Image: Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee
Daniel Minter’s work is highlighted in the Haggerty Museum’s group exhibition ‘Thresholds,’ which is on view through December 19.
The first gallery contains dozens of hand brooms installed in long rows, with scraps of ribbons, cords and braids in many colors and textures binding the small tools together, while raw branches from a fallen tree jut from their tops. The brooms were made during a participatory workshop at Lynden Sculpture Garden in July. Minter calls the sweepers a ‘talisman, tool, and object of remembrance,’ and has long considered the spiritual dimension of items used in daily life.
Minter carves and assembles wood, metal and found objects within Black Atlantic spiritual traditions, describing his art as a ‘technology’ for reaching ancestral strength and knowledge. His work ‘Directionality,’ made in 2025, is an oil-on-carved-wood relief incorporating reclaimed wood, copper, iron and black-eyed peas. Minter co-founded Indigo Arts Alliance, the Portland, Maine, arts incubator.
‘Thresholds’ is organized in partnership with Indigo Arts Alliance, an artist residency and incubator in Portland, Maine, committed to the artistic development of Black and Brown artists. The four artists selected the museum objects that their own pieces will hang beside.
