Now Where Were We?

What if an art installation bent the rules? What if it questioned the norms of museum practice by replacing its traditional white walls with colorful murals? Or combined artworks not because they came from the same time or place, but because, together, they spoke to universal themes of human existence: people, places, and things?

Artist Dave Muller asks these questions in Now Where Were We?, his temporary re-installation of Mia’s contemporary art galleries. Muller collaborated with Mia’s Curator and Head of Contemporary Art Gabriel Ritter and staff to explore the encyclopedic museum’s vast collection, selecting and combining artworks from disparate times and places. Muller then integrated them into the new visual context of his vivid hand-painted murals. His extensive music collection also streams through a listening station in the galleries, adding to the eclectic atmosphere.

Muller’s murals and artworks span three of Mia’s galleries and will be on view through December 2017. Within the transformed spaces, a 1960s-style smiley face looks over a wall of masks from cultures across the world, a pair of headphones float towards the ceiling behind Nick Cave’s Sound Suit, and Japanese prints from the 1920s and 50s share a wall with a depiction of Mount Rushmore. The re-installation invites visitors to consider these artworks in a new way, beyond their original time and place, and join in the conversations that arise from this new configuration.

Generous support for Now Where Were We? is provided by the Mary Ingebrand-Pohlad Charitable Foundation.

About the artist
Dave Muller (b. 1964, San Francisco, CA) earned his BAS at the University of California, Davis, and his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. Working primarily in acrylic on paper, Muller’s large scale painting and multimedia installations stem from his deep love of music and the communal dialogue it generates across cultures. He has participated in numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including solo shows at the Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Castilla y León, León, Spain; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO.

About Minneapolis Institute of Art
Home to more than 89,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) inspires wonder, spurs creativity, and nourishes the imagination. With extraordinary exhibitions and one of the finest wide-ranging art collections in the country—Rembrandt to van Gogh, Monet to Matisse, Asian to African—Mia links the past to the present, enables global conversations, and offers an exceptional setting for inspiration. General admission to Mia is always free. Some special exhibitions have a nominal admission fee.