MADISON, WI- The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) announces many of the exhibitions that will be presented in 2019. Over the course of the year, visitors can see artwork created by young, local artists in Young at Art, as well as work by internationally-known artists such as Jeffrey Gibson. This year will also bring the much anticipated 2019 Wisconsin Triennial and a solo museum exhibition for Tyanna Buie, a printmaker whose work was first included in the 2013 Wisconsin Triennial. MMoCA will showcase well-known pieces from the museum’s permanent collection alongside works being placed on view by the museum for the first time.
Visitors to MMoCA can experience these and other exhibitions at no charge, as the generosity of donors, museum members, and volunteers helps keep admission free.
MIRROR IMAGE
Main Galleries • February 23–May 19, 2019
Drawn entirely from MMoCA’s permanent collection, Mirror Image examines the evolution of the portrait from the early twentieth century to the present. While often depicting physical likeness, portraiture also unveils aspects of an individual’s identity and disposition. With the introduction of photography and the art historical movement of abstraction, the genre of portraiture expanded from an elite mode of documentation to a more conceptual approach of representation.
The format of the portrait continues to be a major theme in modern and contemporary art—whether a direct likeness or a conceptual rendering of selfhood. Today, with the ubiquitous social media phenomenon of the selfie, the portrait remains a testament to the fundamental human need for engagement, understanding, and the quest for memorialization of self and other. Mirror Image contains over 100 portraits—over half of which have not been seen in over two decades or have never been on view at the museum. The exhibition features work by artists Gertrude Abercrombie, Ivan Albright, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Warrington Colescott, David Hockney, Alex Katz, Käthe Kollwitz, Henri Matisse, Jim Nutt, and Karl Wirsum.
YOUNG AT ART
State Street Gallery • March 16–April 21, 2019
MMoCA Opening Reception • Sunday, March 17 • 3-4:30 pm
Organized biennially, Young at Art presents works of art by Madison Metropolitan School District students in kindergarten through grade 12. The exhibition is the result of a long-standing collaboration between MMoCA and the school district’s Fine Arts Department. Each of Madison’s public school art teachers is invited to submit up to three works of art for the exhibition; these may include individual works as well as those made collaboratively. This process allows for the full range of technique, subject matter, and mediums to be represented, including drawing, painting, collage, photography, sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, fiber, found objects, and media arts. Young at Art calls attention to children’s creative potential and to the scope and variety of individual expression. It also highlights the high caliber of studio art instruction in Madison’s public schools, as well as the integration of art history and cross-cultural studies in the school art curriculum.
NEW PROJECT
Design Thinking for Exhibitions
Imprint Gallery • April 20–September 29, 2019
MMoCA is partnering with the University of Wisconsin on an Art History course called Design Thinking for Exhibitions. Taught by professor Anna Campbell, the class develops an exhibition over the course of the academic spring semester, using MMoCA as a critical training ground for hands-on application. Stemming from a shared interest in utilizing museum spaces for direct learning, this cross-institutional venture seeks to cultivate the next generation of museum professionals by introducing participants to the practical and theoretical matters of curation. The resulting exhibition opens in the museum’s Imprint Gallery on April 20, and will be on view through September 29, 2019.
For this course, classroom-based learning with Professor Campbell employs the strategies of design thinking—a human-centered approach to understanding and solving real world problems. Discussions focus on the politics and ethics associated with exhibitions as social engagement and on the curator’s role in articulating conversations between art objects and the public. Students will engage in extensive dialogue and collaboration with key museum staff on practical concerns such as exhibition timelines, installation logistics and design, and how to compose curatorial texts for the public.
As the nature of this project is based on the University’s academic calendar, information about specific exhibition details—including the selected artist, artworks, related context, and educational programming—will unfold as the semester progresses.
TYANNA BUIE: SANKOFA
State Street Gallery • May 4–September 20, 2019
MMoCA Opening Reception • Friday, May 3 • 6-9 pm
MMoCA will present Tyanna Buie: Sankofa in the State Street Gallery from May 4 through September 20. The exhibition represents the culmination of the artist’s multi-year research into and excavation of her childhood. Buie, who takes inspiration from the scant family photographs remaining from her youth, translates those capturedmoments into large-scale, print-based portraits and installations. She collages into her prints various elements, like bits of clothing, jewelry, hair accessories, and other youthful adornments, adding layers and density that function as an artistic memoir on her family history. For her exhibition at MMoCA, the artist further pushes her work into the dimensional realm, isolating specific objects within the photographs and printing them on thick Sintra board or re-creating them by hand in porcelain.
