From Kao Kalia Yang to Queer & Funny Improv: Three Twin Cities arts events to explore this weekend

For centuries, Minnesota artists have depicted the people who call the state home through portraiture. This weekend, the Minnesota History Center brings out select works from its portrait collection for a new exhibition stretching back to the 1850s. 

Also on Saturday, writers and readers converge at St. Paul’s Union Depot for an annual book festival, while local comedians head to the Phoenix Theater for a weekend of workshops and live performances.

170 years of Minnesota life

The Minnesota Historical Society houses an estimated 1,000 portraits dating from the 1850s to the present. Starting Saturday, visitors to the Minnesota History Center can see 68 of them in the new exhibition “See & Be Seen.” 

“We really wanted to allow the collection to speak for itself and to have a collection-forward exhibit,” said Arielle Fields, the Minnesota Historical Society’s fine arts curator. “Portraits can tell us so many things. They’re a reflection of the person and of the artist.” 

For Fields, the most memorable works in the exhibit are those that continue to resonate with viewers today. She points to painter Thomas Cantwell Healy’s 1857 portrait of Minnesota writer Amelia Ullmann. 

Ullmann “came to St. Paul because of her husband’s job. She moved here with her infant son. So did I,” Fields said. “So I feel like Amelia, in her own way, is telling my story.” 

Other works offer different ways of seeing Minnesota and its residents. In photographer Tom Arndt’s “Two Guys at Bde Maka Ska,” two men spend time at the Minneapolis lake. Rose Smith’s 2008 painting “Journey to Minnesota” looks back on her family’s move from Missouri in 1951, when she was a child. The exhibition also features contemporary works by St. Paul artist Seitu K. Jones and Minneapolis artist Leslie Barlow. 

Though separated by decades, viewers might recognize themselves in the portraits of people who lived before them. 

“We’re seeing them and we’re being seen,” Fields said. “There’s this wonderful sort of dance that we’re going through when we’re looking at them.”

Local authors at Union Depot

U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze is coming to St. Paul this Saturday for the Twin Cities Book Festival. He’ll be sharing his global poetry anthology “Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry.” 

The daylong festival at Union Depot will also include panels with Minnesota writers Kao Kalia Yang, Sun Yung Shin, Debra J. Stone and Michael Kleber-Diggs. A book fair will feature more than 150 vendors offering records, magazines, zines, comics and visual art. 

Queer comedy at Phoenix Theater

Jada Pulley, co-founder of the Black & Funny Improv Festival, is bringing the sixth annual Queer & Funny Improv Festival to the Phoenix Theater in Uptown Minneapolis. 

The two-day festival features six improv workshops and 14 live performances. Highlights include “Soap Prov” and “For You, Anything!” —  improv performances where audience members can call out their favorite soap-opera tropes.

Minneapolis comedian Gregory Parks will present “Where I Am Now,” a mostly silent solo performance. On Sunday, Parks will lead a workshop on clowning techniques. Find the full schedule here. 

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