& remember, loneliness
is still time spent
with the world
—Ocean Vuong

Mari Eastman’s paintings may have glitter, or they may come from fashion magazines but
there’s something that places them in a universe completely alien and distant from bling bling.
Their blurred faces become an antidote to the Clarendon filter. They stand more suggestive,
insinuating, close to the attraction of the myopic and elusive gaze.
More than a concept or a narrative, the exhibition evokes a tone, an atmosphere created by the
various landscapes, people and animals that it contains. They attract us like the photographs
found in flea markets, because of their anonymity and their mystery, of solitary figures,
moments and objects that contain something that continually escapes. Brushstrokes are
similar to the mood of animals, difficult to photograph because they are unpredictable, they
don’t mind being dirty or sabotaging a perfect scene.
Like the glimmer of insecurity hidden in the elegance of maturity.

Like the reflection of the sun on the crockery of a plate of leftover food, in a relaxed after-
dinner atmosphere.

Like the perfection of out-moded women’s hairstyles, so melancholic.
Like the fragile pattern of a brown moth’s wings.
Like the folds in the fabric of a wet swimsuit that is slightly too big for us.
Like that landscape photo we took wrongly from the train.
At the antipodes of the overly scripted and clear-cut texts of algorithms, the obviousness of
the produced and studied discourses that flood the press, from everything that has to do with
the supposed reality, so augmented, so perfect, so normative that it is confused with the fake,
always optimised and profitable. Ambiguity, pleasure and poetry are more necessary than ever.

Visionary Ho-Chunk artist Truman Lowe transforms native traditions into sophisticated minimalist sculptures that bridge ancestral wisdom and contemporary artistry. Raised in Wisconsin's woodlands speaking Hoocąąk, Lowe crafts graceful works from malleable wood that pay homage to sacred elements while exploring identity and landscape. A distinguished educator at UW-Madison and former Smithsonian curator, his masterful fusion of Ho-Chunk heritage and modern sculptural techniques continues to captivate audiences, with a landmark retrospective planned at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in October 2025.

Milwaukee-based artist, writer, and curator Michelle Grabner pays homage to custodial labor through this installation of household sinks and replicated everyday objects. Largely unseen janitorial work is instead foregrounded through the presence of commonplace objects used to keep institutional spaces sanitary. In the traditionally orderly gallery space, rests a silver leafed garbage can, cast bronze broom, and cast porcelain buckets, caddies, wash brushes, toilet paper rolls, washcloths, "wet floor" signs, and cleaning supplies.

The majority of the work in Grabner's exhibition is produced in the Kohler MakerSpace, an invitational project space for artists and designers based in Kohler's Pottery. In addition, the display includes work from Kohler Co.’s commercial production line including single basin wall-mounted sinks.

Grabner’s display celebrates the labor of sanitation, highlights the design of those objects, and creates a conceptual link to Cleaning Woman, a photograph by August Sander in the Museum’s adjacent collection display.

Michelle Grabner, based in Chicago and Wisconsin, has explored domestic themes for over 30 years. Her artwork memorializes household patterns or everyday objects through a variety of media such as burlap, bronze, crochet, spider webs, and gingham.

Grabner is the Crown Family Professor of Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has taught since 1996. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2018 National Academician in the National Academy of Design, and a 2024 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters Fellow. Major museum exhibitions curated by Grabner include the 2014 Whitney Biennial and the inaugural 2018 FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. In 2021 she co-curated Sculpture Milwaukee with Theaster Gates. In 2024 she curated 50 Paintings, a survey of contemporary international painting at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Grabner, along with artist Brad Killam runs the artist-run project spaces, The Suburban, Milwaukee, WI (est. 1999) and The Poor Farm, Little Wolf, WI (est. 2008).

In Partnership with Kohler Co.

Kazuyuki Takezaki, a painter whose blurry, washed-out landscapes made him a closely watched artist of Japan’s art scene, has died at 48 after a heart attack. Jeffrey Rosen, cofounder of Takezaki’s Tokyo-based representative Misako & Rosen, confirmed the artist’s death and said his gallery was working to establish an estate for Takezaki.

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