With ’50 Paintings’, Has The Milwaukee Art Museum Finally Confirmed That Painting Is Dead?

or as the handout suggests: “Explore recent works by 50 painters defining their field”.

full foldout view of catalog for 50 Paintings

50 Paintings…by 50 Artists…created in the past 5 years. So a bold and daring survey of contemporary painting by the Milwaukee Art Museum…something not necessarily expected from a regional art museum. But let’s face it, the average museum goer probably doesn’t visit local art galleries so isn’t exposed to contemporary work. And not only should we give kudos for MAM for putting on this show, but for also giving it the full PR and advertising support that they give to their blockbuster shows.

And at the time of this writing, MAM has a brief introduction to the show and I believe all of the images from the show on their web page. Here’s the link!!!! But let me share the museum’s statement around the show (just in case the link is removed at some point):

The landmark survey 50 Paintings features works created within the last five years by 50 international artists, highlighting the artistic trends in practice today. With paintings by artists including Amy Sherald, Cinga Samson, GaHee Park, Nicole Eisenman, Cecily Brown, and Peter Barrickman, the exhibition celebrates the medium’s continued relevance and aesthetic range, and invites visitors to engage in close looking and formulate their own assessments of trends in contemporary painting.

The 50 works presented in the exhibition demonstrate myriad approaches to the medium. Painting—as a form, a language, a practice—is the focus, and the survey format underscores the many concepts and strategies present-day artists employ. 50 Paintings offers visitors 50 distinct opportunities to experience this traditional art form shaped by the imaginations of artists influencing the direction of painting today.

50 Paintings was co-curated by Margaret Andera, senior curator of contemporary art, and Michelle Grabner, artist, curator, and Crown Family Professor of Art and Chair of Painting and Drawing at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

So thank you Margaret Andera and Michelle Grabner for taking on this daunting task.

“…and invites visitors to engage in close looking and formulate their own assessments of trends in contemporary painting.” Perfect…so I was excited to see this show. And with 50 artists each having only one piece on display, I expected a very engaging show. But I don’t think that it is. Given one piece per artist, every piece would be the artist’s best piece from the period. No, I didn’t expect an ‘Armory Show’, but usually any and every show that I see, whether old master or contemporary gallery or even art fair, presents something that inspires me in some way. That just didn’t happen here. And I spent some time looking at it…at least an hour on my first visit. And I photographed some of the work that I thought worked and some of the work that didn’t. And I was disappointed and thinking that maybe I had an off day, I revisited the show and spent some more time with the work and took a few more photos. But my reaction was the same. On this second visit I spent about 20 minutes with the art before a museum employee said to me, you’ve spent some time looking at this show, what do you think…and I replied with a variation of my statement in the headline, that after decades of the art press and art critics claiming that painting was dead, the museum had finally proven it with this show.

Now, just because this is a show of contemporary painting, don’t be fooled into thinking that the artists are minty fresh MFA graduates. No, the painters here have had decades of experience, have certainly considered western art history, have dabbled in or played with the ‘isms’ of the 20th Century, and have certainly been influenced by other contemporary art. Just a quick scan of the brochure would indicate the youngest artist was born in 1990. So certainly this cohort has selected the media, methods, and styles that give voice to their vision.

[UPDATE: March 21, 2024: I originally viewed the show on Thursday March 14, 2024. Over the weekend I talked with a painter who had seen it on Friday. Then I revisited the show on Sunday March 17th. The painter read this article after I posted it last night and wondered why I wasn’t more direct in writing about the show compared to what I had said in conversation. So: I think that there is a lot of bad painting in this show. Not in the sense of the Bad Painting movement of the 1970s, although one or two of these paintings might fit into that genre. I am not sure that was intentional. But bad painting. I don’t see the craftsmanship that I would expect from work in a museum show. I don’t see the design or mastery of the media that I expected. Technique seems to be lacking. Color, although abundant, doesn’t work for me. Some of the paintings seem to be overworked to the point the life has been taken out of them. To me it seems that The Emperor Has No Clothes.]

