It was a December day in 2024 and Danny Klecko was alone in Gallery 357 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, looking at a painting of Jesus surrounded by the brokenhearted.
“I remember saying to Jesus, “Give me 100 hours and watch what I am going to do for you,” Klecko recalls.
Klecko, a poet who has written more than 15 books, kept his word with a project he calls Exhausting Jesus.
Inspired by the New York Times’ 10-Minute Challenge, which invites people to look at a painting for 10 minutes, Klecko decided, as usual, to go bigger by spending 100 hours viewing Ary Scheffer’s 1851 painting “Christus Consolator” at MIA, completing the project last Sunday. The copy of Scheffer’s popular painting, valued at worth more than $30,000, was found in a storage closet in Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Dassel, Minn., and later donated to MIA.
Klecko and Exhausting Jesus intrigued Larry Buchanan, a New York Times reporter and graphics editor who selects artwork for the Times’ 10-Minute Challenge, so he flew into Minneapolis last weekend to interview Klecko and his wife, Erica Christ, on the last day of the project.
Klecko had never met Buchanan, but that didn’t stop him from sending an email at the beginning of the project explaining that he was a master bread baker for more than 40 years and a poet who didn’t finish high school, and how the 10-Minute Challenge inspired Exhausting Jesus. (Klecko used the same “you-don’t-know-me-but” message when he sent his first poem to Buchanan’s colleague Ed Shanahan, who has published nine of Klecko’s poems in the Times’ Metropolitan Diary feature.)
“During the course of my project, I kept inviting Buchanan to Minneapolis to spend an hour with Jesus and me,” Klecko said. “He kept telling me to keep him in the loop and as the hours ticked down to 100, he said he was coming for the final hour.”
Klecko and Christ, who were married in August, had a wonderful time with the recently wed Buchanan.
“Larry was great,” Klecko says. “When you do emails you never know what to expect. I expected a literary kind of guy, but Larry looks like a young Russell Crowe. He’s funny and at ease. I have dealt with a lot of reporters and can’t recall being in the company of someone who was so comfortable with himself — relaxed, on point, professional.”
Klecko and Buchanan spent several hours at MIA with Buchanan filming their interview. With them was Heather Hofmeister, MIA public relations manager, one of the museum’s staff with whom Klecko formed friendly connections, including Galina Olmsted, associate curator of European art. He knows the guards and the information desk folks who got used to answering visitors’ questions about “the 100-hour painting” or “the 100-hour man.”
Buchanan asked to see Klecko’s notes for the book he’s writing about the Exhausting Jesus project. They walked to Klecko and Christ’s nearby house to grab Klecko’s computer and allow Buchanan to be a hero to the family dog, FiFi, because he had treats.
“I showed Larry my notebook on the computer, explaining the book is practically finished,” Klecko recalled. “People don’t realize that after each viewing session I spent several hours writing a synopsis of what happened that day.”
Klecko and Christ took Buchanan to the Black Forest Inn in Minneapolis, owned by Christ’s family, where Buchanan and Klecko played an impromptu game.
“Larry would challenge me to read at random from my notebook, like viewing hour number 32,” Klecko says with amusement. “So I’d read it to him and everyone in the restaurant. It must have been a surreal experience for him to be in an Old World restaurant listening to a big Polish guy wearing pink plastic pants and a raggedy hoodie.”
Buchanan emailed the Pioneer Press that he had “a fantastic time” with Klecko and Christ.
“The hour-plus we stood and talked in front of the painting he’s chosen flew by and included a number of strangers who decided to join in. I was very moved by the way Danny spoke of his time at the museum, especially when he spoke about what he views as his two jobs as a poet — ‘to observe and to love’ — and how his experiences strengthen his commitment to both.”
Looking back at Jesus
Minnesota poet Danny Klecko, left, with New York Times reporter Larry Buchanan at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025. Inspired by the New York Times’ 10-Minute Challenge, which invites people to look at a painting for 10 minutes, Klecko decided, as usual, to go bigger by spending 100 hours viewing Ary Scheffer’s 1851 painting “Christus Consolator” at the museum in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Erica Christ)
For Klecko, who’s 62, Exhausting Jesus taught some personal lessons.
“The main thing I learned is that no matter how much I focus or attention I pay to something, there is so much I am missing,” he admits. “There are things in life I might miss, just like looking at the painting. For instance, it took somewhere around hour 68 for my wife and I to notice stigmata on Jesus’ chest.”
Buchanan asked Erica Christ, who was with her husband for about 30 viewing hours, what she thought about the project. Her no-nonsense reply: “I never liked that painting.”
Klecko admits he was somewhat surprised at people’s interest as the project got more publicity, including an article picked up by PBS.
“Around hour 50 or so an entourage started to form around me, which was nice,” he recalls. “By hours 85 and 90 people came out of the woodwork. When Buchanan was here Sunday, I purposely selected a time at MIA I had never gone before because I wanted privacy. But people waited around throughout the day. People mean well and are gracious. They want to support what I am doing and be part of it. Two years ago I began having poems published in the New York Times. Now I have a writer flying across the country to be with me. I’m not bragging, but I’m in the company of two Times staff members.”
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Now that Exhausting Jesus is completed (except for finishing the book), Klecko says he feels calm and happy at being surrounded by people who wanted respectful conversation about what could be seen as a controversial painting because some of the figures surrounding Jesus were victims of war or atrocities.
“At no time did people get angry or out of control, which could have happened in a political or religious environment,” he says. “Now I have lost my faith in religion and politics. With all my heart I believe the only way to save ourselves is through art.”
Klecko’s book, titled “Exhausting Jesus at Minneapolis Institute of Art,” will be published in spring by Julie Pfitzinger’s Twin Cities-based Paris Morning Publications.
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