Arts/Industry Collaboration and Revelation

Ruth DeYoung Kohler

John Michael Kohler Arts Center

Since the 1975 communist takeover of Laos, over 100,000 Hmong refugees have immigrated to the United States from Southeast Asia, bringing with them a rich visual and performing arts heritage. Hmong Art: Tradition and Change is the first exhibition and publication to document extensively the textiles, jewelry, musical instruments, and other artifacts currently produced by Hmong folk artists throughout this country. The book includes three scholarly essays on Hmong culture; an overview of Hmong history by University of Minnesota anthropologist Timothy Dunnigan; a discussion of Hmong performing arts by ethnomusicologist Amy Catlin; and an essay on Hmong material culture, costumes and jewelry, by Joanne Cubbs. soft-bound, 168 pp., 70 color plates, 62 b/w illustrations, 1986.

Hmong Art: Tradition and Change

Arts & Photography

Center, John Michael Kohler Arts

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Published in conjunction with the John Michael Kohler Arts Center's exhibition of contemporary Wisconsin folk art, FROM HARDANGER TO HARLEYS: A SURVEY OF WISCONSIN FOLK ART celebrates the beauty, diversity, and vitality of the traditional art forms actively being practiced by members of ethnic, regional, occupational, and religious communities throughout the state. The catalogue features 271 objects by 80 of Wisconsin's finest folk artists whose work ranges from traditional Norwegian Hardanger needlework to customized Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The catalogue includes two scholarly essays on Wisconsin folk art: an overview of folk arts and their role in the state's cultural heritage by Robert T. Teske and a discussion of traditional art forms in the lives of Wisconsin folk artists by field researchers James P. Leary and Janet C. Gilmore. The publication also includes catalogue information on each object and biographical information on the 80 artists included in! the exhibition.

From Hardanger to Harleys: A Survey of Wisconsin Folk Art

The publication ECCENTRIC MACHINES documents an exhibition of contemporary mechanized art held at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. This book includes a major essay by Joanne Cubbs on the relationship between art and the machine since the early twentieth century, with special emphasis on the use of mechanization by a wide range of contemporary artists. This major exhibition and publication celebrate a unique genre of art making today and offer a fascinating new chapter in the long history of the relationship between art and the machine. The publication also includes biographical notes on the 20 contemporary artists represented in the exhibition and a catalogue of exhibition objects.

Eccentric Machines

The publication VISUAL PARADOX takes a critical look at photography's credibility as a simulacrum or a bona-fide representation of the truth. It challenges our common perception of the photograph as an unassailable representation of reality by presenting the work of contemporary American artists who call attention to the medium's inherently paradoxical nature--its ability to engage in outrageous fictions while preserving a demeanor of objectivity and truth. VISUAL PARADOX leads one through the rebellious early years of staged or directorial photography in the 1960s and into the burgeoning of such activities in the 1970s and 1980s. The publication also features both early and recent examples of conceptual photography, images that question the nature of photographic representation as well as the mechanisms of human perception. Finally, it explores a variety of current postmodern activities that use photography to expose the fictions of mass-media images, to investigate the paradoxical relationship between pictures and language, and to critique the ambiguity and paradoxes of representation itself. The publication features a major essay by Joanne Cubbs, biographical statements on the 28 artists included in the exhibition, and a catalogue of exhibition objects.

Visual Paradox: Truth and Fiction in the Photographic Image (Alternative Image Series)

Photography & Video

This major publication documents the life and work of self-taught visionary artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) was an isolate or "outsider" artist from Wisconsin who produced several thousand works of art over a 40-year period. His fantastic oeuvre, discovered only upon his death in 1983, included hundreds of oil paintings depicting a universe of strange exploding shapes, imaginary landscapes, nightmarish creatures, and devastating nuclear blasts. He had also created countless chicken-bone sculptures shaped like towers and tiny thrones, ceramic crowns and vessels meticulously ornamented with repeating leaf designs, reams of poetry, pinup-style photographs of his wife Marie in exotic costumes, make-believe musical instruments, and gigantic concrete masks. This book includes an essay on the artist and his work by Joanne Cubbs, a selection of poetry and theoretical writings by Von Bruenchenhein himself, and a catalogue listing of works by the artist in the permanent collection of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Obsessive Visionary

Individual Artists

This catalogue documents an exhibition designed to focus attention on the myriad formal and content-related issues which stem from contemporary artists' usage and eclectic handling of beads. It encompassed 43 works by 12 artists: Buster Cleveland, NY; Arch Connelly, NY; Robert Ebendorf, CA; Larry Fuente, CA; John Garrett, CA; William Harper, FL; Mimi Holmes, IA; Sherry Markovitz, WA; Susan Rezac, IL; Joyce Scott, MD; Simon Sparrow, WI; and Rhonda Zwillinger, NY. The catalogue also includes an essay by Mark Richard Leach, a short statement on each artist, catalogue entries, one color illustration of a work by each artist in the exhibition, and a select bibliography.

Structure and Surface: Beads in Contemporary American Art

Mark Richard Leach

This catalogue documents the exhibition of works by 22 artists who loosely work within the technical definition of photomontage -- a photograph made by rephotographing other photographs or by combining multiple negatives -- and have a great deal of photomontage attitude. Artists whose works were included in the exhibition are Kenneth Shorr, Terry Braunstein, Robert Heinecken, Susan Rankaitis, Elizabeth Sisco, Corinne Whitaker, and Pat Ward Williams, Linda Lindroth, Maria Martinez-Canas, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jerry Uelsmann, Karen Thompson, Jeff Millikan, and Dennis Adams, Nancy Burson, The Guerilla Girls, Barbara Kruger, Les Levine, Christian Marclay, Michael Spano, Julia Wachtel, and Oliver Wasow. The catalogue also includes an essay by Nancy Bless, a select bibliography, and a catalogue of exhibition objects.

Notes from the Material World: Contemporary Photomontage

This catalogue examines the ways in which 26 contemporary American artists draw from, expand upon, and critique popular notions of hair. Artists whose works are included are Liz Larner and Millie Wilson, Jeanne Dunning, James Garrett Faulkner, Tom Freidman, and Anne Wilson, Adrian Piper, Nicolette Brunklaus, Jennie Nichols, and Janine Antoni, Ava Gerber, Robert Gober, Jane Hammond, David Humphrey, Kim Lee Kahn, Robin Kahn, Katharine Kreisher, Patty Martori, Curtis Mitchell, Andres Serrano, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Chrysanne Stathacos, Danny Tisdale, Maciej Toporowicz, and Lynne Yamamoto. Essay by Alison Ferris.

Hair

Alison Ferris

This catalogue examines the social and cultural meanings associated with clothing and how 12 contemporary artists explore those meanings by sculpturally abstracting, reconstructing, and recontextualizing familiar clothing forms. Artists whose works are included are Sharon McConnell, Cameron Shaw, Michele Blondel, Maureen Connor, Jesse Goode, Pamela Keech, Yong Soon Min, and Allan Wexler, David Eckard, Elizabeth Leister, Christine Lo Faso, and Naomi London. Essay by Alison Ferris.

Discursive Dress

Decorative Arts & Design

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Books by John Michael Kohler Arts Center