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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 evolution of LaFarge's 'Riot in the Streets'

Pokey LaFarge, who lives in St. Louis, wrote the song in response to the riots in Ferguson, Mo., after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer. He says "the song started getting written about Ferguson, but it is overall touching on a national issue."
by MPR News Staff

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Art Hounds: Funny feminists, and African drumming and dance

Art Hounds: Funny feminists, and African drumming and dance

This week on Art Hounds: Raw Sugar presents "The Funny," Ken McCullough reads poetry in Plainview, and "Wali" celebrates traditional African drumming and dance.
by Marianne Combs

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'So Much Blue' is Percival Everett's best yet

'So Much Blue' is Percival Everett's best yet

By turns funny, shocking and heartbreaking, Everett's new novel follows a painter who's deeply ambivalent about his apparently idyllic life and digs into the moments in his past that shaped him.
by Michael Schaub

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After years of restraint, a linguist says 'yes!' to the exclamation point

After years of restraint, a linguist says 'yes!' to the exclamation point

F. Scott Fitzgerald once declared that using an exclamation point was like laughing at your own joke, but linguist Geoff Nunberg begs to differ. He has begun embracing the mark in his own writing.
by Geoff Nunberg

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Tracy K. Smith named new U.S. poet laureate

Tracy K. Smith named new U.S. poet laureate

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet says she plans to use her new role to meet people who don't read poetry ... yet, anyway. She believes poetry can be a resource for people in fraught or isolating times.

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In new novel, 'Ove' author takes on hockey-town culture

In new novel, 'Ove' author takes on hockey-town culture

"Beartown" ponders "the things that we let successful people get away with, just because they are important to us."
by Euan Kerr

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Southern cooking: 'People of color didn't get the respect they earned'

Southern cooking: 'People of color didn't get the respect they earned'

In his new book, John T. Edge writes that food plays a central role in Southern identity, but African-American and immigrant cooks have often been left out of the stories the South tells about itself.
by Maria Godoy

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Prog rock gets some respect in 'The Show That Never Ends'

Prog rock gets some respect in 'The Show That Never Ends'

David Weigel is primarily a political reporter, but in "The Show that Never Ends" he spins his love of prog rock into a detailed, affectionate history of a genre that's never completely gone away.
by Jason Heller

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'Last Kid Left' is a summer read for people who hate the light

'Last Kid Left' is a summer read for people who hate the light

Rosecrans Baldwin's new novel probably shouldn't have come out in summer: It's got the trappings of a beach read -- a shore town, tourists, a murder -- but it strays into some very dark territory.
by Jason Sheehan

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