The Object

Season 8 of The Object begins March 16! All-new episodes, bonus content, and more about the almost famous, the nearly lost, and more surprising true stories at the intersection of art and history. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode!

Now, enjoy the second in our bonus series of Fireside Stories: The incredible, fast, and forgotten life of painter Bob Thompson. The original Basquiat, seeming to come out of nowhere with sold-out shows of his colorful remixes of Old Masters. Riding with the Beat poets in the race to live all of life all at once. And leaving behind several lifetimes' worth of work—in just a few years.

You can see Thompson's Homage to Nina Simone, a reimagining of Nicolas Poussin's Bacchanal with Lute-Player, from about 1630, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

This rollicking, sold-out live show of The Object podcast was recorded February 7, 2026, at the Minneapolis Institute of Art with host Tim Gihring and musical guest jeremy messersmith. It's our Valentine's show, with quizzes, storytelling, and curator conversation all about the gods in—and often out of—love. 

Messersmith, a NPR Tiny Desk alum whose new song F••• This has become a viral hit, performs a choice selection of tunes about our tragicomic relationship with the heart, plays a quiz, and talks about the ideal love song. European art curator Rachel McGarry explains why we remain enamored of classical myths. And Gihring spins a story of Eros and Psyche across thousands of years.

A big thank-you to messersmith, McGarry, and show runner Dexter Carlson, who donned an inflatable plastic cupid-bear costume for her welcome remarks that probably should have remained petroleum. 

Our season 8 premiere is just weeks away in mid-March! Subscribe so you never miss an episode and keep an eye out for the next live taping sometime in May.

One month to go until the new season of The Object premieres! Subscribe so you don't miss it, and in the meantime enjoy bonus and encore episodes like this one from early in The Object archives.

William Edmondson is a middle-aged laborer in Nashville, Tennessee, at the height of the Great Depression, when God tells him to carve a tombstone. Soon, he's the first African American artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. But his celebrity is strangely short-lived, and only much later does the real story of his rise and fall from the heights of the art world come to light. You can see one of his many sculptures of a ram, of the Dorset sheep variety local to Tennessee, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Free tickets are going fast for the next live taping of The Object podcast with special guest jeremy messersmith on February 7 in Mia’s historic Pillsbury Auditorium. A Valentine's show with jeremy performing live, storytelling, and "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" style quizzes, all about the art of love. It’s The Object LIVE!—everything you love about the podcast, live on stage. Reserve your free tickets here or at the Tickets page at artsmia.org.

Now on with the show: Wanda Gág was the original celebrity cat mom. The talented, bob-sporting, fiercely independent illustrator and author of Millions of Cats, a book that essentially invented the children’s genre and made her famous. She was every woman who liked men just fine but refused to build her life around them. Guest host Lizzi Ginsberg looks back at the surprising life and work she did create in the 1920s and ’30s, as she moved between Minnesota and New York.

You can see Gág’s marvelous self-portrait now on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, along with Roaring Twenties art in “Gatsby at 100.” And many other prints by her in the collection.

Free tickets are going fast for our next live taping of The Object podcast with special guest musician Jeremy Messersmith, quizzes, and storytelling—all about the art of love. February 7 at 2PM in the historic Pillsbury Auditorium at our home museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A place to come together in love, beauty, and reflection. Get tickets and details at the Tickets page at Artsmia.org.

Now on with the show: Given the start to this year, we’re trying something—a series of bonus episodes called Fireside Stories. Slow down, get comfortable, and enjoy a short, reflective, AMSR-filled episode on the “gods of compassion,” the bodhisattvas who put others’ needs above their own, even if it means delaying their own nirvana.

There are quite a number of bodhisattvas on view right now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the special exhibition “Royal Bronzes: Cambodian Art of the Divine,” on view through January 18.