Art:Forward Gala
Thank you
Thank you to everyone who celebrated with us at the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Art:Forward Gala on Saturday, September 21, 2024. The Museum was proud to pay tribute to internationally acclaimed artist Robert Longo and introduce the community to the featured artists Gretchen Bender, Colin Hunt, Jon Kessler, and Billie Zangewa. It was an incredibly memorable event that brought meaningful philanthropic support to the Museum’s renowned contemporary art program.
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the Museum raised $1.2 million in celebration of Robert Longo, his iconic career, and his inspiring work. We look forward to the opening of Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History in late October and to welcoming art lovers to the Museum to experience the power and technical precision of our honoree’s monumental artwork firsthand.
Gretchen Bender
Gretchen Bender (1951–2004) was an influential figure in late 20th-century American art as a member of the Pictures Generation and a key observer of the effects of the inundation of mass media on the human experience. She adopted cutting-edge technologies, moving from silkscreens and photographs to video, broadcast media and computer graphics. For her, it was not enough for appropriation strategies to only recontextualize images; they also had to be hyper-current and immediately relevant so as to subvert, and affect, the culture as it was developing.
Twenty years after her death, Bender’s works still function to critique the violence and spectacle in mass communications, as well as the loss of empathy and political agency in the age of corporate media. Simultaneously entertaining and critical, her works continue their relevancy in today’s privatized and multi-screened cultural landscape—in many ways, even predicting its development.
Image of Gretchen Bender by Hans Neleman
Colin Hunt
Colin Hunt paints primarily in the medium of egg tempera and watercolor, rendering mysterious and intricate images of the natural world. His work centers on ecology as a way to recast traditions of portraiture as landscape, veering from conventions of each. Neither place nor person, the paintings represent a collective intertwining of memory, death, and the afterlife. His process and aesthetic concerns reflect formal ideas about how what’s missing can reorder perception, and how the personal experience of grief can exist communally, in people and in the earth itself.
Hunt received his MFA from Columbia University. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous museums and galleries, including the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Teckningsmuseet, Sweden; the Brooklyn Museum; and the National Academy of Design. In 2011, he was the inaugural resident at the Galveston Artist Residency in Galveston, Texas.
His work has been featured in a number of publications including New American Paintings, Harper’s Magazine, Columbia Magazine, The Brooklyn Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and Waldoboro, Maine.
Image of Colin Hunt by Heather Currier Hunt
Jon Kessler
Born in 1957 in Yonkers, New York, Jon Kessler is best known for his kinetic sculptures made with motors, surveillance cameras, and found objects. He has been showing his work regularly in the United States and abroad since his first exhibition at Artist’s Space in 1983.
In 2005, his immersive installation The Palace at 4 AM was exhibited at MoMA/PS1 and travelled to the Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen, and ZKM, Karlsruhe and is permanently installed at the Phoenix Kulturstiftung/Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg.
His newest sculptures are “balancing acts” that address the fragility of our little planet. Bronze, brass, ceramics, stainless steel, and found porcelain figurines combine to form works that comment on ecological collapse and environmental precariousness.
Recent activity includes the 2017 Whitney Biennial, New York; L’Ennemi de Mon Ennemi at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and the Guangzhou Triennal. He is a Professor of Art at Columbia University where he has taught since 1994. He plays guitar in several art bands.
Image of Jon Kessler by Rick Haylor
Billie Zangewa
Billie Zangewa was born in Blantyre, Malawi and lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. She creates intricate collages composed of hand-stitched fragments of raw silk. These figurative compositions explore contemporary intersectional identity in an attempt to challenge the historical stereotype, objectification, and exploitation of the black female form.
Beginning her career in the fashion and advertising industries, Zangewa employs her understanding of textiles to portray personal and universal experiences through domestic interiors, urban landscapes, and portraiture. Her earliest works were embroideries on found fabrics depicting remembered botanical scenes and animals from Botswana, where the artist was raised, but she soon transitioned to creating cityscapes, focusing on her experience as a woman in the city of Johannesburg and her personal relationships. These works explored her experience of the male gaze, leading her to begin to think more critically about how women view themselves and what the visualization of the female gaze, through self-portraiture, could look like.
After the birth of her son, Zangewa began making her well-known domestic interiors to explore the shift in focus from self-examination and femininity to motherhood and the home. Often referencing scenes or experiences from everyday life, Zangewa has stated that she is interested in depicting the work done by women that keeps society running smoothly, but which is often overlooked, undervalued, or ignored. Zangewa refers to this as “daily feminism,” which can be considered a contemporary version of “the personal is political.” Through the method of their making and their narrative content, Zangewa’s silk paintings illustrate gendered labor in a socio-political context, where the domestic sphere becomes a pretext for a deeper understanding of the construction of identity, questions around gender stereotypes, and racial prejudice.
Zangewa received her BFA from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa in 1995. Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized by SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico (2023); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, United Kingdom (2023); Brighton CCA, Brighton, United Kingdom (2023); Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Charlotte, North Carolina (2022).
Image of Billie Zangewa by Jurie Potgieter
Artworks
Gretchen Bender (American, 1951–2004), Total Recall, 1987.
Eight-channel video on 24 monitors and three rear projection screens. 18:02 min. Installation view of Gretchen Bender: So Much Deathless at Red Bull Arts, New York, March 6–July 28, 2019. © Gretchen Bender Estate Courtesy of Sprüth Magers. Photo by Lance Brewer
Gretchen Bender (American, 1951-2004), TV Text & Image (IMAGE WORLD), 1989.
