I've only been to Minneapolis once, so I don't claim to be an expert on the place. I was there long enough, however, to note that it is a great city, a fun city, and a city that values the arts. I visited two excellent art venues while I was in town.

The Walker Art Center is generally considered to be the best contemporary art center in the Midwest. They have a superb permanent collection, but some of their temporary shows were a little too contemporary for my tastes. I preferred the exhibitions they had on older artists who straddle the line between modern and postmodern, like Jasper Johns. That's just a personal preference on my part. Across the street from the museum is the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, a beautiful park chock-full of works by contemporary artists. The most famous piece is the "Spoonbridge and Cherry Fountain" (pictured) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

I also went to the Weisman Art Museum on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Like most college art museums, it's doesn't have a lot of square footage in terms of gallery space, but this museum crams a lot of quality work into the space they've got. The building itself (pictured below) is a tremendous work of art, designed by Frank Gehry, probably the most famous American architect of the moment. Inside the museum, some pieces of art that stand out in my mind are a huge mural by James Rosenquist, quite a large number of paintings by Marsden Hartley, and an installation by Ed Kienholz.

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