What is more beautiful than night
and someone in your arms
that’s what we love about art
it seems to prefer us and stays...
So goes the first stanza of Frank O’Hara’s 1960 poem “To You.” Two of the four new exhibitions opening on Wednesday, Aug. 20, at Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art are inspired by the poet’s life and premature death. “The Killing Cycle,” by O’Hara’s friend and collaborator Alfred Leslie, is a series of paintings treating the tragic accident that ended O’Hara’s life in 1966. Leslie and O’Hara’s collaborative film, The Last Clean Shirt, follows a drive through New York, translating phony Finnish dialogue with authentic O’Hara poetry.
“Yangtze—The Long River” charts a three-year journey along the eponymous Chinese waterway. The photos reveal construction to be the simultaneous destruction of traditional folkways and natural beauty.
“Clear Picture: Looking At Communities From An Art Museum” is a yearlong project curated by MU students, which explores how intelligently exhibited art can tell stories about the relationship of where we live and who we are.
Lester Schwartz Retrospective
Cedarburg Cultural Center
W62 N546 Washington Ave., Cedarburg
After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1937, Manitowoc native Lester Schwartz spent two and a half years exploring the world. He hobnobbed with Picasso in Paris before, like Gauguin before him, spending 10 months painting in Bali. At the end of his adventures in paradise, Schwartz chose to return to Wisconsin where he founded the art department at Ripon College and spent 33 years as its artist-in-residence. A retrospective of his vast and varied work will be on display from Aug. 16 through Oct. 12 at the Cedarburg Cultural Center. An opening reception will be held from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, with appetizers, wine and entertainment by the Will Phrang Trio.
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Milwaukee Domes Art Festival
Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory (The Domes)
524 S. Layton Blvd.
What are the ingredients of a Milwaukee summer art festival? Live music; food of the fried, grilled, barbecued and smoked variety; crafts for the kids; craft beers for the grownups; 50 different art vendors; and a plein air painting competition. The fifth annual Milwaukee Domes Art Festival, Aug. 15-17, will have them all. The cash prizes to be awarded amount to the tidy sum of $10,500. In other words: the Domes Festival means business.
