After 18 months of renovation, the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) reopened the American Collections Galleries in grand style on Oct. 23. In collaboration with the Chipstone Foundation, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit that collects antique American furniture and ceramics, organizers coordinated curators and decorative arts collections to redefine the galleries and attempt to inspire awe and curiosity among visitors.
Constructed on the MAM's lower level, the six galleries-the American Furniture Gallery, Hidden Dimensions, Loca Miraculi: Rooms of Wonder, American Paintings, Chair Park and the Decorative Arts Gallery-incorporate paintings from the Layton Art Collection with historic furniture and rotating decorative artifacts. Each installation provides viewers with an opportunity to observe historic objects within a fresh context, pushing the envelope of museum displays and encouraging the interplay of thoughts, ideas and emotions.
This cutting-edge concept can be seen in an installation that exhibits the word "sex" above a tea table and chairs from the 1750s. Accompanying information combines a description of the decorative arts with a love poem from the 1700s, allowing viewers to see the correlation between sharing a cup of tea and acts of courtship and intimacy during this time period. Observers can see how today's coffeehouses provide comparable "tea tables" that invite couples into closer proximity, just as they did in the 18th century.
Together with Madison artist Martha Glowacki and cabinetmaker Jim Dietz, Chipstone Foundation curators Jonathan Prown, Sarah Fayen and Ethan Lasser designed the installations in the three "Rooms of Wonder." The exhibit reinterprets the Renaissance tradition of displaying "cabinets of curiosities," which held items of great beauty and scientific relevance. Viewers may be invited to open drawers that reveal videos and information exploring a variety of natural or man-made objects.
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One room features Glowacki's artistic optical devices and a fanciful china cabinet filled with relics and rarities. A Renaissance booklet containing information about the entire collection is available to read while touring the rooms.
The installations help connect imaginative ideas to these heirloom decorative arts. Observing the functional but exquisitely crafted furniture and common objects that surrounded people in past centuries provides an opportunity to reflect on their modern-day counterparts, instilling a sense of wonder that ultimately relates one generation to the next.
As Fayen says of the artists, "They have created spaces that engage and excite, pushing the limits of inspiration and idea."
MAM hosts two insightful gallery talks on the American decorative arts collections: Curator Sarah Fayen will speak on Tuesday, Nov. 4, at 1:30 p.m., and curator Ethan Lasser is set to talk on Tuesday, Nov. 25, at 1:30 p.m.
