With summer almost closing in, it’s time to start making plans to hit up music festivals. Below are three of the best festivals the Midwest has to offer, from hip-hop in a Minnesota suburb to dubstep in the woods of Michigan. With factors such as cost and location, choosing the… Read more »

On Monday, Postdoctoral Fellow Mary Murrell spoke to a crowd of about 30 in Helen C. White Hall, detailing the history of mass book digitization and its developers’ quest towards modernity. Murrell, a University of California, Berkeley graduate with a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology,  addressed the crowd of professors and… Read more »

When was the last time you saw a chick flick that was relatable? Never. Exactly. However, Anna Martemucci and her husband Victor Quinaz have set out to create one that is relatable. The two wrote, produced and even performed in their upcoming movie “Breakup at a Wedding,” which will screen… Read more »

For the majority of the public, paintings can be a tricky art to follow, often disappearing behind a veil of elitism and abstraction. A new exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art seeks to break down these barriers, focusing on the intricacies of the medium itself. “Drawings from the Joseph… Read more »

With the return of warmer weather, new trends emerge and bright colors make their way out of our closets. This weekend was warm enough that campus was Ugg-free. So how do we dress for this new season? In Wisconsin it can be hard to remember a season other than winter,… Read more »

“Occasionally interesting hodgepodge” is an accurate way to describe this year’s student art show. The 85th Annual Juried Student Art Show, presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Art Committee, features a wide assortment of paintings, sculptures and mediums submitted by University of Wisconsin students. WUD’s mission with this show is… Read more »

Somewhere between Hell and humanity, Carlos Fragoso’s paintings must live a very real existence. The Brazilian artist, now nearly 60 years old, opened an exhibition last Friday at Gallery 1308 in Union South. The exhibition titled, “The Age of Foolishness,” will be on display until April 9.The collection of paintings… Read more »

The Great Depression and New Deal occupy a special place in the American historical canon. For one, they mark one of the greatest periods of hardship in American history, and the beginning of a process that would end with the United States becoming the most powerful economic force in the… Read more »

For the vast majority of people, faces are just another part of our lives. Thousands of them can pass by on a single day, yet they vanish from our minds a second after they disappear - a fleeting moment lost in the everyday shuffle. For artist Claire Huber, a University… Read more »

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art could not have chosen a better way to bring in the new year. The retrospective print collection of Ellsworth Kelly is refreshingly strong. Some works in the show date back to his early success of the 1960s, while others are as recent as 2005.… Read more »

Art perpetuates an incestuous folding in on itself. Defining status and style, artists have always managed to compare themselves or be compared to their peers and predecessors alike. For this reason, it is clear to see that the infiltration of early 20th century modernist art, like Cubism, Fauvism and Futurism, lend… Read more »

Carts of books, scrap paper notes-to-self and manilla folders outlined the perimeter of Micaela Sullivan-Fowler’s office. In charge of Ebling Library’s historical services department, Fowler has been collecting materials since May for today’s opening reception of the exhibit Fallout: The Mixed Blessing of Radiation & the Public Health. Fowler curated… Read more »

There is garbage on the walls of the gallery. A series of card table-sized prints are screwed along the walls of Union South’s “Gallery 1308.” Desaturated and achromatic, they bring to mind old newspapers matted in a gutter with fall leaves steeping in their orange tea. Galen Gibson-Cornell, a second… Read more »

The latest exhibit to open at the Chazen Museum of Art, “The Golden Age of British Watercolors, 1790-1910,” gives visitors and art aficionados a closer look at one of the defining eras in Victorian art history. The Chazen’s Garfield Gallery prominently displays watercolors of varying hues and sizes. Familiar pieces… Read more »

One of Madison’s great havens for local artists is soon to be relocated, but not without a final exhibit that celebrates one aspect the space has always emphasized: spectacle. Beginning tomorrow, the Project Lodge will display a menagerie of works composed by four local artists centered on the highly theatrical… Read more »

