and entirely blank canvases part of his art—and, in turn, being declared the greatest artist of his time. As war gives way to optimism, is Robert Rauschenberg offering a weary world a new way of seeing, or is...

New episode! In the 1920s and ’30s, Mary Sully makes her way from Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota to New York City and then around the country, making surprising, delightfully abstract portraits of American celebrities: Fred Astaire, Shirley Temple, Amelia Earhart. “Personality prints,” she calls them, though the most intriguing personality they reveal might be her own. A personality and...

Kicking off Pride Month with a surprisingly epic encore episode about Grant Wood. In the 1930s, the Iowa artist is one of the most famous people in America. The mind behind "American Gothic"—the painting of the man, the woman, and the pitchfork. An artwork so celebrated and so curious it’s called the “modern Mona Lisa.” But as times change and jealousy spreads, Wood suddenly finds himself fighting...

This second sold-out live show of The Object podcast was recorded with an enthusiastic audience at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on May 11, 2025—Salvador Dalí's birthday, with our special guest: musician and writer Dessa. Quizzes, performances, storytelling, curator conversation—it's all here, all about Dalí, Surrealism, wit in art, and of course the creation of his famous (possibly functional?...

The next live taping of The Object is May 11—the show is sold out, but don't forget to come if you have tickets and watch for the next live taping coming up.  This encore episode reprises last year's popular episode about one of our oldest relationships with a non-human: dragons, and the very different ways we've imagined them in different parts of the world. Helping or hurting, making rain or bre...

New episode! It is the stuff of legend, how Claude Monet discovers Japanese art in the late 1800s and becomes one of the most famous artists in the world. But one influence is as real as he is mysterious. The artist behind the "great wave" and hundreds of other iconic images. The artist who calls himself Hokusai (at least for a time), and only becomes more powerful after he's gone. You can see art...

If you snagged tickets to the next live taping of The Object, with Dessa, on May 11—nice work! They're now sold out. In the meantime, enjoy this encore presentation of one of our most popular episodes ever. He was the original rebel with a cause, dedicated to showing the world a new way of seeing. But what if Claude Monet's real cause was...Claude Monet? What if his rise from scorn and poverty to...

Big news! It’s the first episode of Season 7 AND tickets are now available for the next live taping of The Object podcast, featuring musical guest Dessa, quizzes, curator conversation, and storytelling on Sunday, May 11, at 2 p.m. at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. All about surrealism, humor in art, and Mia’s beloved Aphrodisiac Telephone by Salvador Dalí—on his 121st birthday! It’s “Your Lobst...

The seventh season of The Object begins March 24! Today, an encore presentation of an episode about Joe Minter and the "yard show" artists of Alabama. Thirty-five years ago, Joe Minter received a vision. Soon, his half-acre property outside Birmingham, Alabama, began to fill with sculpture—reflections on everything from slavery to 9/11 to climate change—fashioned out of junk: car parts, toys, indu...

Season 7 of The Object starts March 24! Here, a special episode from the archives about Love and Art in capital letters. When the young Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani moves to Paris, in the early 1900s, he soon meets a very talented (and very married) Russian poet. What happens when Love and Art come together, as the rest of the world is falling apart? You can see one of Modigliani’s iconic Head...

This first-ever live show of The Object podcast (recorded at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on January 23, 2025) features music and storytelling celebrating French painter Édouard Manet and his Impressionist friends and frenemies (yes you, Monet). Watch for more live shows coming soon! You can see one of Manet's portraits, as discussed on the show, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute...

Most of us know the Icarus myth, of the young man who soars too close to the sun—or at least we think we do. But there's more to the story. And at various times in history, the takeaway has changed. As a new year begins, it's worth revisiting the classic tale: how high, or how low, do you want to go? You can see several takes on the Icarus story in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Ar...

For our final episode of Season 6, it’s an ode to winter. A winter of frozen London rivers and snowy Japanese villages—the kind we rarely have anymore if we ever really did. A winter of art and literature, of pure and plentiful snow—a “wintry mix” we can all appreciate. A standout winter painting (and recent addition to Mia’s collection) is this Winter Landscape by the Finnish painter David Johann...

When the Moulin Rouge opens in Paris, in 1889—a faux windmill spinning over the entrance, a two-story elephant opening to reveal an orchestra inside—the world is changing quickly. The first film comes out that same day. Electric lights are enlivening the night. The old Victorian morals are being challenged, perhaps nowhere moreso than at this new bohemian cabaret where rich and poor are coming tog...

Lizzi Ginsberg is the Chicago-based writer and researcher who guest-hosted our recent episode on Wanda Gág, the Minnesota-raised artist who went on to fame and some fortune in New York writing and illustrating quirky, beloved books like "Millions of Cats." Here, Ginsberg shares what drew her to Gág and the charming, sometimes tragic story of a woman deliberately both behind and ahead of her time....

Wanda Gág may be the talented, bob-sporting, fiercely independent, 1920s celebrity cat mom you didn't know you needed right now. Guest host Lizzi Ginsberg looks back at the author and illustrator of “Millions of Cats,” her surprising life and recent revival. You can see her charmingly inventive prints in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art here: https://collections.artsmia.org/searc...

In 1959, a couple of young women from New York find themselves in the Himalayas—an unlikely story of adventure, royal romance, and spiritual awakening that would eventually result in one of the greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist art in the West. This episode, an experiment in sound and storytelling, explores the incredible convergence of myth and faith, vanished kingdoms and an American prin...

Art and dogs are like our shadows across time: whatever we're up to, whatever values we hold, eventually it all shows up in our art and our dogs. So what can we learn from looking at art about dogs—about our pets and ourselves? You can see "Your Dog," the giant sculpture mentioned in this episode, in the current exhibition "Domestic Idols" at Mia, and right here: https://collections.artsmia.org/ar...

Santiago Rusiñol is a newly married heir to a Barcelona textile fortune when he decides to become an artist in Paris instead, in the 1880s, influencing Picasso and inventing a new vocabulary for modern art. But when he comes across an idyllic seaside village, back in Spain, his quest for meaning becomes a question: what are we running from? Can we be satisfied with what already exists? You can see...

The daughter of a struggling artist, Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun wins the hearts of the French aristocracy—including Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI—with her sensitive portraits. But it's their heads she should be worried about, and when the Revolution hits she has to make a difficult choice. A remarkable story of freedom, and the lengths we'll go to keep it. You can see her work in the collection...

In the 1930s, Grant Wood is one of the most famous people in America, the artist behind "American Gothic"—the painting of the man, the woman, and the pitchfork, standing outside their house. An artwork so celebrated and so curious it’s called the “modern Mona Lisa.” But as times change and jealousy spreads, Wood suddenly finds himself fighting for his life and livelihood, protecting a secret he hi...