From collected photograph, to print and collage, to porcelain object, Buie’s iterative process transforms her memories into something increasingly textured and dimensional. Referenced in the exhibition title, “Sankofa” is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana. The symbol is based on a mythical bird with its feet firmly planted forward and its head turned backwards—a reminder that a strong future is built on knowledge of and respect for the past. Similarly, Buie, through her art, critically examines and pays homage to her own history, physically conjuring her past with an optimistic look towards the future.
The artist’s practice is intimately tied to her memories of growing up in Chicago and Milwaukee during the 1980s and 1990s. From a young age, Buie experienced familial instability and domestic transience. Shuffled from family member to family member, from foster home to group home, she began to rely on the one constant in her life: making art. Regardless of the precariousness of the world around her, she could find refuge, permanence, and strength in the act of creating. Now an innovative and accomplished printmaker, Buie reclaims her past through her artwork, creating prints and installations that allow her to relocate a sense home and belonging.
Tyanna Buie has shown work at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, The Haggerty Museum of Art, Racine Art Museum, N’NAMDI Center for Contemporary Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museum of Wisconsin Art. In 2012, Buie received an emerging artist Mary L. Nohl Fellowship and is the recipient of the 2015 Love of Humanity Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and the prestigious 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant. Her work is part of the permanent collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, WI.
Buie is currently living in Detroit, MI where she is Assistant Professor/Section Chair of Printmaking at the College for Creative Studies.
JEFFREY GIBSON: LIKE A HAMMER
Main Galleries • June 8–September, 15, 2019
MMoCA Opening Reception • Friday, June 7 • 6–9 pm
MMoCA is pleased to announce the 2019 presentation of artist Jeffrey Gibson’s first major museum exhibition. Organized by the Denver Art Museum (DAM), Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer will showcase the artist’s highly acclaimed multi-disciplinary work and will chronicle a pivotal moment in the artist’s career when his contemporary artistic practice converged with his Native American heritage. The exhibition features about 65 objects comprising large and mid-sized figurative works, text-based wall hangings, a significant selection of his illustrious Everlast beaded punching bags, painted works on rawhide and canvas, as well as videos.
Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer will reveal how the artist draws upon his heritage and remixes his older works to create a distinct visual vocabulary in artworks that explore his multi-faceted identity and the history of modernism. Gibson’s abstract works take inspiration from his Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, pan-Native American visual culture, alternative subcultures and the artist’s experiences living abroad as well as popular culture. Materials used in the works on view will include rawhide, tipi poles, sterling silver, wool blankets, metal cones, beads, fringe and sinew. Exploration of materials and striking patterned and textured works in the form of punching bags and wall hangings will incorporate text from poems, Gibson’s own voice and popular song lyrics such as Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke.”
Through videos featuring interviews with the artist and related programming, visitors will be able to gain an enhanced understanding of Gibson’s distinctive and complex creative practice, as well as how it has evolved from series to series.
2019 WISCONSIN TRIENNIAL
Main Galleries • October 19, 2019 through February 16, 2020
MMoCA Opening Reception • Friday, October 18 • 6–9 pm
This fall, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art will present the Wisconsin Triennial, a survey of contemporary Wisconsin art. Artists from across the state are invited to apply to this exhibition to be held October 19, 2019 through February 16, 2020.
A cornerstone of MMoCA's exhibition programming, the Wisconsin Triennial captures the richness and variety of artistic expression across the state, and showcases significant themes being addressed within the contemporary art world. Paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and video are among the media represented, reflecting the diversity of approaches artists undertake in their explorations of process and content.
As in previous years, the 2019 Triennial will be a juried exhibition selected and organized by MMoCA’s curatorial staff. Each of the selected artists will be represented by a single work or a small group of works, which will be installed throughout the museum’s galleries and public spaces.
FRIDA KAHLO: PITAHAYAS
Imprint Gallery • October 13, 2018–February 3, 2019
It is fuchsia on the outside and hides the subtlety of a whitish-gray pulp flecked with little black spots that are its seeds inside. This is a wonder! Fruits are like flowers: they speak to us in provocative language and teach us things that are hidden. - Frida Kahlo
A centerpiece of the museum’s permanent collection, Pitahayas by Frida Kahlo is on view in the Imprint Gallery. Alongside the painting, a digital experience is available that shares information about the significance of the artwork’s imagery and the story of how this artwork came to the museum.
