The Shepherd Express congratulates our visual art columnist, Shane McAdams, for earning this year’s Wisconsin Visual Art Achievement Award (WVAAA) for Arts Writing.
“The value of art writing in the age of mass imagery is paradoxically less meaningful and more important than ever,” McAdams says. “We witness how Millenials and Zoomers operate in a world of recirculated images and pictograms that are beginning to function as languages of their own. When I'm occasionally privy to my students' interpersonal communications, I read it the same way a speaker of Old English might read Middle English. Meaning, I read it with difficulty and limited understanding. It's nothing less than a total linguistic paradigm shift.”
“But, even as we rocket into the technological future, an understanding of traditional tongues and modes of writing remains important. Being able to write about art with the precision of the English language allows us one more unique perspective on it, and the more perspectives we have on anything, the more reliable a picture of its essence we can build. Knowing the roots of a language will allow us to manage it like a nervous parent as it runs free and sometimes haphazardly into the brave funhouse of the future.”
McAdams received his MFA from the Pratt Institute and has exhibited his own artwork in solo and collaborative exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, Portland and across Wisconsin. He is also the director of the Real Tinsel Gallery (1013-1015 W. Historic Mitchell St.), which hosts exhibits of contemporary art.
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Organized by Wisconsin Visual Artists, the Museum of Wisconsin Art and the James Watrous Gallery, the WVAAA is awarded biennially to honor people and groups for “significantly enriching the visual arts of the state.” This year’s winners include other Milwaukeeans such as artist Anne Kingsbury (Legacy), Pius XI High School’s Patricia Frederick (Educator), UW-Milwaukee’s Kim Cosier (Educator), Mary Nohl Fellowship Program’s Polly Morris (Arts Advocate) and MIAD graduate Ariana Vaeth (Emerging Artist).
The award ceremony will be held 2-3:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 29 at the Museum of Wisconsin Art, 205 Veterans Ave., West Bend.
