Spend a Midwest Weekend With Modern Art
Andy Warhol in Milwaukee, Modern Wing at Art Institute of Chicago
Oct 24, 2009
Make some midwest travel plans around modern art. Go to Chicago where the renowned Art Institute is continuing a year-long celebration, introducing its brand new addition with "500 Ways of Looking at Modern." There's so much to see at the Art Institute, but be sure to save a day for the 90 minute drive up Iinterstate 94 for a date with Andy Warhol in Milwaukee.
Art That Starts With Architects Piano, Calatrava
The two locations are each themselves a piece of modern art to be studied and savored. The 264,000 square foot, Renzo Piano-designed modern wing of the Art Institute made its debut in May 2009. The 3-story glass and aluminum wing is praised for opening up the museum - a veritable fortress of culture - to the surrounding city and connecting it directly to adjacent Millennium Park.
The Milwaukee Art Museum's newest addition (2001), designed by Santiago Calatrava, provides its city's beautiful lakefront with an unforgettable image - the scupltural Quadracci Pavilion topped with the moveable Burke Brise Soleil. The Brise Soleil is a winglike sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan, which opens and closes daily.
Andy Warhol's Productive Final Decade is the Focus
Inside the Milwaukee museum, the many-faceted exhibit, "Andy Warhol" The Last Decade," will be up until Janury 3, 2010. The focus here is clearly stated - to present the closing years of the artist's career because these may have been his most prolific. That is a robust claim because in four busy decades of art-making, Warhol's career expanded into fashion, underground music, indpendent film making, magazine publication, and television.
According to the catalogue for this exibit, in the years before his death in 1987 Warhol "continued to produce mezmerizing works at an astounding pace." He was influenced by, and collaborated with, other leading artists - Basquiat, Haring, Schnabel, and Clemente - in the painting revival of the 1980s.
His remarkable output includes abstract paintings, the collaborations, and his final self portraits, and all are represented in this premiere of an exhibition. It has been organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, and is scheduled to travel on to Forth Worth, Brooklyn and Baltimore throughout 2010.
Even though the exhibit focuses on Warhol's late period, visitors won't be denied the "iconic Pop star" aspect of Warhol if that's what they seek. On display along with the touring exhibit will be highlights of the museums's own Warhol collection including prints from the Marilyn and Mao portfolios and works loaned to the museum from local collectors.
The Milwaukee Art Museum and the curators of the show - Milwaukee curator John McKinnon and guest curator Joseph D. Ketner II, have pulled out all the stops to present a full "Warhol experience". Lectures, films, video, and book salons focused on Warhol pack the museum's events calendar; little extras designed to pull in the community include, "Warhol-0-ween," and "Start New Year's Eve with a POP".
More Than One Way to Consider Modern Art in Chicago
In fact, the Art Institute of Chicago is promising 500 ways to consider the modern aspect in art. In a year-long collaboration with three other acclaimed Chicago arts institutions the art museum is offering an in-depth exploration of what "modern" means. Its partners in the venture include:
- The Chicago Symphony Orchestra which will touch on the modern in a chamber music series and CSO concert previews at the museum;
- The Poetry Foundation which will give a series of readings featuring actors from the Goodman Theater;
- Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, presenting seven free programs bringing art and dance together.
Modern Wing Provides a Home to One of the World's Great Collections
The new Modern Wing at the museum has been a decade in the making. The Art institute has a vast and world-renowned collection of modern European painting and sculturpe which has now been reinstalled across the entire third floor in the new wing.
The Institute's Contemporary Collection, encompassing almost every significant movement from 1945 to the present, is at home on the second floor. The Architecture and Design Collection and the Photography Collection also receive special treatment in the new wing. Taken together these four collections allow the Art Institute to boast of owning and displaying one of the world's great collections of modern and contemporary art.
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