MMoCA is a partner in Faces of Frida, a digital art project organized by Google Arts & Culture that is dedicated to commemorating the life and legacy of Kahlo—one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Faces of Frida provides online access to a virtual collection of more than 800 items, including artwork images, photographs, and letters. MMoCA is one of the more than 30 cultural institutions, from seven countries, contributing to this project. Museum curator Mel Becker Solomon extensively researched the provenance of Pitahayas and contributed two essays to the project.
Frida Kahlo: Pitahayas provides an opportunity to explore a profound work by a significant artist. Much like the pitahaya fruit, with its delicate, fleshy center concealed inside its bright pink exterior, Kahlo embedded a deeply personal history in this vibrant still life. The personal iconography and extensive exhibition history of the painting—one that even changed the skeleton’s smile to a frown—suggests the work is not only a still life, but an intimate self-portrait of the artist.
NATHANIEL MARY QUINN: THIS IS LIFE
State Street Gallery • December 1, 2018–March 3, 2019
Nathaniel Mary Quinn: This is Life is on view in MMoCA’s State Street Gallery through March 3, 2019. The exhibition features seventeen of the artist’s mixed-media works on paper, created from 2014 to 2018. During this crucial four-year period Quinn developed and refined the collage-like technique now synonymous with his name.
Quinn’s portraits initially appear to be pieced together from newspaper and magazine clippings. The artist, however, renders everything by hand. Using black charcoal and soft pastel over gouache—with careful interjections of oil paint, paint stick, and oil pastel—he masterfully manipulates his various mediums to create unconventional depictions of individuals from his past. Rather than replicating a physical likeness, Quinn’s abstracted compositions express psychological dimensions of identity.
Mirroring his understanding that an individual’s sense of self is constructed from a multitude of influences, memories, and experiences, Quinn references disparate sources of imagery—from comic books to Dutch Baroque art—to compose each artwork.
Preferring complexity and ambiguity over “truthful” renderings of appearance, Quinn’s portraits reflect a more accurate truth about the human condition. Quinn spoke to this in a recent interview, stating; “It’s important as a people to embrace who we are and embrace our differences. It’s in our difference that we can see the similarities we share, which is that we are all complex. We are all beautiful and grotesque, we are all broken in some way, and in the midst of bing broken we find ways to embrace our brokenness and carry on life. But we are all like this. Happiness, grief, joy … this is life.”
Giving image to the universal messiness of humanness, Quinn opens an important space to consider alternative ways of imagining, representing, and understanding ourselves and the world around us.
EYE DEAL: ABSTRACT BODIES OF THE CHICAGO IMAGISTS
Henry Street Gallery • August 11, 2018–June 9, 2019
On view through June 9, 2019, Eye Deal: Abstract Bodies of the Chicago Imagists highlights MMoCA’s acclaimed collection of works by the Chicago Imagists. The exhibition will feature artwork by Sarah Canright, Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, Barbara Rossi, and Karl Wirsum.
The Imagists were a group of figurative artists that emerged in Chicago in the mid-1960s. They employed the comic book, commercial advertising, and the grotesque to render detailed compositions full of color and sexual innuendo. Poking fun at the extreme silhouettes presented in advertisements of the 1950s and 60s, the Imagists created their own exaggerated, warped bodies that playfully mocked the bulging muscles and tiny waistlines of society’s ideal physique. In Oh Dat Sally (1967-68), Nutt’s densely etched line emphasizes the intensity of the nightmarish grooming ritual taking place. The ghoulish Sally wields a sharp blade to shave her body in adherence with the “shiny ‘n nice” standard reinforced in 1960s advertisements as in those for the hair removal product Nair. In the upper-right corner is the suggestive phrase “take it off!!”—one Nutt takes to the extreme; her blade smooths and preens her body to remove any bumps and imperfections to the point where she has no lips, eyes, hands, or feet.
The Imagists toyed with the bizarre images that inspired and confronted them in their everyday lives. Parodying the odd, unrealistic bodily ideals in printed matter resulted in artworks that are a witty commentary on the extreme modifications required to transform the body into the consumer ideal. The works presented in Eye Deal reveal the unhinged oddities of the human form when left to the wild imaginations of this humorous and colorful group of Chicago artists.
__________
Housed in a soaring, Cesar Pelli-designed building, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art provides free exhibitions and education programs that engage people in modern and contemporary art. The museum’s four galleries offer changing exhibitions that feature established and emerging artists. The Rooftop Sculpture Garden provides an urban oasis with an incredible view. The museum is open: Tuesday through Thursday, noon–5 pm; Friday, noon–8 pm; Saturday, 10 am–8 pm; Sunday, noon–5 pm; and is closed on Mondays.
Erika Monroe-Kane, Director of Communications
608.257.0158 x 237 or erika@mmoca.org
