Arts and Culture

MPR News has you covered with news and stories about local art and culture happenings across Minnesota.

Art Hounds: Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what's exciting in local art. You can explore arts events here, or become an Art Hound today.

Art Reviews: Our arts team offers insight on the latest in theater, music, visual arts and more. We explore the breadth of creativity and innovation found throughout Minnesota, offering audiences a deeper understanding of the works and artists shaping our cultural landscape. Read more here.

Art Friend: Everyone needs an art friend. Art Friend is a new segment with our arts team. Art spaces can feel exclusive and art can be confusing, obtuse, and even boring. But, especially with the right context, everyone can be a critic. So let us be your guide- your Art Friend. Listen or read Art Friend stories here.

Our arts coverage is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment's Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.

The weird world of 'Cosmogony' is immensely inviting
In her first collection, Lucy Ives proves herself — and we mean this as a compliment — a real literary weirdo. Her stories are strange without ever performing strangeness, baffling yet precise.
Inside the fight for the right to die: Logistical and ethical challenges
Katie Engelhart explores the complexity of physician-assisted death in the book The Inevitable. She says patients seeking to end their own lives sometimes resort to veterinary drugs from overseas.
The victims, rather than the killer, are at the center of 'Last Call'
The victims of the man dubbed the "Last Call Killer" were all gay men; Elon Green tries to shine a light onto their complicated lives, the messiness of who they were, and an era of queer life in NYC.
A small village takes on big oil in 'How Beautiful We Were'
Imbolo Mbue's new novel is set in an unnamed country that could be any West African nation beset by international oil companies — and yet, it's a story of rebellion and rebirth, not calamity.
CRISPR scientist's biography explores ethics of rewriting the code of life
“The Code Breaker” profiles Jennifer Doudna, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist key to the development of CRISPR, and examines the technology's exciting possibilities and need for oversight.
Ep. 13: Be the change!
The warm weather has us thinking about all the ch-ch-ch-changes on our horizon, admittedly some closer than others.
Author explores preacher father's silence on racial injustice in 1960s Alabama
After Pulitzer Prize-winner John Archibald read sermons from his father's time as a Methodist preacher, he went on a quest to find out why his dad, a devout man, didn't speak out publicly on racism.
'Once Upon A Quinceañera' has fairy tale charm
Monica Gomez-Hira's debut novel follows a Miami teen whose job as a party princess brings her into contact with the ex who ruined her chance to have her own quinceañera — and of course, sparks fly.
'This is the reality of Black girls': Inauguration poet says she was tailed by guard
Amanda Gorman, who became a sensation after her poem at Joe Biden's inauguration, says a security guard outside her building told her she looked "suspicious." After the encounter she wrote: “This is the reality of Black girls: One day you're called an icon, the next day, a threat.”
Reclaiming family and memory in 'Sparks Like Stars'
Nadia Hashimi's new novel follows an Afghan woman who escaped the murder of her family during a coup. Her comfortable life in New York City is turned upside down when a figure from the past reappears.