You walk into one gallery entrance at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum and the first things you see are a Zamboni and the turreted building from Third and Walnut, the downtown "castle" where Toppers sells pizza. Next to them is a newsstand with free copies of a paper called the Center for Third Street Furtherings. As the Winona Post reported from the show's opening weekend, the first edition carries drawings by Emermit O. Thompson, Jr., owner of Tom's Lock Service.
The exhibition is Andy DuCett: Home(town), and it runs at 800 Riverview Drive through January 24, 2027. DuCett grew up in Winona and now works out of Minneapolis. MPR News called the show "a valentine to his hometown," built from installations that fit together like theater sets.
Some of these sets bring back places that closed years ago. Others copy businesses still operating a short drive from the museum. The show treats both kinds the same way, so you can use the gallery as a list of which pieces of Winona you can still walk into.
A hometown rebuilt by seven artists
The museum describes the project as a set of new site-specific installations that "start in the galleries but extend beyond the walls of the museum and into Winona, his hometown community." It also says DuCett's work "is often an invitation to literally participate." DuCett didn't make it alone. He invited Mark Dion, Allen Brewer, Carolyn Swiszcz, Deb Sokolow, Eric Carroll and Trever Hagen to bring their own work into the show.
Speaking to MPR, DuCett described Winona as two things at once:
"It talks about Winona as a small town on a river, as kind of an 'Every Space, U.S.A,' but also some of the particularities of Winona and its architecture and its histories and all those sorts of things rolled up into one."
The particular part is what a resident will recognize. MPR describes the town's "unseen inhabitants" leaving traces of daily life around the sets, such as new issues of the local paper. The Winona Post reported that DuCett plans to keep publishing new editions of the Center for Third Street Furtherings and keep changing the exhibit until it closes. So a visit in November may look different from a visit in January.
The scenes you can only visit in the gallery
Two of the places in Home(town) exist now only as memories, and the show is the closest you can get to them.
The Hot Fish Shop. Henry and Helen Kowalewski served the first meal on Christmas night 1931. Pike fillets and fries cost 35 cents. According to the Winona Daily News "Pieces of the Past" series, the family business grew into a large venue with a bar and an entertainment room called the Fisherman's Lounge. It operated from 1931 to 1999 at Mankato Avenue and U.S. Highway 61. A Dairy Queen stands on the site now. The memorabilia auction on October 30, 2000, drew one last crowd.
Video Vision. This one closed more recently. Visit Winona says the rental store served the area from the early 1980s through 2019. The building at 722 Bluffview Circle has since been turned into four lodging spaces. So the building is still there, but the store is gone, and the gallery version is the only place left to browse its shelves.
The scenes that are still open
Everything else DuCett chose is still around. Here is each scene matched to the real place:
| Scene in Home(town) | The real place | Status | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Hot Fish Shop | Kowalewski family restaurant, 1931 to 1999 | Closed; a Dairy Queen is on the site | Mankato Avenue and U.S. Highway 61 |
| Video Vision | Video rental store, early 1980s to 2019 | Closed; now four lodging spaces | 722 Bluffview Circle |
| Rocco's booth | Rocco's Pub & Pizza, since 1958 | Open, two locations | 477 W. Fifth Street, Winona; 5242 W. Sixth Street, Goodview |
| Penguin Zestos | Walk-up burger and ice cream stands | East Third stand open summers only as of 2023; Goodview opens earlier in the year | 602 E. Third Street; second stand at 5355 W. Sixth Street, Goodview |
| The "castle" | Building at Third and Walnut | Houses Toppers | Third and Walnut streets |
| The newsstand's first artist | Tom's Lock Service, since 1969 | Active locksmith | 215 E. Third Street |
A few of these have histories longer than the gallery has room for.
Rocco's dates to 1958. Thomas "Rocco" Barth and his wife Betty opened it as Rocco's Pizzeria on King Street, and for a time the restaurant was also the family home. The Winona Post reported that a pizza cost one dollar that first year. The booth in the museum stands for a business that has now served Winona for 68 years.
Tom's Lock Service has its own family story. The company's history page says E.O. Thompson Sr. started the business in June 1969 and sold it to his son in 1983. Before that, the storefront housed Gus's Shoe Repair, whose owner also worked as a locksmith in the 1950s. That puts locksmithing on the same block of Third Street for roughly seven decades. Now the current owner's drawings are on the front page of a museum newspaper.
Penguin Zesto is still drawing visitors this fall. A MinnPost writer covering the show stopped at the stand during a September visit to taste its "rockets." When the Winona Journal wrote about the business in 2023, the East Third and Carimona stand was open summers only, and the Goodview stand opened earlier in the year. Check hours before you plan a November trip around either one.
Third Street is the real exhibit
Three of the six real places are on East Third Street: Penguin Zesto at 602, Tom's Lock at 215, and the castle at Walnut. The paper at the gallery door is named for the street. When DuCett talked with the Winona Post about coming back as an adult, he described going into the storefronts on Third Street and driving down streets he had never been down as a teenager:
"I got to see [Winona] more deeply than I did as a resident because I wasn't looking at it the same way."
He also told the paper what he hopes people take home:
"I hope when they're on Third Street, they look up and it was the cornices rather than just, you know, look ahead as they're walking around."
MMAM Director of Engagement Dave Casey told the Post the show also gets visitors talking about their own hometowns. If you want to know more about what's above those storefronts, our guide to architectural styles you'll see in Winona covers the building types along Third Street and the historic core.
When to go before January 24
The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's closed Mondays and federal holidays and stays open until 8 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month. General admission is $12, $10 for visitors 62 and older, $7 for students, and free for members. Students from kindergarten through college get in free every Thursday, and so do children five and under. These dates tie into the show:
- Saturday, November 14: Fall Seasonal Saturday. Admission is $1 for everyone and free for members. The theme, "River Town Remix," is built around Home(town). The art-making room opens early at 9:30 a.m. as a quieter space, the galleries and other activities open at 10, activities wrap up at 4 p.m., and the galleries stay open until 5. All day in the Oberton Education Room, visitors of any age can make "Hometown Felt Foods." From noon to 4 p.m., DuCett will be in the Home(town) gallery giving an artist demonstration. Community partner artist Felicia Cooper will also be there to talk about her upcoming MMAM exhibition, Archive of Significant Objects. For that project, people bring an object, get interviewed, and see it shown in a community-curated cabinet.
- Thursday, November 19, and Thursday, December 17: Third Thursdays. Late hours and $5 admission. The featured programs on those nights aren't part of Home(town), but the galleries are open, so it's a cheap evening to see the show.
- Friday, December 11, 11 a.m. to noon: "Just Looking: A Gallery Conversation." A curator leads a discussion inside Home(town). Tickets are $10, or $5 for students and members, and gallery admission is separate.
- Sunday, January 24, 2027: Closing day.
Museum schedules and prices can change, so check mmam.org before you go. If you're going on November 14, you could pick up a pizza at Rocco's on West Fifth on the way home.
If the show has you thinking about a Third Street storefront block, a street near the river, or a house a short drive from Rocco's, Julie Delap knows Winona block by block. Schedule a consultation and we'll start with the parts of town that matter to you.
