madison museum of contemporary art

 

saturday night we went to the opening of the Chicago Imagists show at MMoCA. Imagist artists Art Green and Gladys Nilsson discussed the artistic evolution of the group with MMoCA director Stephen Fleischman. It was a great lecture. And with contemporary art I find it always helpful to go to the lecture if possible. Chicago Imagists will be on view at MMoCA from September 11, 2011, to January 8, 2012.

In the late 1960s, art audiences were introduced to a vibrant new group of artists whose works were characterized by personal fantasy and executed with brilliant color, graphic strength, free line, and exceptional workmanship. These artists were soon identified collectively as the Chicago Imagists. With broader sources of inspiration than the Pop artists, and a brand of exuberant and irreverent satire all their own, the Imagists spoke to the political and social foibles—as well as the absurdities and whimsy—of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Chicago Imagists at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art includes more than 75 works in a variety of media. Key to the exhibition are consummate paintings, sculptures, and unique works on paper from the museum’s Bill McClain Collection of Chicago Imagism, many of which will be presented to a public audience for the first time. The exhibition also features a number of major gifts to MMoCA from the Raymond K. Yoshida Living Trust and Kohler Foundation, Inc.