May 08 Wednesday
On view November 18–June 16, 2024
Indigeneity—a state of being Indigenous and originating from a specific place; encompassing displaced minorities whose ancestral homelands have been lost due to colonialism, yet preserved in the continuity of cultures, identities, and kinship.
HMong Indigeneity lives in textiles: vibrant, breathing pieces of cloth shaped by HMong hands to illustrate ancestral landmarks and homelands. Here, lines converge to form patterns and an aesthetic of kin that replace teb chaws—land, country, and place—as pathways for Indigeneity to reside.
Centering the voices of three HMong-American artists, Cloth as Land investigates a place for HMong Indigeneity within contemporary HMong art. Curated by Pachia Lucy Vang, the exhibition features textiles from JMKAC’s collection and newly commissioned works by artists Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj, Pao Houa Her, and Tshab Her.
"Dynamic Range: Photographs by Bill Tennessen"January 19 – May 12, 2024
Bill Tennessen is a self-taught photographer who began contributing photographs to the Milwaukee Community Journal, Wisconsin’s largest African American newspaper, in 1981. Tennessen was born and raised in Milwaukee. He is a 1956 graduate of Marquette University’s College of Business Administration.
"Dynamic Range" includes 48 photographs by Tennessen that highlight Milwaukee’s Black community from the 1980s to the early 2000s. The exhibition was curated by Lynne Shumow (Haggerty Museum Curator for Academic Engagement) in collaboration with Dr. Robert Smith (Marquette University Harry G. John Professor of History and Director of the Center for Urban Research, Teaching and Outreach—CURTO) and Mia Phifer (Education and Research Coordinator at America’s Black Holocaust Museum).
Image: Bill Tennessen, American, b. 1934, "Juneteenth Day Celebration", 1985, 8 x 10”, Silver nitrate print, Collection of the artist
Patrick Nagatani (1945 – 2017) was an artist committed to investigating the possibilities of photographic technology. Employing hand-coloring, multiple printings, and constructed scenarios, Nagatani built his photographic narratives through props, careful direction, and image manipulation. In addition to challenging the “truth” associated with photography, he touched on social, cultural, and personal issues, including nuclear power, myth-making, Chromatherapy, Japanese Americans, and the self.
A former faculty member at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Nagatani obtained his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked in Hollywood special effects for some time on movies such as Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He was encouraged toward photography through a college drawing class. He went from creating photographic, technically precise drawings to understanding the emotional power available through photography-based image making.
RAM was gifted over 30 works by Nagatani in 2022. Comprised of pieces spanning multiple decades—specifically 1977 – 2006—the archive features various types of photographs, including 20 x 24 Polaroid prints created with a relatively rare Polaroid camera. This exhibition debuts selections from the archive in stages—consecutively showcasing the Nagatani/Ryoichi Excavations Series, Chromatherapy Series, and works related to nuclear power.
RAM Showcase: Patrick Nagatani is on display January 31 through October 12, 2024.
https://www.ramart.org/exhibit/ram-showcase-patrick-nagatani/
The Arts/Industry residency is a longstanding innovative collaboration between Kohler Co. and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center whereby each year, up to twelve artists work in the pottery and foundry of Kohler Co. to explore new ideas, techniques, and perspectives during a three-month residency. Joyce Kozloff came to the Arts/Industry program in 1986-87, with the express purpose of producing ceramic tiles for a commission at Detroit’s Financial Center People Mover Station. Prior to her residency, she had been executing public commissions in her home studio. As an Arts/Industry resident, Kozloff had access to the Kohler Co. materials and production facilities to create the components for this installation working in a studio on the factory floor.
Joyce Kozloff: How We Know What We Know considers a twenty-year span of Kozloff’s career, beginning with her Arts/Industry residency. Through a presentation of work from five of her series (among them are Voyages, Knowledge, and Targets) from 1986–2006, it traces her transition from the Pattern and Decoration Movement into cartography.
When artists began making work at Kohler Co. factory in 1974, they were taught some of the industrial techniques Kohler associates were willing to share. One of these processes allowed artists to create larger works without the issues of cracking and collapsing that commonly hindered them. That technique involves the use of slip, a mixture of water and clay.
Clayton Hill, a Kohler Co. associate who worked alongside many artists in the early years of the Arts/Industry residency program, described this method as the “secret” of “muddy water.” It was an approach to working with clay that could have been acquired only in Wisconsin, where industry required this mixture to produce large-scale products such as sinks.
The Secret of Muddy Water celebrates the essence of Wisconsin, the industries rooted in the state, and what makes Arts/Industry’s location a source of delight and wonder for artists who temporarily relocate for the experience.
Jack Earl, one of the first Arts/Industry artists-in-residence, said the Arts/Industry residency in the Kohler Co. factory felt like a “mad dash at something.” Mad Dash: 50 Years of Arts/Industry is a chronological installation of artworks, letters, photographs, and promotional materials dating from 1974 to the present. It reveals the origin and history of Arts/Industry through the artists themselves.
Every artist donates an object made during their residency to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center’s collection. Mad Dash presents artworks from this collection to encapsulate the experience of art making within Kohler Co. and highlight various stages of the artists’ careers.
May 3–15 (W, Th, F | 11 am.–4 p.m.)May 10, Opening Reception (4–6 p.m.)
Theatre Building, Arts Center Gallery
Visions Unveiled: Contemporary Photography Showcase is an exhibition that highlights the works of contemporary Milwaukee artists who are making thoughtful and engaging photographic-based work from a broad range of diverse perspectives, thematic elements, and expressions. This exhibition is collaboratively curated by UWM students in the Spring 2024 Contemporary Issues in Photography course— a course created to address critical issues, theories, and practices surrounding contemporary photography and how photographers have worked to challenge, expand, and reinvent the medium. Join us in celebrating the works of artists in our community!
Since 1974, over five hundred artists have participated in the Arts Center’s Arts/Industry residency. The program, operated in collaboration with Kohler Co., offers artists the time and space to focus on the creation of new work in the company’s pottery and foundry studios. As part of the Arts Center’s celebration of Arts/Industry’s fiftieth anniversary, the twelve artists in residence at the Kohler Co. factory during 2024 will exhibit their work in a yearlong group exhibition, Clocking In: 2024 Arts/Industry Residents.
The exhibition will present four residents’ work at a time, in rotations of approximately four months each.
May 1–18, 2024Wednesday–Fridays 2 p.m.–7 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m.–3 p.m.Reception – Saturday, May 4 from 5–7 p.m.
Kenilworth Square East, 4th Floor Gallery
Join the Department of Art & Design in celebrating the incredibly talented BA and BFA graduating class of Spring 2024.
April 26–May 18, 2024
Wednesday–Fridays 2 p.m.–7 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m.–3 p.m.
Celebrate with our graduating MFA artists, who exhibit their finest work and share their creative journeys. Featuring work by Lilly Dyer, Emmanuel Guerra, Kristy Lisle, Thomas C. Romero and Eric Skadson.