When one tries to envision a “lights display,” images of lasers, smoke and show lights of different colors come to mind, blinking in a repetitive, automated, lifeless pattern. But for many visitors to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the New York-based artist Leo Villareal introduces a new way to… Read more »

Every year, 1.5 million art enthusiasts travel to Florence, Italy, to explore one of the world’s most renowned and oldest art museums, the Uffizi Gallery. The Madison community can now enjoy this international experience at the Chazen Art Museum with the opening of its latest exhibit, “Offering of the Angels: Painting… Read more »

It isn’t easy to coax some 150,000 Madison residents and visitors from across the map to Capitol Square, especially amid a record-setting heatwave. But evidently, when you provide the art, the crowds will amass, as they did for the 54th annual Art Fair on the Square held July 14-15. At… Read more »

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is hosting the bi-annual Design MMoCA event, featuring a variety of works from regional artists. MMoCA hosted a Preview Gala Wednesday to kick off the event, and the gallery is open for about two weeks. The Preview Gala presents all of the expected attractions of… Read more »

Complete with a straitjacket and live pigeons, Harry Houdini has made an entrance at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Houdini: Art and Magic, organized by The Jewish Museum in New York, traces Houdini’s development from a little-known magician and circus performer to a world famous escape artist and popular… Read more »

Every four years, professors from the art department step away from studios, critiques and syllabi and into the spotlight at an exhibition in the Chazen Museum of Art. The first faculty show to be exhibited in the new expansion is Compendium 2012: Art Department Faculty Exhibition. Opening with a preview… Read more »

There’s something amusingly obscure about a roomful of prints by Mexican artists mostly done in the first half of the 20th century. It’s a collection that sounds like it belongs in a long, dry conversation with an uncle who heads up an independent tax firm but really had a passion… Read more »

Students in the University of Wisconsin’s art department have committed the egregious error of underselling their passion and talent for creating works of art. All 12 students are enrolled in the department’s Advanced Painting Workshop, a thesis painting class for the university’s “most talented undergraduate painters,” professor Nancy Mladdenoff said.… Read more »

Tickets to watch Badger football or hear the University of Wisconsin Madhatters a capella group sell very quickly. Meanwhile, talent among women on the UW campus often goes unrecognized. However, this Saturday, the Campus Women’s Center is offering students, faculty and members of the Madison community a chance to appreciate… Read more »

Full disclosure: I am by no means an artist, nor am I an avid adventurer in the world of the visual arts. That said, one need not be an artist to appreciate art, just as one need not be a musician in order to appreciate music (though such experience certainly… Read more »

That’s right, folks: In an inspired programming move, WUD Music Committee booked both Neon Indian and Kreayshawn to perform tonight for free at The Sett in Union South. Despite a Freakfest lineup that merely demonstrates just how out of touch its organizers are with modern music, Madisonites can look forward… Read more »

Since its debut Cross hit clubs and mixes across the planet in 2007, Justice has slowly been losing its previously constant place on college party playlists. The French electro duo’s infectious single “D.A.N.C.E.” had listeners humming for days after its first release. But will its second LP, Audio, Video, Disco,… Read more »

Today marked the opening of the Chazen Museum of Art’s other half. For the past two years, students have walked by another construction site. But today we welcome a new member to the university and Madison. The Chazen has doubled its size through an 86,000 square-foot extension. The project cost… Read more »

Since the groundbreaking ceremony of the Chazen Museum of Art’s expansion more than two and a half years ago, a diverse assortment of art lovers have anxiously awaited the opportunity to experience the new addition. This weekend marks the end of a long construction period, as the Chazen opens its… Read more »

Unrest and discomfort go hand in hand. The former is an intermediate state, a feeling of flux that precludes normal behavior. The latter can be a result of unrest — the pain caused by turmoil or the uneasy feeling that creeps up in an unfamiliar situation. The two, when paired… Read more »

Thursday evening marks the opening ceremony of the Wisconsin Science Festival and the kick-off of Madison’s Arts Night Out. The theme of this year’s festival is explosive, titled “Curiosity Unleashed.” A wide array of exhibits and hands-on learning activities will be offered throughout the campus and city this Thursday through Sunday. The… Read more »

