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MINNEAPOLIS -- Quick, name the artsiest city west of the Mississippi.
San Francisco? Los Angeles? If that's what you think, and you wouldn't be alone, noted Minneapolis art collector Ralph Burnet has a bone to pick. Politely, of course. After all, this is the mannerly Midwest.
"I'd put us ahead of both those cities," the real estate mogul declares, standing in the bustling lobby of his latest project, the art-laden Chambers hotel. "I'd say, culturally, we're third in the United States, only behind New York and Chicago. For a city with 3 million people, we have more culture than many cities with 20 million."
A fit of exaggeration? Maybe.
But stroll around Burnet's 3-month-old property in the heart of downtown and you see the beginnings of the argument. Where else will you find a hotel with a bull's head preserved in formaldehyde -- a sculpture by hot British artist Damien Hirst that's worth millions -- right behind the check-in counter? Or a made-to-order wall-length Gary Hume painting in the lobby lounge, right across from a Sam Taylor-Wood video installation?
Burnet, who has amassed one of the nation's top collections of contemporary British art, even gave the hotel a private art gallery with rotating shows from his personal collection that -- so much for so-called Midwestern values -- would make traditionalists cringe. (Nudity, profanity and all-around edginess are mainstays.)
In fact, Minneapolis always has been a mecca for in-the-know culture vultures.
Many connoisseurs consider the innovative Walker Art Center the nation's finest contemporary art institution. And only New York boasts more theater seats per capita.
Still, over the past two years, Minneapolis has taken its underground cultural destination status to a new level -- one that tourism officials hope will bring in a broader audience. More than $500 million in museum and theater space, arty hotels and buzz-worthy restaurants have been added.
Thinking about an art- and theater-filled getaway? You can head for the obvious choices on the coasts. Or, like William Griswold, recently appointed director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, you can take a flyer on a city that just might surprise travelers who have it pegged as a frigid prairie outpost best known for the sprawling Mall of America.
"I didn't know Minneapolis before I started to talk to the trustees about this job," says Griswold, kicking back in his modest office at the museum, which in June unveiled a $50 million expansion designed by Michael Graves. "And I have to say that I was just floored by how wonderful the arts community is."
Griswold, who gave up fast-paced Los Angeles and the acting directorship of the famed Getty Museum to move here a year ago, says something "remarkable" is happening in Minneapolis. The museum's expansion alone brought 40% more floor space for art, making it one of the biggest, most comprehensive U.S. art museums. And two other institutions have undergone transformations over the past 18 months, fueled by multimillion-dollar donations by local art lovers.
The already sizable Walker unveiled a $92 million expansion in April 2005 that doubled its size. In June, the Guthrie Theater, long considered one of the best regional theaters in the nation, moved to a sophisticated, new $125 million complex on the reviving Mississippi riverfront. It houses three theater spaces, restaurants and bars.
Both new buildings are the work of big-name architects: Switzerland's Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron at the Walker and France's Jean Nouvel at the Guthrie; and the buildings are drawing attention for their facades as well as interiors. So are several other recent buildings, including the new Cesar Pelli-designed Public Library, which opened in May, and the Michael Graves-designed Children's Theatre, which opened last October.
They're not the last of the cultural upgrades. Legendary architect Frank Gehry of Guggenheim Bilbao fame has drawn plans for an expansion of the riverfront Weisman Museum, which he designed in 1993 (sometimes called Little Bilbao for its likeness to his masterpiece in Spain). It holds the small but impressive art collection of the University of Minnesota.
The fallout is a city where visitors will find more art, architecture, theater and music than they could digest in a weekend, or even a week, all in a tidy, easy-to-reach and easy-to-navigate metropolis.
"You go to Los Angeles, and, yes, there are great museums, but they're far apart from each other, and you can spend an hour getting between each one," Griswold says. "Here the distance between the Walker and (the Institute of Arts) is, what, five minutes? The scale of the city is just wonderful."
So is the cost for visitors.
Top hotels go for half as much as in New York, and you can park in the heart of downtown for $9 a day. Several leading museums, including the Institute, are free; others charge a pittance compared with the $20-a-person rates of New York.
One of the many cultural bargains on a recent Thursday was at the off-the-beaten-path, 96-seat Pillsbury House Theatre, which was charging $18 to see a locally cast performance of Tracy Letts' Bug, a provocative production that has drawn attention for scenes with full-frontal nudity, overshadowing its focus on drug abuse, domestic violence and mental illness.
"You can really be creative" in Minneapolis, says Faye Price, co-artistic director, after the show's bloody ending. "And you can make a living doing it. There's great support for the arts here."
Minneapolis tolerates artistic explorations that others might find out-of-bounds. Visitors to the expanded Walker will find even more space devoted to some of the art world's edgiest players, including Kara Walker, Matthew Barney, Sherrie Levine and Robert Gober. Other galleries display the Walker's deep holdings of Minimalist art, from Agnes Martin to Donald Judd, as well as works by Arte Povera and Fluxus artists, challenging the New York art world's story line of who's who in 20th-century art.
Which begs the question: What's in the water in Minneapolis?
Parisian Philippe Vergne, the new deputy director at the Walker, who arrives after a stint co-curating New York's Whitney Biennial, thinks the city's cultural strength may have something to do with being in the middle of America.
Far from the cultural meccas of the coasts, Minneapolis from early on had to create its own institutions. And, from its industrialist beginnings as the U.S. center for flour milling (General Mills and Pillsbury, whose giant neon signs still dominate the riverfront), it has had the benefit of a wealthy and art-loving elite.
"There is a tradition of philanthropy," says Vergne, sitting on a wire Bertoia chair in the Walker's snazzy new Wolfgang Puck restaurant. "It's allowed us to develop a very experimental program at every level."
As destinations go, Minneapolis is not without flaws. Probably the best known: its frigid winters, when temperatures hit a soul-numbing average low of 3 degrees by January.
The city's solution has been to build the world's largest complex of heated "skyways," second-floor connectors between buildings. Implemented over the past four decades, they criss-cross 72 blocks of downtown. It was a bold plan, and to its credit, it makes it possible to move from hotels to restaurants to shops in the worst of storms without throwing on a coat.
Unfortunately, by pushing people inside, the skyways have left another legacy: a sometimes abandoned street level. Unlike bustling and vibrant Chicago a few hours to the east, the downtown can resemble a city struck by a neutron bomb that vaporizes living things while leaving inanimate structures standing.
Also a flaw, as Burnet notes, is a fragmented gallery scene, with no main hub such as Chelsea in New York or Old City in Philadelphia.
Still, between his hotel and the expanded museums, the theaters and new restaurants, there is plenty to keep an art lover busy, he says.
"Visitors probably question a lot of it," Burnet says as he walks past one of the 46 flat-screen video monitors that line the interiors of his hotel, broadcasting art videos around-the-clock.
"But that's good. That's what art's all about."
E-mail gsloan@usatoday.com
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