Milwaukee Art Museum Blooms in January
MAM turns the winter blues into blooms with mesmerizing new sculpture.
Photo of Winter Series: Meadow by Front Room Studios courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Eighteen delicate flowers are suspended from the highest point of the Milwaukee Art Museum‘s (MAM) Quadracci Pavilion. With movements controlled by slim robotic arms, the blooms open and close in a mesmerizing dance, their brilliant colors in stark contrast to the ice-crusted shores of Lake Michigan just steps away.
Winter Series: Meadow, a new installation from the Netherlands-based artist collective DRIFT, has viewers floored — literally.
“One of my favorite parts about this installation is how visitors have experienced it,” said exhibition curator Shoshana Resnikoff. “You will find people just lying on the floor, watching the flowers open and close.
The “upside-down landscape,” as described by DRIFT, embodies the “deceptively simple workings of nature.” Its pink, yellow, cream and blue florals, inspired by North American wildflowers, are paired with ever-changing choreography that mimics the unpredictability of the natural world.
“You could stand here for hours and it would be really hard to know when the next one is going to open, or what the next move is going to be,” Resnikoff said. “And that’s also how nature works.”
The fluidity was intentional on the part of DRIFT co-founders Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, who put years of research into the site-specific installation.
“The building is extraordinary and extravagant and already a sculpture itself, so my first response was ‘it doesn’t need anything,'” Gordijn told reporters via Zoom.
“We tried to make the installation rather natural in the very determined architecture of the space,” Gordijn said.
The finished product works to complement the existing space through flower placement that draws viewers’ eyes upwards to accentuate the soaring, light-filled pavilion.
“It’s multi-directional … and really takes advantage of the full sweep of Calatrava’s architecture,” Resnikoff added.
Founded in 2007, the DRIFT artist collective explores the intersections of technology and the natural world. Meadow incorporates a layer of human connection, inviting viewers to engage with the both the art and each other, as well as the landscape beyond the walls of the museum.
“There’s this wonderful new whole that’s created every time people are in its presence,” Resnikoff said.
The installation, which debuted Jan. 18, will be on display through April 13, allowing visitors to experience the work in relation to the changing seasons.
Meadow is free and accessible to the public during museum hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday.
The latest installment marks the continuation of MAM’s Winter Series, which began in 2024 with the presentation of Iceberg by Larry Bell.
Photos
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