Big news: Free tickets are now available starting January 7 at 9:30 a.m. (CST) for the next live taping of The Object podcast. It's our Valentine's show on February 7 at 2 p.m. with special guest musician jeremy messersmith in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

The Object LOVE! Don't Go Breaking My Art! will include fun quizzes and prizes, music, curator conversation, and of course storytelling, all about the comedy and tragedy of the heart in love. It's an irreverent romp with Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Psyche, and other classical couples whose stories have long captured our imagination in art. Go to the Tickets page at artsmia.org and reserve your seats today!

Now on with the show: On January 7, 1889, Vincent van Gogh wrote his family a New Year's letter. He had just been through one of the worst crises of his young life, which would become as much a part of his legend as his art. But Van Gogh was always able to see the silver lining—until he couldn't. A reflection on the hopes we pin to the start of the calendar, and the grace of letting go.

You can see one of the many paintings of olive trees that he made as the year unfolded in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

NEWS! Tickets will be available starting January 7 for The Object LOVE!, our very Valentine's live show with special guest jeremy messersmith on February 7 in the Minneapolis Institute of Art's historic Pillsbury Auditorium. All about the gods in (and often out of) love, whose stories have long captured our imagination in art. Tickets are free but limited—go to the tickets page at the Mia website to reserve or for details. 

Now on with the show: No one lives forever. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying, and for a long time the noble way to avoid getting old and dying was to avoid getting old at all: the Greek notion of the “glorious death” that confers immortality in battle. It’s an idea that resurfaces throughout history—until it meets its match in a war of many deaths and little glory. You can see Kiss of Victory, the famous sculpture that kicks off this episode and launched the career of Sir Alfred Gilbert, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

Brand-new episode: Swedish textile artist Helena Hernmarck became an international art star making monumental tapestries, an ancient art she gave a modern Pop Art twist starting in the 1960s. Some 260 commissioned works in all, often for corporate settings. But as the corporate world changed, and her tapestries changed hands, at least two dozen have gone missing. Now, at 84, she's scrambling to track them down, a rollicking story of international intrigue, celebrity, and what it means when culture is lost—and found. 

Also, big news! Tickets for the next taping of The Object LIVE! will be available starting January 7 on the Tickets page at artsmia.org. It's "The Object LOVE! Don't Go Breaking My Art!" with special guest musician jeremy messersmith, all about the gods in (and out of) love, from Orpheus and Eurydice to Eros and Psyche, with quizzes, music, and of course storytelling. Don't miss this special Valentine's edition of the podcast, recorded live at the Minneapolis Institute of Art auditorium on February 7 at 2PM. 

You can learn more about Hernmarck's art in the latest episode of Craft in America, airing December 19 on PBS.

Hernmarck has long had a unique connection to Minnesota, and you can see more than 20 of Hernmarck's tapestries in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a major repository of her work—including several rescued pieces. 

And you can see more Scandinavian craft in Mia's current show "Crowning the North," featuring Norwegian silver. 

Tickets will be available soon for The Object LOVE!, a very Valentine’s edition of our live taping of the podcast, happening February 7 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, with quizzes, storytelling, and very special musical guest jeremy messersmith, all about the gods in (and out of) love!

It’s good to be the pope in the 1600s. But staying pope is not so easy, as the famous Barberini family finds out when one of their own takes up the tiara in 1623. As Rome fills up with their art, and dungeons fill up with their enemies, can they survive the forces of change threatening their worldview—and the forces of the occult threatening to kill the pope on Christmas Day?

You can read more about the art at Mia commissioned by the Barberini family, including Pope Urban VIII, here.

And of course you can see it all over Rome—in the Piazza Barberini, the Palazzo Barberini, etc. Look closely at St. Peter’s Basilica and you may see the curious Barberini family crest—a trio of bees—on fountains, frames, and even the altar. You can read about its symbolism here.

This third sold-out live show of The Object podcast was recorded October 30, 2025, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art with special guest Chan Poling of The Suburbs and New Standards. Quizzes, storytelling, and curator conversation all centered on F. Scott Fitzgerald and his near-miraculous creation of The Great Gatsby, inspired by the cover art and a girl he met sledding in St. Paul.

A big thank-you to Poling; Mia's Lori Williamson, who curated the "Gatsby at 100" exhibition; and the programs/AV team. You can see "Gatsby at 100" at Mia through March 22, 2026. And stay tuned to get your free tickets to the next edition of The Object LIVE! coming up on February 7.

In the 1890s, B.A. Haldane sets up a photography studio in Alaska and begins documenting the vibrant life of his Tsimshian community—even as non-Native photographers like Edward Curtis are trekking to reservations, documenting what they believe is a "vanishing race.” Quietly contradicting a president and scientists steeped in theories of white supremacy and evolution, Haldane and other Native artists offer an alternative vision only now being rediscovered. A story of resistance and resilience and what we miss by seeing only through our own lens.