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art began its exhibit on the Chicago Imagists Sept. 11 with a talk by several members of the movement. That night, Gladys Nilsson and Art Green sat down with a MMoCA representative in an attempt to draw out memories of the time that inspired these… Read more »

A simple wrong turn off State Street leads to a little known side entrance of the Overture Center. Through the side door is the Playhouse Gallery, which is difficult to find from the center’s front entrance. This is the location of 9/11 Then and Now, a photography exhibit opening on… Read more »

“History is written by the victors,” according to Winston Churchill. Churchill’s quote underscores the human element of bias woven into the retelling of history through text or its representation through art. The Loaded Image: Printmaking as Persuasion exhibition curated in the Oscar F. and Louise Greiner Mayer Gallery at the… Read more »

With the school year drawing to a close, most students begin to anticipate the unique sounds, sights and smells filling the city as summer kicks off. A less reflected upon subject, however, is the excess amount of waste cluttering each and every Madison gutter around this time. Artist Hongtao Zhou… Read more »

Even if you are not in the Veterinary School, or even an animal lover, you’ll enjoy “Beastly Prints: Modern Interpretations of the Art of Bestiary,” part of the Overture Center’s new round of spring galleries. The gallery is comprised of various pieces from three different artists — S.V. Medaris, Briony… Read more »

“Many are born and few grow up” is a meaningful bumper sticker attached to many cars in Honduras. It is no secret that Honduras had a troubled past and continues to struggle into the future.Nicholas Wynia, a UW-Madison graduate student, worked in a grade school in Juticalpa, Honduras, from 2004… Read more »

When viewing the Chazen Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Holy Image, Sacred Presence: Russian Icons, 1500-1900,” the old is-it-idolatrous-or-isn’t-it conundrum takes a back seat to an appreciation of the at times stunning Eastern Orthodox Iconography presented in the Chazen’s Mayer Gallery. The exhibit is made up of approximately thirty pieces… Read more »

Recently, writer Adrien Chen released an article about a fringe astronomy journal that led with the sentence, “There’s a way in which science can be viewed as the business of publishing very serious and boring magazines.” And there’s more than a kernel of truth to that thought. Though cutting edge… Read more »

“Young at Art” is an assortment of artwork at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. The artists range from kindergarten students to high school seniors. To some, it might sound like a grandiose version of a school art show. In some sense, it is. The walls of State Street’s main… Read more »

Beyond the controversial politics and frustrated protesters, there has been a sense of art present at Capitol Square while Wisconsin protesting makes history. Project Lodge, a unique art gallery on East Johnson, has taken the time to showcase the artistic value of these signs in their temporary exhibit, “SolidARTity,” and… Read more »

While Julie Insun Youn may declare that her art “interrogates the banality of everyday life,” the paintings featured in her most recent exhibition are, themselves, far from ordinary. The subjectivity of evaluating art makes reviewing such work a difficult task. But Youn’s exhibition, titled “Torture of Meaningless,” featured in the… Read more »

A halfpipe is an unusual thing to see at Memorial Union. Yet that does not seem to faze artist Sofia Maldonado. A Puerto Rican native, Maldonado hosted an opening reception for her new exhibit in the Porter Butts Gallery Friday, adding her typical street art flair. In front of the… Read more »

The potential for a gourd extends far beyond dinner fare or a fall decoration. As the exhibition Gourd as Art proved, gourds also make for provocative art. Through the exhibit the Wisconsin Gourd Society, a not-for-profit organization founded in 2005, showcases techniques including carving, pyrography, painting, inks, assemblage and sculpture… Read more »

Until Feb. 25, Steenbock Gallery will be displaying an impressive exhibit consisting of over 30 photographs taken by seventh grade art students at Cherokee Middle School. These young photographers, taught by Amy Mietzel, were taught the basics of digital cameras and assigned to “take something ordinary and make it extra-ordinary.”… Read more »