That there’s more to ancient American art than simple pottery and whittled sticks is wholly evident in the MIA’s impressive collection of early masterpieces. Recently returned from a yearlong tour of French museums, the exhibit highlights 180 artifacts from all across pre-Columbian America, ranging in media from jade to gold to wood to stone. That’s a lot of territory to cover, and Sacred Symbols does its best to school you in the wide range of expression displayed by the Incan, Mayan, and other cultures represented here. Many of the items have particular religious or political significance, but they’re beautiful and complex on their own terms. And the personality on display is striking: the red ceramic statue of a Peruvian nobleman with a stern and staring face, the smiling Mexican dog who might have been the storm god’s pet, the enigmatic (and to us, a little creepy) baby-like figurine made by the Olmec people.
MIA, 2400 Third Ave. S., (612) 870-3131, www.artsmia.org
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