Advanced Exhibition Schedule as of July 2009

All exhibitions and dates are subject to change; please call 4-224-3246 or e-mail jonas.wittke@mam.org to verify before publication. Images available upon request.

FEATURE EXHIBITIONS IN QUADRACCI PAVILION—
ON VIEW IN BAKER/ROWLAND EXHIBITION GALLERIES

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959
January 30–April 25, 2010

American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection
May 22–September 6, 2010

ON VIEW IN THE KOSS GALLERY

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind
August 6–October 25, 2009

Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection
December 17, 2009–February 28, 2010

Raphael: The Woman with the Veil
March 26–June 6, 2010

ON VIEW IN THE DECORATIVE ARTS GALLERY

American Furniture / Googled
July 9–October 11, 2009

Green Furniture Design
November 12, 2009–March 14, 2010

Theaster Gates: Resurrecting Dave the Potter
April 15–August 1, 2010

ON VIEW IN THE CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES

Warrington Colescott: Cabaret, Comedy, and Satire
June 17–September 26, 2010

FEATURE EXHIBITIONS IN QUADRACCI PAVILION –
ON VIEW IN THE BAKER/ROWLAND EXHIBITION GALLERIES

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey exhibition to explore the work that this seminal American artist produced during the final eight years of his life. Warhol entered a period of renewed vigor and enthusiasm in the 1980s that resulted in what was arguably the most productive period of his career.

Premiering at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the exhibition includes approximately 55 works lent by private collections and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Along with an introduction to Warhol, it is divided into thematic sections based on significant Warhol series: abstract works; collaborations (featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat); black-and-white ads; works surrounding death and religion; self-portraits; camouflage patterns; and a concluding section of the artist’s Last Supper series.

Several large-scale works will punctuate the exhibition. In 1984, Warhol purchased a new studio building where—after working in a confined studio within the well-known Factory space for the majority of his career—he had the luxury of a large ballroom in which to create his works. The paintings mushroomed in scale to monumental proportions. In each of his late series, a number of works stretch from 25 to 35 feet in width.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is guest curated by Joseph D. Ketner II, Lois and Henry Foster Chair in Contemporary Art at Emerson College, Boston, and organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by John McKinnon, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art. The exhibition will travel nationally after its premiere in Milwaukee.

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959
January 30–April 25, 2010

Abstract Expressionism, film noir, Beat poetry, and the New Journalism are all widely recognized aftershocks of World War II, representing a broad aesthetic revolution that championed spontaneity and subjective interpretation as the guiding principles of creative practice. Postwar photographers in many ways set the rhythm and tenor of this new approach, not least because the hand-held camera was naturally suited to chance discoveries and impulsive gestures. Significantly, it was the increased prominence of photography in American culture during and just prior to World War II that made it possible for the battlefield to be seen by—and made very real for—those on the home front.

Street Seen provides an in-depth look at six photographers active during the 1940s and 1950s whose work is grounded in a photographic sensibility derived from the visceral imagery of World War II. Lisette Model, Louis Faurer, Ted Croner, Saul Leiter, William Klein, and Robert Frank all share a talent for communicating the emotional resonance of everyday life in postwar America. Their graphically charged and emotionally engaging photographs evoke the excitement and unease that characterized the era, as popular culture, the arts, and everyday life underwent substantial, dramatic changes.

Many of these photographers also experimented with motion picture film. A select group of these short, non-narrative films will be on view in the galleries to create a dialogue with the approximately 100 photographs. In addition, to demonstrate the scope of the “psychological gesture” in American art during this period, paintings and drawings by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline will punctuate the installation. The proximity of the paintings and photographs will clarify the significance and breadth of the subjective, performative approach to art-making in the mid-twentieth century.

Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959 is curated by Curator of Photographs Lisa Hostetler.

