Art and Gardens at the fair

The Minnesota State Fair is home to a vast number of artistic displays and gardens for fair guests to view during the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

Fine Arts

The Minnesota State Fair’s Fine Arts Exhibition is the state’s largest juried art show. Winning artworks are displayed every day of the fair in the Fine Arts Center, along with the 2022 State Fair Commemorative Art by Minneapolis artist Leslie Barlow. The special exhibition, Studio: HERE, features a different studio artist at work each day of the fair. Be a Fine Arts Detective quiz rounds out the experience for children and adults, alike.

View the 2022 Fine Arts Exhibition catalog here! Also, learn more about our Fine Arts competition and the Fine Arts Center.

Commemorative Art

The commemorative art program selects an artist each year, and commissions them to create a piece that represents their interpretation of the State Fair.

The 2022 Official Commemorative Art created by Minneapolis Artist Leslie Barlow, is the 18th in a series of artwork created annually by Minnesota artists for the Great Minnesota Get-Together. In past years, artists have included: Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (2004), Mary GrandPré (2005), Nancy Carlson (2006), Michael Birawer (2007), Edie Abnet (2008), Leo Stans (2009), Deborah Voyda Rogers (2010), Steve Thomas (2011), Joe Heffron (2012), Marie Olofsdotter (2013), Emily L. Taylor (2014), Adam Turman (2015), Michael Sweere (2016), Ta-coumba Aiken (2017), Kristi Abbott (2018), R. J. Kern (2019) and Kevin Cannon (2021). Check out gallery of past artwork.

Barlow’s original painting will be on display in the Fine Arts Center during the 2022 Great Minnesota Get-Together.

Joyful World Mural Park

Featuring large-scale artworks painted live by Minnesota artists each day of the fair. Artists create murals that reflect the world they want to live in. Produced in partnership with Forecast Public Art and supported by the Minnesota State Fair Foundation. In 2022, Joyful World Mural Park will be South of the Grandstand, east of Grandstand Ramp. View a map.

This year’s artists:

• Suyao Tian / @suyaotian: Suyao Tian is an artist, designer, and independent curator residing in the Twin Cities. She is also adjunct faculty at Minneapolis College of Art and Design where she completed her MFA in Design in 2017 with Honors. Her paintings have been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions across the US. Along with curating multiple group shows, she owns and runs Viewpoint Gallery. Her works have caught the eye of local and national companies, with her designs applied and sold across a range of product types for clients such as Room & Board, Target, and Merlette NYC, and more.
• Noah Lawrence-Holder / @blormpy: Noah Lawrence-Holder is a black, nonbinary artist from Madison WI, now based in the Twin Cities. Their work centers around racial justice, afro-futurism, intersectionality, and gender identity. They have featured work on walls and in gallery shows across Minneapolis and beyond.
• Danielle Clifford / @cliffordpaints: Danielle Clifford is an Illustrator, Hand-letterer, Painter, and Designer based in Minneapolis, MN. She mostly works digitally, or with watercolor, acrylic or gouache paints for smaller-scale works, but always loves working on large-scale murals and chalkboard murals. She is also a mom of twin two-year-olds and a bonus mom to her former foster daughter. Danielle loves cats, books, legos, all the beverages, and having too many projects going at once.
• Wes Winship / @wzzwnshp: Wes Winship is an Asian American muralist, fine artist, and printmaker with roots in the Twin Cities graffiti and street art scene. Winship co-founded the award-winning graphic arts + screen printing studio Burlesque of North America, Chroma Zone Mural & Arts Festival, and an influential graffiti magazine, LSD, in the late 1990s. As an entrepreneur, he’s built a creative legacy in the Twin Cities and beyond over the past 3 decades. His live painting has been featured at events such as Soundset, X-Games, and Eaux Claires Festival.

Giant Sing Along

Sing in a field of microphones karaoke-style! Visit the Giant Sing Along daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. North of Lee Ave. between Underwood & Cooper streets. Giant Sing Along is a public art project created by Daily tous les jours in co-production of the Minnesota State Fair and the Minnesota State Fair Foundation. Stop by for your chance to sing some hit tunes – view a list of this year’s songs! A special show tunes set plays at noon and 6 p.m.

Art & Sculpture

View a list and map of all the sculptures and art the fair has to offer. Download here.

Gardens

View a list of all the beautiful gardens the fair has to offer. Download here.