The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Hosts Two Exhibitions of the Chicago Imagists

Written by Kevin Thornberg Sunday, 13 May 2012 00:09

Madison, WI.- The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is proud to present two exhibtions featuring the works of the Chicago Imagists. Both exhibitions open on September 10th. In the museum's main galleries, they will be showing "The Chicago Imagists" (until January 15th 2012), while the State Street Gallery will be showing "Chicago School: Imagists in Context" (until December 30th). In the late 1960s, art audiences were introduced to a vibrant new generation of artists who would soon be identified collectively as the Chicago Imagists. Like the Pop artists in New York, Los Angeles, and London, who were somewhat older, these young artists drew inspiration from the everyday urban world and popular culture. But despite these common interests, the Chicago Imagists were more focused on a fantasy art of brilliant color, graphic strength, and free line. With sources and inspirations that ranged from comic books to Surrealism, the Chicago Imagists trafficked in exuberant and irreverent satire that spoke to the political and social foibles, as well as the whimsy, of contemporary life at the end of the tumultuous 1960s and into the 1970s.

"Chicago Imagists" at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art will include more than 75 works by Roger Brown, Sarah Canright, Ed Flood, Art Green, Philip Hanson, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, Barbara Rossi, and Karl Wirsum, as well as their friend and mentor Ray Yoshida. The exhibition is being organized by the museum’s curator of collections, Richard H. Axsom; director, Stephen Fleischman; and former curator of exhibitions, Jane Simon, and will be accompanied by a major publication. Titled 'Chicago Imagists', this richly illustrated book will include essays by Lynne Warren, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Cécile Whiting, professor of art history at the University of California, Irvine; and the exhibition curators. Together, these writings will comprise the most extensive examination to date of the Imagist artists, their influences, and their place within American history and art history. "Chicago School: Imagists in Context" offers a cultural framework in which to consider the work of the Chicago Imagists. Drawing from the museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition presents works by artists who influenced the Imagists or were influenced by them--from the expressionistically rendered human figures of Leon Golub to the sexually charged, surrealist watercolors of Robert Lostutter. Other artists represented include Robert Barnes, Phyllis Bramson, Don Baum, Miyoko Ito, Ellen Lanyon, June Leaf, Peter Saul, Hollis Sigler, and H.C. Westermann, among others.

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is a nonprofit, independent organization that exists to exhibit, collect, preserve, and interpret modern and contemporary art. After a distinguished 105-year history in borrowed and refurbished spaces, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art opened to the public on April 23, 2006, in a new facility within the Overture Center for the Arts. Designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli, the museum's exhilarating facility offers 51,500 square feet of space for the study, presentation, and conservation of modern and contemporary art, as well as a 7,100-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden. Public amenities include spacious galleries, a 230-seat lecture hall, a children's classroom, a new-media gallery, and a study center for drawings, prints, and photographs. Like the rest of Overture Center, the facility was made possible by the extraordinary generosity of W. Jerome Frautschi, a long-time friend of the museum. The museum's collection traces its origins to a major gift from Rudolph and Louise Langer in 1968.


Through donations and museum purchases, the collection has grown to become an important community resource. Works span the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and include paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, and drawings. Romare Bearden, Deborah Butterfield, John Steuart Curry, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Cindy Sherman are among the many esteemed artists represented in the collection. Exhibitions are the cornerstone of MMoCA's public programs and have featured many of the most respected artists of the last century, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, George Segal, Jim Dine, Rodney Graham, Georgia O'Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and John Wilde. The main galleries, located on the second floor, host the museum's major exhibitions. The Henry Street Gallery presents exhibitions from the museum's permanent collection while the State Street Gallery offers a changing roster of exhibitions and installations. MMoCA's rooftop sculpture garden presents major works on a rotating basis in an illuminated garden setting. Visit the museum's website at ... http://mmoca.org

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