American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection
May 22–September 6, 2010

One of the world’s finest collections of early American quilts concludes its national tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum May 22-September 6, 2010. Featuring rare surviving textiles of the late 1700s and early 1800s from the Winterthur Museum, Delaware, American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection outlines America’s earliest cultural landscape with stunning detail. Never-before-seen objects include the only known example of an American quilted coat of arms (1815), one of only four known American framed medallion quilts (1805), and a kaleidoscopic sunburst quilt featuring over 6,700 pieces of printed cotton (1827).

Through skillful needlework and careful color coordination, each of the 40 quilts on view-drawn from a staggering collection of more than 20,000 textiles-transforms an array of fabrics, both common and exotic, into an extraordinary work of art illustrating early America (1760-1850). Quilts expressing religious faith, celebrating marriages, and supporting political candidates provide a rare opportunity to interpret the economics and politics of the time. The exhibition draws on the period correspondence of Mary Remington, a master quilter from Warwick, Rhode Island, to look closely at the makers’ lives and the developments that affected their designs and material selection.

American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection is curated by Linda Eaton of the Winterthur Museum and organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Mel Buchanan, Liz Flaig, and Catharine Sawinski.

ON VIEW IN THE KOSS GALLERY

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind
August 6–October 25, 2009

The figure, never abandoned for long, returned as a dominant subject of artistic expression in the 1980s, following on the heels of Minimalism and Conceptualism. There was renewed interest in the art world for the sensuality and emotionality of the painted surface, and in image making. American, German, and Italian artists in particular employed familiar images as they once again turned to myth, allegory, and narrative in their work.

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind features approximately 40 works drawn almost exclusively from the Museum’s outstanding collection of contemporary prints. Among the artists represented are Georg Baselitz, Richard Bosman, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, Jörg Immendorff, Susan Rothenberg, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel. Though many are primarily known as painters, these artists embraced printmaking for its physicality, directness, and immediacy. Etching and woodcut resurged at this time because artists deemed them the most appropriate print techniques to reflect the many dramas they were depicting. Some artists struggled with their nation’s historical and cultural legacy, others turned inward, exploring private moments such as dreams and unconscious states. Figurative Prints puts the work of so-called Neo-Expressionists, graffiti artists, and academically trained artists side by side.

Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind is curated by Brooke Mulvaney, collections manager of works on paper.

Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection
December 17, 2009–February 28, 2010

Dorothy and Herbert Vogel have made art-collecting a lifelong journey, amassing a world-class art collection of over 4,000 works on a shoe-string budget. Herbert, 85, spent most of his working life as an employee of the U.S. Postal Service, while Dorothy, 73, was a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library.

In keeping with their history of civil service, the Vogels are gifting 2,500 works from their collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected public art institution in each of the 50 different states.

The institution selected in Wisconsin is the Milwaukee Art Museum. Honored to be the recipient of such a gift, the Museum presents Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection December 17, 2009-February 28, 2010. Artists represented in the exhibition, which focuses on minimalist and conceptual art-the best known and most well developed aspect of the couple’s collecting focus-include Robert Barry, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, and Richard Tuttle.

Fifty Works for Fifty States: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection is curated by John McKinnon, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art.

Raphael: The Woman with the Veil
March 26–June 6, 2010

The Milwaukee Art Museum presents Raphael’s La Donna Velata, one of the most celebrated artworks of the Italian Renaissance, in a one-work masterpiece exhibition. On loan from the Pitti Palace in Florence, La Donna Velata (Veiled Lady) is considered an invaluable treasure among the paintings in the collection. The portrait, which Raphael painted in about 1516, had a profound influence on artists both of his day and since; not only is it beautifully painted, but a myth of intrigue envelops the work—it is rumored that the sitter was the artist’s mistress. At one point, the portrait was considered the most famous painting in the world.

Responding to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Raphael developed in this portrait his own ideal of female beauty and deportment. The sitter’s veil indicates that she is married, while the sleeve conveys both opulence and, in abstract terms, the sitter’s hidden but complex psychology. Art historians have variously identified this beautiful woman as a patron’s bride and as the artist’s mistress, who appears as a model in many of Raphael’s most important works.

