From curator-let tours at Mia to visits at local museums, the Honorary Guides continued their tradition of learning and engagement in 2024.
The Mia Honorary Guides enjoyed a wonderful season of tours in 2024. The Honorary Guide Planning Team members pitched in to organize monthly events from May through November, most of them at Mia, where we were fortunate to have tours with curators who generously shared their knowledge and expertise with our group. Though retired from touring, honorary guides still love to continue learning at Mia. And curators often appreciate our insight and familiarity with works of art that are “old friends” from years of giving tours.
Kicking off the season in May was a tour of the exhibition The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989 given by Leslie Ureña, Associate Curator of Global Contemporary Art. We appreciated her expertise of this complex and fascinating subject.
Next was the photography exhibition American Gothic: Gordon Parks and Ella Watson with Casey Riley, Chair of Global Contemporary Art and Curator of Photography and New Media, whose tours are always so informative and engaging.
In June we visited the American Swedish Institute, where we enjoyed the captivating art and textiles of Karen Larsson: Let the Hand be Seen. Following the tour, many of us stayed for a delightful lunch at the Nordic-inspired Fika Cafe.
Our annual tour with Mia’s Sheila McGuire, Head of Student and Teacher Learning, took place in July, when she discussed many of Mia’s new acquisitions. This is always a favorite, when we have the opportunity to learn from Sheila about works of art recently joining the museum’s collection. Sheila previously taught many of us in training at Mia.
In August we visited the Walker Art Center to see the captivating retrospective of Keith Haring: Art is for Everybody. Filled to capacity of 20, we enjoyed tours with engaging, professional guides who shared interesting stories about Haring’s brief life and exuberant art.
September featured a tour of the innovative photography exhibit JoAnn Verburg: Aftershocks with Casey Riley, who explained the powerful imagery reflecting the artist’s devastating experience while working in Spoleta, Italy, during the earthquakes of 2016. Following a brief tour, we had the special opportunity to join the Friends lecture in Pillsbury Auditorium to hear from the artist herself in a revealing conversation with Elizabeth Armstrong, curator of the exhibition.
In October we visited The Museum of Russian Art (TMORA) and enjoyed the expertise of Mia Guide Margo Squire, who is also a tour guide at TMORA. Her background in Russian diplomacy and history was enlightening as we toured the various exhibitions on view at the time: Women in Soviet Art: 1930-1991, A Thousand Nesting Dolls, and Russian Native Mushrooms: Botanical Watercolors by Alexander Viazmensky.
Our final tour of the season was Mia’s exhibition At the Moulin Rouge given by Galina Olmsted, Associate Curator of European Art. It was a pleasure meeting her, as she recently joined the curatorial staff. She generously shared her knowledge and insight into the colorful world of Toulouse-Lautrec and Parisian nightlife in the late 19th century.
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