Category: Art News

Categories
Art Art News

Warhol, Warhol, Everywhere a Warhol

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup, 1965. Acrylic on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, gift of Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley. Photo credit Efraim Lev-er. © 2008 The Andy Warho Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup, 1965. Acrylic on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, gift of Mrs. Harry Lynde Bradley. Photo credit Efraim Lev-er. © 2008 The Andy Warho Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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!

Okay, I’m dramatizing a little bit here. There’s tomato soup inside that Warhol artwork. By which I mean, Campbell’s Soup has released limited-edition cans of their tomato soup printed with Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup design.

You can buy them at your local Target.

Continue reading “Warhol, Warhol, Everywhere a Warhol”
Categories
Art Art News

Do you like America’s Next Top Model?

Sacrifice PAINTINGS Brown, Iona Rozeal American, b. 1966 2007 Mixed media on framed panel 52 x 38 in. Purchase, with funds from African American Art Alliance and Contemporary Art Society M2007.60
iona rozeal brown (American, b. 1966), sacrifice, 2007. Acrylic and paper on framed panel, 52 x 38 in. (132.08 x 96.52 cm). Milwaukee Art Museum, Purchase, with funds from African American Art Alliance and Contemporary Art Society M2007.60. Photo credit John R. Glembin. © iona rozeal brown

So do I.

Which is why I was excited to learn that an artist in the Museum’s permanent collection, iona rozeal brown, is collaborating on a project with America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) guest star Benny Ninja. Ninja is a master of “vogueing” and dramatic posing; his style of dance influenced the iconic Madonna Vogue video.

This past weekend in New York City iona rozeal brown, along with Benny Ninja and Javier Ninja (“House of Ninja”), presented a preview of a Kabuki- and voguing- inspired performance work called the battle of yestermore, which has been commissioned for the Performa 11 Biennial this November 1-20.

You can see an image of a costume designed for brown’s upcoming performance here.

Continue reading “Do you like America’s Next Top Model?”
Categories
Art Art News Curatorial

From the Collection–Fab 5 Freddy (Told Me Everybody’s Fly)

Fab 5 Freddy (American, b. 1959), Untitled, 1986. Ink and oil pastel on paper. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of Susan L. Strande, M1992.57.

A new exhibition Art in the Streets is on view April 17 to August 8, 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles). The exhibition is the first major U.S. museum survey of graffiti and street art and it features an artist in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s permanent collection: Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Braithwaite.

Early on the hip hop scene in Brooklyn, graffiti artist, close friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat, fan of Andy Warhol, and host of “Yo! MTV Raps”, Fab 5 Freddy is a pioneer of the street art genre.

Continue reading “From the Collection–Fab 5 Freddy (Told Me Everybody’s Fly)”
Categories
Art Art News

From the Collection–Toshiko Takaezu

Oil of the Earth
Toshiko Takaezu (American, 1922–2011), Oil of the Earth, 1990s. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of the artist, M2006.79. Photo by John R. Glembin.

The ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu generously gave the Milwaukee Art Museum ten of her fine art vessels in 2006.

Today I was nonchalantly compiling information on her life in preparation for a potential display of those vessels, when I was suddenly saddened to read of her recent death on March 9, 2011. In Toshiko Takaezu’s obituary in the New York Times, she is credited with helping “to elevate ceramics from the production of functional vessels to a fine art.”

As one often does when encountered with the loss of either someone close or someone distant but admired (like an artist), I ran through my bank of fond memories.

Continue reading “From the Collection–Toshiko Takaezu”
Categories
Art Art News

Packers, Steelers, and Impressionism

Gustave Caillebotte. Boating on the Yerres (Périssoires sur l'Yerres), 1877. Oil on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, Gift of the Milwaukee Journal Company, in honor of Miss Faye McBeath. Photo credit John R. Glembin

All of my friends and coworkers can attest to just how ridiculously excited I was after the Packers and the Steelers won the playoff games. Full confession, though–it’s not because I’m a football fan. Nah. It’s because I knew this meant my current workplace, Milwaukee Art Museum, of course, and my former workplace, the Carnegie Museum of Art (yep, I’m from the ‘Burgh), would be pitted against each other in the now-annual Super Bowl Art Bet.

Continue reading “Packers, Steelers, and Impressionism”