You can learn more about Haldane in the work of Tsimshian scholar Mique’l Dangeli. And revisit the exhibition “In Our Hands” that featured Haldane and other Native photographers at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Tickets for The Object LIVE! on October 30 are now sold out, but some tickets will be available at the door! And if you have tickets already, don't forget to come to our hour-long live taping of The Object podcast with very special guest Chan Poling of The Suburbs and New Standards, quizzes, and storytelling at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Part of a full evening of activities at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, including food, drink, gallery tours, a costume contest, and more celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby and the art of the Jazz Age. More info here: https://new.artsmia.org/event/the-object-live-presented-by-ameriprise-financial

And now, today's brand-new episode:

In the 1860s, a French naturalist is hailed as the re-discoverer of the vast Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia. Soon, one of the world's most remarkable architectural and spiritual treasures becomes caught up in colonial intrigues as a "lost city" of ancient splendor. A story of power and prejudice, curiosity and wanderlust, and how the obvious is sometimes right under a giant stone nose. 

You can see some of the incredible artworks mentioned in the episode in "Royal Bronzes: Cambodian Art of the Divine," featuring a giant statue of Vishnu and other bronze works, opening at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on October 25.

Tickets are going fast for our next exclusive live taping of The Object podcast on October 30 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, with special guest Chan Poling (The Suburbs, The New Standards), fun quizzes, curator conversation, and of course storytelling—all about the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby and the art of the Jazz Age. Tickets are absolutely FREE but you do need to have them. Go to the Tickets page at Artsmia.org and get yours today!

And now, today's episode:

Artists have captured unicorns for thousands of years, and for most of that time people thought they were both magical and real. What can an imaginary creature tell us about ourselves? What did we lose when we stopped believing? And why do we still love them anyway?

You can see unicorns in art through the ages in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, including a "millefleurs" tapestry from the late Middle Ages, a remarkable 1555 engraving of "A King Pursued by a Unicorn" by Jean Duvet, and Albrecht Dürer's "Abuction on a Unicorn" from 1516.

Thanks to Natalie Lawrence and Marguerite Ragnow for sharing their expertise on this episode.

Lawrence is a freelance writer with a PhD from the University of Cambridge on exotic monsters in early modern Europe. Check out her new book, Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meanings. 

Ragnow is a historian and curator of the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, a collection about trade and exploration, featuring rare books, maps, and manuscripts. She is working on a book about unicorns.

Big news! Tickets are now available for the next edition of The Object LIVE! Our hour-long live taping of The Object podcast on October 30, with very special guest Chan Poling of The Suburbs and New Standards, quizzes, and storytelling. All about the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, the joys of jazz and St. Paul, and maybe the proper occasion to wear an ascot. Which is quite possibly this show—it’s “Great Gatsby’s Ghost!” The day before Halloween—Thursday, October 30, at 7 p.m. at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Tickets are FREE but limited. Reserve your seats now by going to the tickets page on the Mia website, or follow this link: https://new.artsmia.org/event/the-object-live-presented-by-ameriprise-financial

And now, today’s episode:

In the fall of 1930, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera travel to the United States for the first time, welcomed as celebrity artists, ambassadors of an ancient and powerful Latin American identity. But as the months turn to years, can Rivera’s vision of one united Pan-America—and his marriage—survive the pressures of politics, fame, temptation, cultural differences, and scandal?

You can see examples of Diego Rivera’s work, and that of other modernist Mexican artists, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art: https://collections.artsmia.org/search/Diego%20Rivera

You can see Rivera’s San Francisco mural “Pan American Unity,” discussed on the show, here: https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/pan-american-unity/

You can see photos of Frida and Diego taking San Francisco by storm here: https://www.kqed.org/news/11848986/inside-frida-kahlo-and-diego-riveras-life-in-san-francisco

You can see (and read) Kahlo’s heartfelt letter to Rivera from a San Francisco hospital (“Diego, mi amor”) in the collection of the Smithsonian: https://www.si.edu/object/frida-kahlo-letter-diego-rivera%3AAAADCD_item_739

Vienna in the early 1900s is a kind of paradise of power and beauty, the center of an empire that will seemingly go on forever. Only an eccentric young artist, who sees faces in trees and finds God in the forest, seems to understand the fall that is coming. A loss of innocence that will consume him—and much of the world.

You can see the work of Egon Schiele, Josef Hoffman, and the other artists, designers, writers, and philosophers mentioned in this episode in the new exhibition "Timber! Art and Woodwork at the Fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire" at Mia.