Celebrate 50 years, or five museums

Start your Art Date weekend with a celebration of a fifty-year career at MAM, catch alternate perspectives on spiritually influenced art, see various ways of picturing landscape, and wrap up with a tour of five venues along Milwaukee’s Museum Mile.

Barbara Brown Lee. Photo by Front Room Photography, courtesy Milwaukee Art Museum.

THURSDAY, MAY 2 

Milestone Celebration: Barbara Brown Lee  
Milwaukee Art Museum
700 N. Art Museum Drive
Target Free First Thursday: free admission 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Barbara Brown Lee is a singular person. It’s not often that someone has a special day named after them at the Milwaukee Art Museum, or celebrates fifty years of working at the same institution, or has guided multiple generations of students through the charms of art history in a single location.

All of these have been accomplished by Lee, who is retiring from her position as Chief Educator after five decades of service at MAM. Thursday, May 2, is dedicated in her honor, with a program of festivities from 4 to 6 p.m.

Nkisi Ceremonial Artifact, Kongo peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gift of Emile H. Mathis II. Courtesy UWM Art Collection.

Fragments of Faith  
UWM Art History Gallery 
Mitchell Hall, Room 154
3203 N. Downer Ave.
Opening reception 5 to 7 p.m.
Gallery talk at 5:30 p.m.
Exhibition continues through May 23.

The long, winding road of art history covers a lot of terrain; much is personal, political, serious, and spiritual. Fragments of Faith synthesizes these strands through ritual objects from a variety of religious traditions. The exhibition, curated by a team of ten graduate students, explores the intersections of fashioned, material objects and their incorporeal affinities. The diverse exploration of art as a connection to divinity explores channels ranging from Christian reliquaries to spiritually charged Congolese artifacts.

Arnold Alainz: New Paintings  
DeLind Gallery of Fine Art
450 E. Mason St.
Opening reception 4-8 p.m.
Exhibition continues through May 21

Visitors to Door County may have passed by Alaniz Gallery in Ellison Bay, or have seen Alaniz’s work featured on the Channel 10 Great TV Auction. This year Alaniz is again a featured artist on the yearly fundraiser, and is also showing new work in this exhibition at the DeLind Gallery. Continuing with his familiar subject of landscapes of soft contours, these newer pieces are described as delving into bolder colors reflective of the Wisconsin landscape.

FRIDAY, MAY 3

Twelve artists will show work in Chasing Horizons at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum.

Chasing Horizons 
Villa Terrace Art Museum
2220 N. Terrace Ave.
Opening reception 6-8:30 p.m.
Panel discussion at 7 p.m.
Exhibition continues through August 25

This exhibition brings together twelve contemporary artists with works that circulate around questions related to landscape in our time. Technology is a part of the equation as our powers of viewing are enhanced through digital and satellite technology, though the land retains the sheer organic power to overwhelm and impress. A variety of artistic practices, including painting, video, and installations, will take on this subject with a mix of the scientific and the sublime.

SUNDAY, MAY 5 

Felix Lembersky, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Leningrad, 1959-60, on view now at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee. Courtesy Lembersky.org

2nd Annual Milwaukee Museum Mile Day 
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Jewish Museum Milwaukee, 1360 N. Prospect Ave.
Museum of Wisconsin Art at Saint John’s on the Lake, 1800 N. Prospect Ave.
Charles Allis Art Museum, 1801 N. Prospect Ave.
Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, 2220 N. Terrace Ave.
North Point Lighthouse, 2650 N. Wahl Ave.

Five institutions have banded together for this day of cultural festivities with free or reduced admission, tours, children’s activities, and more. A free shuttle bus will run between each venue approximately every half hour. Check our story about the first Museum Mile Day to see how this came about.