Live television broadcast on a monitor, vinyl lettering. Dimensions variable. © Gretchen Bender Estate Courtesy of Sprüth Magers. Photo by Ben Westoby
Colin Hunt (American, b. 1973), Untitled (The Gate), 2023.
Egg tempera on panel. 81 ×x 41 in.
Jon Kessler (American, b. 1957), Lagoon, 2024.
Stainless steel, bronze, copper, glazed stoneware, shell and porcelain figurines. 32 × 24 × 31 in
Billie Zangewa (Malawian, b. 1973), In My Element, 2023.
Hand-stitched silk collage. 54.5 × 72 in.
Gretchen Bender (American, 1951-2004), Untitled (Daydream Nation), 1989.
Twelve dye-sublimation prints mounted to armature. 40 × 120 × 60½ inches. © Gretchen Bender Estate Courtesy of Sprüth Magers. Photo by Robert Wedemeyer
Colin Hunt (American, b. 1973), Many-Worlds Interpretation (H.C.H.C.), 2020.
Egg Tempera on Panel. 81 × 41 in.
Jon Kessler (American, b. 1957), Scorched Earth II, 2024.
Stainless steel, bronze, copper, glazed stoneware, iPad and porcelain figurines. 46 × 31 × 46 in.
Billie Zangewa (Malawian, b. 1973), Body and Soul, 2021.
Hand-stitched silk collage. 44.1 × 49.6 in, (112 × 126 cm)
Billie Zangewa (Malawian, b. 1973), Heart of the Home, 2020.
Hand-stitched silk collage. 45 × 55 in.
Gretchen Bender (American, 1951-2004), TV Text & Image (PEOPLE WITH AIDS), 1986.
Live television broadcast on a monitor, vinyl lettering. Dimensions variable. © Gretchen Bender Estate Courtesy of Sprüth Magers. Photo by Ben Westoby
Colin Hunt (American, b. 1973), Untitled (Morning), 2022.
Egg tempera on panel. 24 in × 24 in
Jon Kessler (American, b. 1957), The Gate, 2024.
Stainless steel, bronze, brass, copper, cast iron, glazed stoneware, Picasso replica and porcelain figurines. 34 × 24× 51 in.
Billie Zangewa (Malawian, b. 1973), Sea of Love, 2022.
Hand-stitched silk collage. 44.49 × 53.54 in.
Contact
For questions about the gala or Museum support opportunities, please contact Sarah Kolar, development officer for stewardship and events, at 414-224-3259 or sarah.kolar@mam.org.
2024 Support
Host committee
Chris and Jennifer Abele
Donna and Donald Baumgartner
Ellen and Joe Checota
Joan Lubar and John Crouch
Sheldon and Marianne Lubar
Kate and Ken Muth
Joel and Caran Quadracci
Sue and Bud Selig
Jeff and Gail Yabuki
Art patrons
Richard Buchband and Betsy Rosenblum
Anthony and Vicki Cecalupo
Thomas Hesselbrock and Carl Spatz
Joshua and Megan Jeffers
Pace Gallery
Supporters
Associated Bank
BMO Wealth Management
Tom and Jennifer Florsheim
Katie Heil
Rosanne and Matt Kropp
Jane and Tom Lacy
Michael Best & Friedrich LLP
Rachel Ragatz Truscott and Marq Truscott
John Shannon and Jan Serr - GUARDIAN Fine Art Services
Mary and Carl Strohmaier
Amalia Todryk and Quarles & Brady LLP
Sarah and Steve Zimmerman
Leaders
Wendy Burke
CG Schmidt, Inc.
Peter and Sarah Damsgaard
GRAEF
Kim Hurtado
Wayne and Kristine Lueders
Individual supporters
4M Building Solutions
Jessica Albrecht Martell and Brad Martell
Mary Allmon
Dan and Gwen Armbrust
Laura and Mike Arnow
Wendy and Warren Blumenthal
Anthony and Andrea Bryant
Canada Gallery, Tif Sigfrids
Chiller Consultant Service
Amy and Frederick Croen
Agnes and Daniel Domagala, Major Dental Clinics
McKenzie and Jason Edmonds
Laura and John Emory, Jr.
Nick and Katherine Gerrits
Richard Goldberg
Dr. Shaheda Govani and Neil DeKarske
Laura and Alex Graf
Joseph P. Gromacki
Kurt and Charmaine Gunderson
Matthew Helmerich and Jeffrey Harwell
Kenneth Kaszubowski, P.E., The Sigma Group
Mason Khan
Klein-Dickert Glass
Jennifer and Joe Kresl, Hawks Landscape, Inc.
Elizabeth Levins and Herbert Zien
Lance Lichter and Roxane Davidoff
Lindsay Lochman
Marquette Associates
Ali and Halah Maykhan, The Sigma Group
Anne and Chris Noyes
Andrew Nunemaker
Jill G. Pelisek
Karen and Jim Petric
Michael and Alissa Puck
Colleen Reilly and Dan Ryan
Sande Robinson
Scott Byron & Co., Inc.
Kristin and John Sheehan
Laura Shipley and Jon Neumann
Pamela and Jeffrey Shovers
Sarah Slaughter
Lynde B. Uihlein
Miriam Van de Sype and Flavius Cucu
Kathryn VanDyke
Lee Y. Weeks, Jr.
Marie Weiss
Linda and Dan Wilhelms
Wipfli
Special thanks to
Jonathan Bender
Sophie Chahinian
Events by Design
Colin Hunt
Jon Kessler
La Tulipe
Ryan Muller
Marli Shorter-Swan
Symphony Swan-Zawadi
Billie Zangewa
Steve Zick
As of September 21, 2024