Current Exhibitions 

This special exhibition presents the work of three leading Wisconsin artists—Beth Lipman, Jeremy Popelka, and Eoin Breadon—who embrace the challenge of glass, variously referencing and rejecting the medium’s workaday functionality to explore its relationship with light, form, and time. Each work is thoughtfully installed to reverberate in conversation with MOWA’s permanent collection, priming viewers to reflect on the unassuming art historical resonances of each artist’s work. Taking inspiration from Irish storytelling, Dutch still lives, and architectonic forms, these sculptures bridge the past and the present.

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Comprised of seventy-two ceramic sculptures of animal heads glazed in various shades of blue, A Fear of Unknown Origin is inspired by two things that seem completely unrelated. The first inspiration comes from the cyanometer, an esoteric tool alpinists used to measure distance by the shades of the sky. The second is the idiom “Entre le Chien et le Loup” (between the dog and the wolf), which describes the effects of dusk and being unable to differentiate between friend or foe. Harper’s installation unifies the two with a gradual gradient of blue and a corresponding range of expressions, from smiles to snarls.

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Yi’s site-specific outdoor installation, The Legend of the White Snake, is part of MOWA’s own reimagined landscape. Coming to West Bend from downtown Milwaukee—where it was part of the ongoing public art project Sculpture Milwaukee—the work is entirely constructed from PVC, forming a dynamic tangle of tubes that towers over viewers like a scribble incarnate. The Legend of the White Snake reconfigures the landscape and engages interest from every vantage point.

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Wisconsin’s rich history of traditional craft and modern design come together this spring for a unique, artistic experience about home. Handmade for Home features the work of nearly thirty of Wisconsin’s top contemporary artists and designers who create sophisticated, functional objects for the home. Through an extraordinary display of vignettes, this exhibition celebrates the tradition of handmade one-of-a-kind pieces as well as new methods of customized design and production. From classic to high-end rustic and reclaimed, there is something for every aesthetic sensibility.

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Influenced by the assemblages of Surrealist artists Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, Peter Dahlke works within the confines of constructed boxes made from pieces of old pipe organ wood. He carefully fills each box with an assortment of antiques, toys, tools, and visually engaging objects that spark the imagination. Dream Spaces is the artist’s first major retrospective comprised of two dozen works. Dahlke—an 80-year-old retired Milwaukee Public School teacher—has long been involved in the arts scene of Milwaukee and this exhibition is the culmination of a sophisticated, life-long fascination with dream spaces and the visual power of ordinary objects.

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