CULTURE | SPONSORED BY THE MIWAUKEE ART MUSEUM
THIS MONTH IN MILWAUKEE
17 THINGS TO DO IN AUGUST By A llen Halas, David Luhrssen, Tyler Nelson and Blaine Schultz
tAs uncertainty continues, local arts groups stage events virtually and musicians venture cautiously onto Milwaukee stages. Be sure to check ahead in case of cancellations.
Ongoing
Through September 6
Milwaukee County Zoo u
“A Community of Voices” Museum of Wisconsin Art
“The decision to transition to reopen parts of the Milwaukee County Zoo’s indoor spaces has involved much careful thought, planning, and review, with staff, visitors and animals’ safety as the first priority,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley last month. And he wasn’t being overly cautious about the zoo’s permanent residents. Animals at the Bronx Zoo have contracted COVID. In Milwaukee, the zoo’s outdoor habitats were already reopened in June to limited numbers of daily visitors. Physical distancing, masks and reservations continue to be required.
Now Streaming
Now Streaming
360 Degree Tour q Milwaukee Public Museum
Being Earnest Skylight Music Theatre
“The Dog Show” Tory Folliard Gallery
Through August 29
The Streets of Old Milwaukee has long been one of the museum’s most visited permanent exhibits. History books show pictures and tell stories of the city’s past, but the Streets of Old Milwaukee allows us to step inside and connect the senses to imagination. The narrow brick-paved lanes and small storefronts selling goods made on-site paint a living portrait of an all but forgotten, hand-crafted time. One thing an observant eye will appreciate: there’s not a screen in sight.
One likes to think that Oscar Wilde would have had a grand time in the 1960s. Not so much for the politics—he might have satirized pretensions on all sides—but the Carnaby Street colors and euphoria over new possibilities that emerged from the counterculture. Skylight brings this sensibility to the fore with its online musical version of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. His witty-catty dialogue rings true amidst the production’s mod setting and soundtrack by The Rolling Stones, The Hollies and other favorites from the era.
Forget about all those pet dog pictures on Facebook. When Wisconsin surrealist Fred Stonehouse paints a dog, the canvas is filled with a tearful beast under a full moon, grasping an egg in clawed palms. A sad were-dog? Stonehouse is curator of “The Dog Show,” an exhibition of paintings, photographs, prints, drawings and sculpture by more than 30 artists. Stonehouse is celebrating the canine’s role as “mythic surrogate” and “formal muse.”
Through August 16
Free admission Milwaukee Art Museum For the first half of the month, the Milwaukee Art Museum will continue to offer free admission to all visitors. New protocols are in place, including robust cleaning procedures, signage to promote social distancing and hand sanitizing stations throughout. Staff and visitors must wear face coverings. Only the first floor will be open but paintings from the American collection and masterworks from the Bradley Collection have been moved to areas open to the public. The Museum Store and Windhover Café are open. Advance tickets can be reserved at mam.org/visit.
Photo Courtesy of Jewish Museum Milwaukee
Through August 30
“The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka in the Łód Ghetto” p Jewish Museum Milwaukee When the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz, a Russian officer found a diary in the rubble of the crematorium. The author, a teenage girl named Rywka Lipszyc, had been locked inside the Łódz Ghetto along with the Polish city’s other Jews. Seventy years later, her journal was translated and published as The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc. The journal is at the heart of the most recent exhibition at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, which continues as a virtual tour.
The West Bend museum presents work by six Milwaukee artists associated with the Sisters of Creativity, an art collective that seeks to recognize African American women who have long been marginalized from the mainstream art world. The diversity of the exhibition includes assemblages, collages, sculptural work and works on paper by Blanche Brown, Rhonda GatlinHayes, Chrystal Denise Gillon, Ruthie Joy, Tia Richardson and 2019 City of Milwaukee Artist of the Year Rosemary Ollison. While their media vary, they are united in purpose: championing social justice and civil rights, giving voice to the voiceless, expressing spirituality and coping with trauma.
Through October 23
“I Am a Story: Self-Portraits at The Warehouse” q The Warehouse Fifty self-portraits from the collection of John Shannon and Jan Serr were chosen for this exhibition at their Menomonee River Valley art space. “At the heart of this exhibition is that through these self-portraits each artist is telling us a story,” curator Nick Pipho says. “This concept has become even more appropriate given the current state of the country and the world. At a time when meeting new people, interacting with them face to face and learning their stories has become increasingly fraught, this exhibition offers a new way to have that experience. The concept of a self-portrait is also one that permeates our society perhaps more than any time in the past”—in an age of selfies and social media.
"Colescott Makes an Etching" (1978) by Warrington Colescott Photo by Robb Quinn
Photo Courtesy of Jewish Museum Milwaukee
48 | Shepherd Express
