May 22 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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
Join author Mike O'Connor as he relates the exciting story of those Wisconsin pilots who downed five enemy aircraft in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War, thereby becoming air aces. Using personal reminiscences, combat reports, and squadron records, O'Connor has created a compelling narrative of skilled pilots engaged in deadly air combats in the hopes of achieving "five-down-and-glory."
Copies of O'Connor's books will be available for purchase.
Program sponsored by the Friends of Cudahy Library and the Suzann E. Collins Fund.
Wisconsin Premiere of a new play written and directed by Kim E. RuyleProduced by Selective Shows LLC.Starring Carrie Counihan and Ben Ruyle
The first date between Maeve, a PhD psychologist, and Rob, a blue-collar welder, turns into a weekend whirlwind of sensuality, conflict, and surprises as this unlikely couple explores attraction, compatibility, and love later in life. Their verbal swordplay slices away layers to reveal the inner lives of these vibrant mature characters. Sometimes amusing, other times painful, their banter takes them to a place they could not have predicted and leads to a stunning conclusion.
R-rated for nudity and adult content
Admission $25May 17-19 and May 24-26, 2024. Fri and Sat at 7:30pm, Sun at 2pmRun time approximately 2 hours
Follow Maeve's Camellia on Facebook for more information!https://www.facebook.com/people/Maeves-Camellia/61556686190037/?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Pop the champagne, MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL is the winner of 10 Tony Awards® — including Best Musical!
Enter a world of splendor and romance, of eye-popping excess, of glitz, grandeur, and glory! A world where Bohemians and aristocrats rub elbows and revel in electrifying enchantment. Welcome to MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL! Baz Luhrmann’s revolutionary film comes to life onstage, remixed in a new musical mash-up extravaganza. Directed by Tony Award® winner Alex Timbers, MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL is a theatrical celebration of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and — above all — Love. With a book by Tony Award® winner John Logan; music supervision, orchestrations, and arrangements by Tony Award® winner Justin Levine; and choreography by Tony Award® winner Sonya Tayeh, MOULIN ROUGE! is more than a musical — it is a state of mind.
“Eye-popping spectacle and off-the-charts energy”-David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“Euphoric. Gasp-inducing. Forbidden pleasures abound in this SPECTACULAR musical. In ‘Moulin Rouge,’ life is beautiful.”-Ben Brantley, The New York Times
“A knockout night at the theater…an emotional wallop.”-Alexandra Starr, NPR
May 23 Thursday
In an anthropological context, the history of ceramics is most often associated with function. In an art historical framework, clay underwent a revolution in the mid-twentieth century as more and more artists were pushing its boundaries in theory, concept, and form. This encouraged a shift away from function and towards concept-based sculpture and explorations of material. Presently, artists flex their artistic muscle at will—using clay to create functional or sculptural work as they choose and investigating clay on historical, personal, social, and cultural terms as well as practical and material ones.
As a RAM Showcase exhibition, Focus on Clay centers on the work of artists of color and those represented here specifically reflect a range of artistic practices and approaches. Taken collectively, these objects represent multiple decades of working with clay.
Open now through May 25, 2024.