Raphael: The Woman with the Veil is organized by the Portland Museum of Art and the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture, New York. The exhibition is coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Director of Exhibitions Laurie Winters.

ON VIEW IN THE DECORATIVE ARTS GALLERY

American Furniture / Googled
July 9–October 11, 2009

In this experimental installation on view in the Decorative Arts Gallery, traditional object labels are replaced by digital screens that capture what an array of institutions and individuals have to say about eleven examples of Victorian-era furniture.

The unconventional labels share resource materials from the Internet, including in-depth information on similar furniture and relevant design histories from other museums, libraries, and blogs; market values at an auction house; and entertaining snapshots made available on a photo-sharing website.

American Furniture / Googled explores a range of nineteenth-century furniture styles from neoclassicism, through opulent revival styles, to early Modernism. On view will be chairs by George Hunzinger, L. & J. G. Stickley, Samuel Gragg, and the Herter Brothers, along with a wildly ornamented Kimbel & Cabus Desk, a restrained Shaker Sewing Desk, a gilt and stenciled neoclassical-style Pier Table, and George Niedecken’s Dresser for the Demmer House.

American Furniture / Googled is is organized by Mel Buchanan, Mae E. Demmer assistant curator of 20th-century design.

Green Furniture Design
November 12, 2009–March 14, 2010

Green Furniture Design focuses on the concept of sustainable design, which centers not only around a responsible use of materials and methods of manufacture but also on issues of object life span, energy usage, and recycling/disposal. The exhibition explores how 21st-century furniture makers seek to modify our aesthetic expectations—especially when it comes to forms that are multifunctional, recyclable, or made of alternative materials. Work by contemporary artists is featured alongside historical objects, exploring roots of the green idea in furniture design.

The exhibition curators also strive to achieve a level of “green curating” that cuts down on this exhibition’s carbon footprint. The team is scaling back the use of paper in design, planning, and writing practices related to the show; incorporating local objects and materials that do not require crating and shipping from far away places; and using bicycle transportation for objects from as far away as Madison and Green Bay. In the gallery, the design team will use recycled materials for labels and platforms. Electronically activated lighting will control energy consumption, as well.

This exhibition is curated by Ethan Lasser and guest curator Hongtao Zhou. Organized at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Ethan Lasser.

ON VIEW IN THE CONTEMPORARY GALLERIES

Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott
June 17–September 26, 2010

Warrington Colescott is the premier satirical printmaker working in the United States, employing his sharp wit and vivid imagination to interpret contemporary and historical events in the tradition of William Hogarth, Francisco de Goya, Honoré Daumier, and George Grosz. He is internationally respected for his exceptional command of complex techniques and for his unique practice of cutting intaglio plates to silhouette compositional elements.

The Milwaukee Art Museum has the largest collection of work by Colescott. Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott will highlight the Museum’s rich holdings and celebrate sixty years of Colescott’s print production. The Museum is also preparing the catalogue raisonné of his printed oeuvre— The Prints of Warrington Colescott: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1948–2008—to be copublished by the University of Wisconsin Press. The 352-page catalogue documents and depicts all 354 of Colescott’s editioned prints, providing title, date, media, dimensions, and selected exhibition history and collections for each print, along with comments and anecdotes by Colescott and author Mary Weaver Chapin.

Out of Line: The Satirical Prints of Warrington Colescott is curated by Mary Weaver Chapin, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings.

MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM FACTS

The Milwaukee Art Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, completed in October 2001. The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day.

HOURS
Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thursdays until 8 p.m. (Supported by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation)
Open until midnight for MAM After Dark events (Presented by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation)
Closed Mondays except Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day
Closed Thanksgiving Day and December 25

ADMISSION
$12 Adults
$10 Students / Seniors / Active Military
Members and Children 12 & under FREE
Free admission every Wednesday for Milwaukee County residents

GROUP TOURS
For group tour reservations and discounts, call 414-224-3842.

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