Milwaukee Art Museum Blog
This past summer, we hosted 30 Americans, featuring works of art by contemporary African-American artists. The exhibition was, by the numbers, a huge success: we had an attendance goal of 85,140 and our actual attendance was 114,389! But impact goes beyond facts and figures, which is why we wanted to round out our blog posts about the exhibition with a look at a powerful expression of the city that was embedded in the show.
In late March, this semester’s group of Satellite teens took a field trip to the Chipstone Foundation in Fox Point, WI. You probably knew that Chipstone has a great decorative arts collection and produces progressive exhibitions in the Lower Level of the Milwaukee Art Museum. What you might not know is that they also have a site in Fox Point, where they host college-level age groups.
Happy birthday, Milwaukee Art Museum! You’re looking pretty good for 125, if we do say so ourselves. To celebrate the Museum’s anniversary, we’ve got a whole lot of stuff going on. From concurrent exhibitions to community days, your 125th is going to go down in style.
Beyond events, though, and (mostly) in seriousness, as part of the 125th Anniversary, I’m excited to share some of the detailed breakouts of the most popular works of art in the Collection! Some of you may remember voting for your favorite artworks in the Kohl’s Art Generation Lab.
Wondering what the people’s choice works were? Check out the breakdown below!
Want to know what energizes an art museum staff, beyond knowing that we share a world-class art collection with almost 400,000 people a year? Believe it or not, for the Milwaukee Art Museum staff it was a coloring contest.
Of course, it helps when that coloring contest is both inspired by and judged by Wisconsin artist Reginald Baylor. (And also, when the prize involves a free lunch with the artist.)
Everybody loves Andy Warhol! Who isn’t immediately attracted to the bright colors, crisp lines, and repetition in Andy Warhol’s artwork? Not to mention the fact that Warhol himself was such a character, playing with the art world, celebrity, and fame.
One of Warhol’s most iconic images, that of the Campbell’s Soup Can, is now available for mass-market purchase. For 75 cents. That’s right. 75 cents for your very own piece of Andy Warhol art history!
This summer, fourteen teens from 12 Milwaukee-area high schools came together to impact the present and future of museums. Funded by the MPS Arts Internship Program through the Milwaukee Public Schools Recreation Department, these teens were paid museum studies interns for five weeks, going behind-the-scenes at the Museum, developing career skills, and helping the Museum in its day-to-day functions.
Although I try very hard not to bring work home with me, sometimes (okay, most of the time) I can’t help it. I just love museums, and so I often find myself thinking about them after 5 p.m.
Something I’ve been mulling over for a while is the use of the word “curate”, and how the phrase has become a buzzword around the world wide web. What does the word “curate” mean in popular language—and more importantly, what does it mean for museum professionals that this word is being re-appropriated?
How often do you really consider the implications of naming something? That is exactly what sixteen teens in the spring ArtWorks program here at the Museum did last Thursday. After looking closely at the artists and works of art in Accidental Genius: Art From the Anthony Petullo Collection, we worked together as a group to think deeply about the meanings of a name, how and why art is categorized, and whether or not such categories can ever really be correct.
Have you ever made a website? It’s not easy these days. Especially if you want it to be robust, web-standards-friendly, functional, and beautiful. Luckily, the Museum has a fabulous web team in our Communications department that assists with all the various whims and wishes of the rest of the staff. These two busy staff members—that’s right, there’s only two of them!—work hard every day to make our website look great and work well.
A few weeks ago, I walked home from work at around 7 PM. The city was already dark and the lights of the office buildings were still sparkling, and I was still thinking about my teens in the Satellite program. We had talked about the work of Georgia O’Keeffe that day and our hour-long conversation about her work had been rich and layered. We asked questions of Georgia, of ourselves, of art in general: