Let's Work! The People's Museum for Prince comes to the Capri

Doves Cry, Myc Dazzle, 2024. On view at the Capri (see below for installation view)

Exciting news: The People's Museum for Prince is coming to North Minneapolis across two venues — Roberts Gallery, opening June 7, Prince's birthday, and our new partner the Capri, with an exhibition already on view and a special artists' reception and film night June 10.

We have over 60 confirmed participants and work is arriving daily ahead of our June 7 official opening. The museum is taking shape.

As the site of Prince's first gig in January 1979, the Capri holds a special place in his story, and in ours. The Capri is hosting a special exhibition of selected works from the People's Museum for Prince.

Let's Work! A Labor of Love is already on view. (We've been busy this past week — see installation shot.) Prince was famously disciplined and famously prolific, leaving behind a legendary body of work and the belief that serious art demands serious commitment. This exhibition honors that same spirit: the labor of love, the weight of time, a deep dedication to craft. Like the museum itself, the works gathered here are acts of sustained devotion. You will find 15,000 hand-sewn seed beads; a decades-long project of meticulous sculptural portraiture; a fabric tribute laden with carefully chosen Prince references. A digital portrait rooted in years of deep learning AI research. A joyful dance tribute crafted through countless hours of preparation. And a photograph that appears effortless — made possible by a lifetime behind the lens. In many ways, these works feel like gifts back to Prince from artists whose creative lives he helped to shape.

How will it work across two venues?

The Capri exhibition is up and on view and you can visit during any events (check their calendar, including Capri Arts Festival on June 6) and you can also request to view by appointment. For groups of 3 or more we can arrange a curator visit where possible. You can even take a look from the street anytime.

The Roberts Gallery is our main exhibition space (more than 40 artists and stories!) and our official opening is June 7, Prince's birthday.

We encourage visitors to see both locations, which are just a few minutes' drive apart.

Both shows are up till June 27.

Forever in My Life: An evening of film, Art & Music June 10 at Capri

The Capri will also host a special evening of film and community gathering on June 10, 5:30pm: Forever in My Life, an evening of film, art and live music. More info coming soon.

Prince week in June

Any Prince lover considering being in Minneapolis in the first week of June might be feeling simultaneously deliriously excited and totally overwhelmed right now with all the events tumbling on top of each other.

Personally it's too much. However, given it's Prince's birthday and it's ten years since his passing, it seemed only right we open now.

Advice for introverts: proceed safely to the People's Museum for calm respite.

What to expect at The People's Museum

We open on Prince's birthday, at the end of an intensely busy week of Prince activities across the city. As a grassroots initiative, we are not seeking large crowds or dance parties. The museum is a quiet sanctuary. It is a space for reflection, for sharing your stories with the community, for remembering what Prince meant to you and to the world.

This is the People's Museum for Prince, and I mean that in the truest sense. In the end, it is an offering from many contributors back to the artist — to say thank you, and to bear witness to his impact on so many lives.

It's also the People's Museum — it's for you.

Grassroots. This is what a counter-museum looks like.

People ask how we are funded and supported. The People's Museum for Prince is community-powered. There is no institution behind it, no grant, no staff, promotion or event budget. As a counter-museum, it exists entirely through the labor of love, created for and by the community. Participation in the museum has always been free and always will be.

Please know that participation is the most valuable contribution: showing up, viewing the art, reading the stories, meeting others doing the same — this is how a project like this comes into being.

Bring to life the vision in one's mind

Of course we want to dance to all the hits and celebrate every wondrous thing about Prince the icon, the megastar, the Purple Rain in a downpour guitar-shredding musical genius. But there's something more too that people want to share when they tell me their Prince stories, about why he mattered to them personally, about his influence on their lives.

The quiet personal stories of the way he entered our lives and lived alongside us and showed us something new, and kept us going and sometimes even alive when our immediate community couldn't help.

Of course, the museum doesn't speak for all the millions of people who dwell in the land of Prince. 60+ participants is both a substantial gathering to represent across a couple of gallery spaces, and at the same time a tiny glimmering speck in the purple ocean.

Why the Butterflies

We can't capture all the ways Prince mattered, but I hope together our collective efforts act as a kind of holographic portrait. When I think of how many lives would be entirely different without him — it's as staggering as the butterfly effect: the idea that a single butterfly flapping its wings might set in motion a tornado on the other side of the world. I think too of Minneapolis' annual Monarch festival, where I learnt from a teenage expert guide last September that an estimated 50 million Monarch butterflies fly south from Minnesota on their long 2,300 mile migration south to Mexico for the winter. Why The Butterflies is now playing in my head: I love its ineffable, unfinished mystery. It feels kind of private, Prince at home exploring, like he turned on the tape and forgot about it. As elusive, and filled with yearning as the quest to honor an artist in the wake of his departure.

Let's honor Prince and all the ways he changed our lives. Let's celebrate how one artist resonates through space and time and lives on through us. Prince's life and work brought us joy and wonder, and sometimes even offered a lifeline: helping us all get through this thing called life.

Capri installation, a work in progress! With artist Suzanne Wint, whose quilt is among the works on view.

Meet me in Another World, Space and Joy

I hope you will join us in Minneapolis this June. And if you can't, we'll look forward to sharing updates and creating a beautiful online archive to share.

Let's Work! A Labor of Love — Capri Theatre, 2027 W Broadway Ave, North Minneapolis On view now through June 27 | Open during Capri events and by appointment Groups of 3 or more: exhibition@peoplesmuseumforprince.org

Forever in My Life —evening of art, film and music. June 10, 5:30pm, Capri Theatre | Tickets: peoplesmuseumforprince.org

Opening June 7, 2–6pm. Main exhibition — Roberts Gallery

2400 Plymouth Ave N, North Minneapolis

Open Wed–Sun 12–5pm through June 27 and by appointment.

All exhibitions free. peoplesmuseumforprince.org