Industry & Technology Explored in Two Exhibitions at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art

Written by Archibald Jarvis Tuesday, 17 May 2011 21:04

Madison, WI.- Two new exhibitions at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art present works from the museum’s permanent collection that explore impacts of industry and technology. "Picturing Technology: Land and Machine" opens on May 21st in MMoCA’s main galleries, while "The Industrial Modern" opens a week later on May 28th in the State Street Gallery. Both exhibitions will run through the summer, "Land and Machine" until August 21st and "The Industrial Modern" until September 4th. From the invention of the wheel to industrialization to the digital age, new technologies have been associated with intellectual and cultural advances. And yet throughout the ages, there have been reactions against technology — movements that oppose the advances of science and innovation in favor of more natural lifestyles.

"In Picturing Technology: Land and Machine", MMoCA’s curator of exhibitions, Jane Simon, explores artists’ reactions to technology in the rural environment. With drawings, paintings, photographs, and prints by nearly 40 artists, the exhibition demonstrates responses to technology ranging from alarm to disdain to enthusiasm. The photographs of O. Winston Link, for example, reveal the contemporary viewer’s nostalgia for older technologies. Link’s images of locomotives in hinterland America address our collective mythology of westward expansion and prosperity. Likewise, a series of nine photographs by Archie Lieberman demonstrate how technology has transformed our relationship to landscape, agriculture, and animals. Lieberman’s images of rural life show the realities of farming life, as with a photograph of Margaret Dunbar and her daughter using bottles to feed hungry calves. Rather than separating the farmers from their calves, this technological innovation appears to enhance their tie. Forced Bloom 4 (2006), by Alyson Shotz, is one of several works in the exhibition that utilize or address capabilities of digital technology. Recent computer programs have allowed information and the storage of information to mushroom, triggering both positive and negative associations. By presenting viewers with “loaded images” that spark both kinds of reactions, the exhibition raises questions about the role and value of technology in our lives. Picturing Technology also presents works by Thomas Arndt, Warrington Colescott, Jim Dine, Vernon Fisher, and Claes Oldenburg, among others.


The Industrial Modern explores artists’ conflicted responses to industry, labor, and the urban environment from the middle of the nineteenth century to contemporary times. In doing so, the exhibition explores the tensions inherent in the “culture of progress.” Starting in the eighteenth century, the enormous energy of the Industrial Revolution began to transform the physical, economic, and socio-political landscapes of both Europe and the United States. The changes—including urbanization, mechanization, and regimented labor—coincided with a growing interest among western artists in accurately representing the rhythms and realities of everyday life. Focusing on workers and strikers, factories and machines, skyscrapers and city centers, bridges and railroads, docks and shipyards—the shapes of steel, steam, concrete, and human labor—artworks in The Industrial Modern explore scenes previously deemed unworthy of serious artistic representation. William Gropper, for example, a committed left-wing radical, infused his works with a socio-political message, championing the cause of the exploited worker and highlighting the social injustices characteristic of the modern industrial age. In contrast, Donna Dennis eschews reference to human presence, focusing instead on the dingy interior of a vacant subway station. Light from three stark bulbs illuminates the impressive vernacular architecture, while simultaneously calling attention to the emptiness of the cavernous space and hinting at themes of desolation and urban alienation. The Industrial Modern also presents drawings, paintings, photographs, and prints by William Klein, Louis Lozowick, Samuel L. Margolies, Joseph Pennell, and Ben Shahn, among many 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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