- I'm looking out of the second floor window of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and I can see my childhood church across the park.

Over the years, both of these buildings have been a place of salvation.

When I was a kid, the church provided solace, a light to follow and other times by placing me within the mystery.

And there are days now when work or life get to be too much and that's when I go to the museum and it gives me a new perspective.

There always seems to be a piece of art waiting there to help.

Today it starts with a white marble sculpture, Kiss of Victory by Sir Alfred Gilbert.

It's a life-sized warrior caught in the heat of battle and behind him a winged angel at once pursuing and urging him onward, the ethereal wings of victory.

So I take my first lap around the work.

Now my college professor, Paul Grandlin told me, "A good sculpture is something you wanna walk around."

Every perspective brings a new story, and it's remarkable how the marble seems to transfer the look and feel of skin but not real skin.

It's beyond real, ideal real.

And the angel is how victory is supposed to feel.

Pure trajectory and momentum, no sense of loss yet.

(calm music) The adjacent room features a Diane Arbus photograph of two nudists relaxing at home.

The couple in the photograph stare directly at us and have very different bodies than the ones in Winged Victory.

They aren't perfect, and oh and they're wearing shoes.

Now, since this is a photograph and two-dimensional, Arbus has chosen our perspective for us.

The starkness heightened by the black and white print.

Her work will confront and challenge, but these folks in the photo, they're at home, they're in the world, they look content and unashamed.

Their front door is open, like, come on in.

With Arbus' work, if there is discomfort, it seems to come not from the subjects but from what we bring to the work.

Now as I look at the photograph, somebody steps in front of me.

This is my favorite part of being in a museum, other people.

I mean, real flesh and blood.

They unknowingly become exhibits The woman stands between me and the photograph, and although she's in more ways closer in appearance to the Arbus than the Winged Victory, I'm reminded of how beautiful humans actually are.

There's something that we really can't capture.

So behind me is the perfection of Winged Victory, before me stands the woman, and beyond her, the Arbus nudes stare out of their normal day at home.

Oh, and through the window across the street, that's God's house.

(calm music) - [Announcer] This program was produced in collaboration with the Center for the Art of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

And funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(calm music)