Mia and French museum launch transatlantic art exchange with ‘Flying Colors’ exhibition

The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) and the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole (MAMC+) are launching their first transatlantic collection exchange, with a major exhibition of American art opening in southern France next week.

“Flying Colors: A Dialogue with the Collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art” opens June 27 at MAMC+ and runs through January 3, 2027. The exhibition brings together 164 works by 46 American artists drawn from both institutions’ collections, tracing major currents in American art from 1950 to the present.

The exchange was facilitated by FRAME (FRench American Museum Exchange), a nonprofit network linking 31 major museums across France and North America. It represents the first formal collaboration between Mia and MAMC+ and is intended to establish a framework for future partnerships between the two institutions.

Conceived and curated by Aurélie Voltz, director of MAMC+, the show unfolds across six thematic sections, encompassing artists associated with Black Mountain College and the Federal Art Project, Color Field Painting and the Washington Color School, Minimalism, Pop Art and Postmodernism, and works engaging questions of freedom, identity and protest.

Artists represented include Josef Albers, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Philip Guston, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Catherine Opie, Lorna Simpson, Robert Rauschenberg, Kiki Smith, Andy Warhol and David Wojnarowicz, among others.

The exhibition’s title derives from an airplane painted in bold colors by Alexander Calder, an image that captures the transatlantic spirit at the core of the project.

“Mia has long believed that American art is best understood in conversation with the world, not in isolation from it,” said Katie Luber, Mia’s Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President. “Seeing our collection placed alongside MAMC+’s in Saint-Étienne and Mia’s future presentation of works from MAMC+ is exactly the kind of partnership that deepens what museums can offer their communities.”

MAMC+ has collected American art since the early 1970s, building one of the most significant holdings in France, now numbering nearly 500 works. Mia’s collection spans more than 100,000 works across 5,000 years of world art history. Together, the two institutions are mounting a reading of American art that neither could produce independently.

“Flying Colors” opens as part of MAMC+’s American Season, a broader program marking the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. A companion exhibition, “Frank Stella: Minimal / Maximal,” runs concurrently at MAMC+ through January 3, 2027.

“What makes this project significant is not just the exhibition itself, but the commitments behind it,” said William Beekman, FRAME Co-President, North America. “A genuine exchange means both institutions take the risk of lending, and both audiences benefit. This collaboration is the commitment we set out to build when FRAME was founded. This is that model working.”

Founded 27 years ago, FRAME has facilitated 37 exhibitions, 10 online programs and 15 cultural mediation projects between its member institutions in France, the United States and Canada.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, co-published by MAMC+ and Les Commissaires Anonymes. Edited by Voltz, the volume includes essays by Voltz and MAMC+ collections curator Zoé Marty, along with approximately 30 entries on key works. The catalog is available in French and English editions at approximately €25.