Special Exhibits
The former packing floor of the mill, now Mill Commons, now features the museum store, cafe, changing exhibits, and visitor information. The exhibits are free to the public during regular museum hours and change two to three times per year.
These exhibits are unavailable during the Mill City Farmers Market indoor markets, March 15, April 5, 19 from 10 am to 1 pm.
Current exhibit
Minnesota Cityscapes by Mike Melman
February 20 – May 11, 2025
This exhibit features 20 paintings by the late painter, photographer, and architect Mike Melman, capturing Minnesota urban and small town scenes in the quiet hours of dawn or evening. The exhibit is free and open to the public in the museum’s main lobby (Mill Commons) during regular museum hours from February 20, 2025 to May 11, 2025.
Trained in his native New York City as artist and architect, Mike Melman moved to Minnesota in 1972. Arriving by train on the Stone Arch Bridge, Melman was enchanted by the Minneapolis milling district and soon began photographing the rapidly disappearing urban landscape of Minnesota. His black and white photographs, typically taken as the rest of the city slept, invited viewers to appreciate the beauty and significance of overlooked places like train yards, factories, and shipyards. These photographs are in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Minnesota Historical Society, and were published in the book The Quiet Hours: City Photographs by Mike Melman in 2003.
Later in his life Melman revisited his old negatives and found scenes he thought could tell a better story with acrylics. The results were gritty and mysterious cityscapes largely devoid of people, automobiles and trees. This exhibit is a selection of these paintings including scenes of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth/Superior, Little Falls, Albert Lea, and Brainerd. Since Mike’s death in 2021, his widow, Lotte Melman has been donating his work to institutions like the Minnesota Historical Society and Hennepin History Museum. The paintings in this exhibit are on loan from Lotte Melman and are available for purchase by contacting her at melmanlieselotte@gmail.com.
Mill City Museum previously exhibited “The Quiet Hours: City Photographs by Mike Melman” from November 7, 2003 – May 2, 2004.
Upcoming exhibit
Going Out, Coming In: LGBTQ+ Spaces in Downtown Minneapolis
May 15, 2025 - July 6, 2025
Going Out, Coming In brings to life the sights, heart, and energy of Downtown Minneapolis’s LGBTQ+ community spaces in their first decades.The exhibit details queer resistance, love, and identity formation amid the evolution of the neighborhood through the 20th century. The exhibit features sites where queer people found or created community while addressing the systemic challenges of legal and extralegal discrimination, urban renewal, and HIV/AIDS. This was previously on view at MCM in 2023 and 2024.