Critically Acclaimed “Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography” Opens at Milwaukee Art Museum Oct. 23
Co-curated by MAM’s Kristen Gaylord, the landmark exhibition reveals how 180 years of photography has made the hidden industries behind modern life visible.
MILWAUKEE, Wis.,— Aug 20, 2026—The Milwaukee Art Museum will present Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography, on view Oct. 23, 2026, through Jan. 18, 2027, in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts.
Following its debut at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the exhibition comes to Milwaukee amid significant national acclaim. The Washington Post called it “a smart, bracing show” offering the “clearest view of America,” while The Wall Street Journal praised its examination of “the massive industry and the difficult tradeoffs essential to U.S. energy development.”
Spanning 180 years of photography, Beneath the Surface explores how photographers have worked to make visible the mining and drilling that power modern life yet often remain unseen. From early historical images to striking contemporary works, the exhibition traces how artists have continually developed new ways to picture the expansive yet elusive activities of extracting, transporting, and processing natural resources across the United States.
Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase, with funds from the Photography Council, M2024.57.
The photographs reveal landscapes transformed, communities affected, and the labor and systems behind the materials and technologies used every day. They also chart photography’s ever-changing role, whether promoting industrial expansion and finding beauty in machinery or examining social issues like environmental injustice, labor conditions, and climate change.
At the heart of the exhibition is a revealing paradox: Photography has been a principal medium for documenting resource extraction while depending on extracted materials for its own creation. Silver and copper were essential to early photographic processes, just as copper, lithium, petroleum products, and other materials remain integral to digital cameras, smartphones, and contemporary printing.
The Milwaukee presentation will include approximately 140 works, ranging from daguerreotypes and stereographs to photobooks, documentary images, conceptual projects, aerial photographs, and large-scale digital prints. Together, they demonstrate how photographers have repeatedly adapted the medium’s technologies and visual strategies to represent industries that unfold underground, across vast networks, and over long periods of time.
“Photography has shaped public understanding of resource extraction for nearly two centuries, central to both depicting and critiquing the processes that enable our contemporary world,” said Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Beneath the Surface highlights how, even with this most challenging of subjects, artists have innovated time and again to reveal the scale of these activities and their repercussions for peoples and lands across the United States.”
Gaylord co-curated the exhibition with Diane Waggoner, acting head and curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art. Gaylord oversees the research, preservation, acquisition, and presentation of MAM’s photography and new media collections. Before joining the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2023, she was associate curator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and held several curatorial roles at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her recent MAM exhibitions include Currents 40: Widline Cadet and Erin Shirreff: Permanent Drafts.
The exhibition’s themes have particular resonance in Wisconsin. The state’s history includes the lead mining that contributed to its “Badger State” nickname, processing and transportation of natural resources contributing to the local economy, and an ongoing legacy of Indigenous leadership in protecting Wisconsin’s lands and water. By connecting these regional histories to a broader national story, Beneath the Surface invites visitors to reconsider the systems and materials embedded in everyday life.
“Beneath the Surface reflects the kind of ambitious, nationally significant scholarship that defines the Milwaukee Art Museum’s exhibition program,” said Dr. Kim Sajet, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “The exhibition asks us to look closely at the materials and systems behind modern life while demonstrating photography’s extraordinary ability to make complex histories visible.”
Building on MAM’s Leadership in Photography
The Milwaukee Art Museum was among the first American institutions to collect photography and today holds nearly 4,000 photographs, as well as a growing collection of time-based media.
Beneath the Surface will be installed in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts, the Museum’s dynamic space dedicated to photography, film, video, and light installations. Since its establishment in 2015, the Herzfeld Center has been home to cutting-edge exhibitions featuring artists who shape, push the boundaries of, and expand photography and media arts. The center provides a dedicated setting for original scholarship, significant collection presentation, and encounters with artists advancing the possibilities of image-making today.
This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art in collaboration with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
The exhibition is curated by Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum, and Diane Waggoner, acting head and curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art.
To learn more, visit https://mam.org/exhibitions/beneath-the-surface/
Support
Leadership sponsor
In memory of Christina L. Balk
Supporting sponsor
Anonymous
Contributing sponsors
Dr. Shaheda Govani and Neil DeKarske
Milwaukee Art Museum’s Photography Council
Christopher E. Olofson
The Ruttenberg ’52 Collection
Exhibitions in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts are sponsored by
Herzfeld Foundation
The Milwaukee Art Museum extends its sincere thanks to the Visionaries for their support of the exhibition program.
Debbie and Mark Attanasio
Donna and Donald Baumgartner
Murph Burke
Bill and Sandy Haack
Chris Harned and Elizabeth Quadracci Harned
The Helmerich Trust
Kenneth and Alice Kayser
Joan Lubar and John Crouch
Jeff and Gail Yabuki
Visit
Beneath the Surface is on view October 23–January 18, 2027, in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts.
Programming
Oct. 22: Member Opening
Oct. 29: Expert Series
Nov. 5: Curator-led Gallery Talk
Dec. 3: Haberman Local Luminaries
Dec. 11: Curator-led Gallery Talk
Dec. 12: Slow Art Saturday
Jan. 16: Guest Gallery Talk with James Kieselburg
Admission
Adults: $27
Students, seniors (65+), military: $20
Kids 12 and under: Free, thanks to an anonymous donor
Wisconsin K–12 teachers: Free with valid school ID or pay stub
Members: Free
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Every Thursday, admission is pay what you wish from 4 to 8 p.m.
Museum admission includes access to collection and exhibition galleries and the Art Studio, which is open Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and Thursdays, 4–7 p.m. Memorial Day through Labor Day.
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About the Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum is an essential destination for art and architecture and a vital cultural resource that connects visitors to dynamic art experiences and one another. Housed in iconic buildings by Santiago Calatrava, Eero Saarinen, and David Kahler on a 24-acre lakefront campus, the Museum is Wisconsin’s largest art institution and home to both broad and deep collections, with exceptional holdings in American painting, sculpture, and decorative arts; conceptual and minimalist art; prints and drawings; European art from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century; photography and new media; modern and contemporary design; folk and self-taught art; and twentieth-century Haitian art. A bold symbol of Milwaukee’s ambition and forward-thinking vision, the Museum is a place for community building, education, and celebration that fosters creativity, free speech, and critical discourse for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. For more information, visit mam.org.
Media Contact
For more information or to request hi-res images, please contact:
Cortney Heimerl
Milwaukee Art Museum
communications@mam.org
414-940-0490
