A Milwaukee Walk: Photo Companion for My WSJ Review of the Milwaukee Art Museum

As promised in my last post, below is my illustrated companion for In Wisconsin, a Museum Reborn—my review in today’s Wall Street Journal of the reinvented Milwaukee Art Museum, which gave me a very warm welcome on a single-digits day:

The words in italics, below, are excerpted from my WSJ article.

MAM’s holdings are not only better preserved, but also shown off to greater advantage, thanks to the reorganization spearheaded by chief curator Brady Roberts:

Before guiding me through the museum, Roberts surprisingly subjected me to a brief PowerPoint presentation. I soon understood why: It dramatically demonstrated why sweeping remedial action to shore up the museum’s infrastructure had been an urgent imperative:

The galleries’ wood floors had dramatically buckled due to moisture penetration…

…and drip pans inserted in the grid ceilings caught hundreds of leaks:

Although the museum had opened at the end of November, its installation was still a work in progress when I arrived in mid-January. Some works were being reshuffled, including this decorative Alex Katz, poised to be hung on the wall behind it, now that Roberts had determined that potentially harmful sunlight from picture windows in the next room (part of MAM’s new addition) wouldn’t reach it:

Here’s a look at one of the new wing’s two sculpture-galleries-with-a-view (where pieces were still being shifted around while I was there):

Many object labels were not yet affixed:

What most engaged me about the collection were its outstanding outliers—superb collections of Haitian art and folk art, now allotted more generous space.

Particularly arresting (and new to me) was the wall featuring whimsical Haitian cutouts depicting people and animals, carved not from paper but from flattened steel oil drums:

Thanks to a 1991 gift from Erna and Richard Flagg (a Milwaukee businessman), MAM boasts one of the most significant Haitian art collections in the world.

MAM’s folk art collection, much of which came from collectors Michael and Judy Hall, is hawked by a lively newsboy—an 1888 trade sign in painted wood, intended to seduce potential newsstand customers.

The folk art ranges from paintings by well-known figures like Erastus Salisbury Field and Ammi Phillips…

…to idiosyncratic creations by regional standout Albert Zahn, who embellished the entire façade of his Wisconsin home with wood figures and creatures, now affixed to a photomural of his abode:

Another highlight of the collection is its strong concentration of works by Georgia O’Keeffe, a Wisconsin native whose great-nephew, Milwaukeean Ray Krueger, is on MAM’s board:

The 4,000-square-foot temporary-exhibition gallery in the new wing facing Lake Michigan is enlivened by MAM’s colorful prints by Abstract Expressionist Sam Francis (through March 20). They are drawn from the more than 500 prints given to MAM by the artist’s foundation:

In the recent frigid weather, the glass door of the new wing’s lakefront entrance was caked over with ice—a problem that I was told would soon be addressed:

Empty display cases lined the 280-foot length of the sun-filled, object-barren passageway that serves as main conduit to the galleries from the monumental entrance hall, designed by Santiago Calatrava:

The cases were being temporarily removed because their mountings had allowed too much bounce—potential disaster for studio glass from the collection:

By the next day, the cases were gone:

The reinstallation allowed the museum to mingle works from its world-class Bradley Collection of modern and contemporary art with the museum’s other works by the same artists that had previously been installed elsewhere.

As Roberts explained to me, “There was never a master plan for the collection. It just grew organically and over time. The floor plan didn’t make sense and the collections became dislocated as other collections came in.”

Although the installation is now more coherent, there are still disturbing disconnects: Duane Hanson’s convincingly realistic, life-size “Janitor” (1973) disconsolately slouches near the doorway to the old masters galleries, beyond which is a view to one of Milwaukee’s most profound masterpieces, Francisco de Zurbarán’s painting of “Saint Francis of Assisi in His Tomb,” 1630/34—a jarring sightline from the mundane to the spiritual.

Here’s the lifelike Hanson, with a living admirer:

Here’s the Zurbarán:

And here’s the sightline from one to the other. (The Zurbarán is on the red wall at the far end):

In a choice that only Milwaukeeans could love, a can of their local brew, Pabst Blue Ribbon, has pride of place at the entrance to the collection, celebrated in a 1964 painted wall sculpture by Pop artist Tom Wesselmann:

Contemporary art is housed in a David Kahler-designed 1975 Brutalist building, much of which has been radically but awkwardly transformed into a white-cube space, with formerly exposed concrete columns buried within new walls.

A succession of dividers chops up the long expanse, obstructing the sightlines from one section to the next and creating narrow passageways on either side:

That said, I admired the quality and breadth of MAM’s contemporary holdings. Beginning with Pop and ending with 21^st-century works, the collection hits the high points of the contemporary canon, with some less expected, appealing juxtapositions: Sculptures by two British contemporaries—Rachel Whiteread’s cutaway view of the rear of densely packed bookcase and Cornelia Parker’s suspended curtain of chalky shards—complement each other.

One is dense and static…

…the other is airy and explosive…

…both are a ghostly off-white:

Whoever succeeds Keegan (stepping down in May) will need to increase outreach to the city’s large African-American community—seen during my visit almost exclusively in school groups creating their own projects in the inviting new interactive Kohl’s Art Generation Gallery:

Keegan phrased the museum’s biggest challenge (other than beefing up the endowment) as a question: “How do we address the fact that there is great racial discord in major cities in American and Milwaukee is included in that?”

Roberts said he is optimistic that “this is an institution that can help desegregate Milwaukee and connect the community.” He cited as examples MAM’s current focus display of 19th-century African-American pottery…

…and its high attendance in 2013 for “30 Americans,” a traveling show of African-American art (also recently well received at the Detroit Institute of Arts).

“We have established relationships,” Roberts said of the audience for those displays, “and we’ve maintained them.”