One interesting side note. The brochure also includes responses from the artists to a number of questions posed to them. They make interesting reading but they were allowed to reply anonymously. I am not sure why anonymous was the way to go, but after reading the responses, I would have been very interested in tying them back to the actual paintings to see how the artist was actually articulating their thought(s). Here is the full spread of the answers. Hopefully you will be able to enlarge it enough to read. If not, I will also include the half page versions at the end.

anonymous replies from the artists to questions posed about painting (from the show brochure)

I encourage the Milwaukee Art Museum to continue curating similar surveys in the future. Maybe every three to five years? It is a worthwhile endeavor…

As I said earlier, the paintings from this show can be seen here for as long at the page is available on the Milwaukee Art Museum web page. But I am going to include a few of the photos that I took here as well. My best photos but a combination of paintings that I liked and didn’t like. I am not going to say which is which.

Cinga Samson (South African, b. 1986), Okwe Nkunzana 6, 2021
April Gornik (American, b. 1953), Study for Storm Suspended by Light, 2022
Angela Dufresne (American, b. 1969), Acid Queen, 2022
Cecily Brown (British, b. 1969), Pretty Stories and Funny Pictures, 2022
Lisa Yuskavage (American, b. 1962), Night Classes, 2020
Brad Kahlhamer (American b. 1956), 11:59 to Mesa (SRP), 2023
Carmen Neely (American, b. 1987), another way to imagine your details, 2023
Caitlin Lonegan (American, b. 1982), Untitled (CL 2022.03), 2022
Josephine Halvorson (American, b. 1981), Last Words, 2022
Sarah Morris (American, b. England 1967), Springpoint [Spiderweb], 2022
Paul P. (Canadian, b. 1977), Untitled, 2020

and as promised, the two other views of the anonymous responses to questions about painting.

article © 2024 The New World Digs

PSA: Milwaukee Art Museum’s Lakeside at MAM: Outdoor Arts Events Free And Family Friendly

From my email inbox!

Free Outdoor Fun at the Milwaukee Art Museum 

SAT–SUN, JULY 29–30, AUG 12–13, AUG 19–20 (2023)

Meet up with family and friends to enjoy art making with the Kohl’s Art Studio, a variety of music performances, yoga, and more at this free outdoor event series. Everyone’s invited to the Museum’s east lawn to soak up summertime creativity and culture, weather permitting.

Grab a seat, find a table, or bring your own picnic blanket—and enjoy the outdoors during Lakeside at MAM. Create art, catch live programming, attend a yoga class, and take in the sights on the green space where the Museum hugs Lake Michigan. Weather permitting, Lakeside at MAM is open with free admission; it’s all-ages friendly and easily accessible from the Oak Leaf Trail.

Some highlights are family art making with the Kohl’s Art Studio team, yoga, any number of diverse musical groups, Milwaukee favorite Ko-Thi Dance Company, story reading and games!

For the complete schedule…CLICK HERE!!!

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park! Part 4: New Sculpture and Some Disappearing Acts

I have documented a number of pop up sculptures in Lake Park that are visible from Lincoln Memorial Drive. As I’ve mentioned before they have become touchstones or landmarks for me as I travel from Bay View to the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee campus. But in the late spring and summer they are very very hard to keep track of as the foliage surrounds them.

So it was with a great deal of excitement that I found a brand new one during my recent sojourns to campus. This one is on park property and easy to see. It is just immediately south of the gardens of the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum. One of the other major installations is just immediately north of these same gardens, on private property, but clearly visible from the park…currently just a bit obscured by some of the luscious summer foliage. So here it is (and I apologize for the photos…they are washed out a bit by the mid-day summer sun):

© 2022 Ed Heinzelman
© 2022 Ed Heinzelman

and to get a better idea of their construction, here are some close ups of the components.

© 2022 Ed Heinzelman
© 2022 Ed Heinzelman

And in the meantime, it seems to me that two of the smaller original pieces have been removed. Whether by the artist, the county parks people, or a vandal I have no way of knowing. But here are the two that I think have now gone missing.

© 2022 Ed Heinzelman
© 2021 Ed Heinzelman

As fall starts to denude the trees and shrubs and puts the vines and undergrowth to sleep for the winter, we all need to watch for new additions to the unseen art in our midst.

Want to read my earlier articles? Here they are!

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park! Part 2

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park! Part 3: It’s Alive!

and if you know who the artist is, I’d like to talk with them. They can remain anonymous if that’s their wish. Or if you see more around town, I’d like to be able to document them…so let me know about them, please: contactaip@anintuitiveperspective.com

© 2022 Ed Heinzelman