Current Exhibitions

What's currently on view at MMoCA

Michael Abramson, Perv’s House, Chicago, 1976. Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches. Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Purchase, through a National Endowment for the Arts grant with matching gifts from museum members.

Focal Points: American Photography Since 1950

By the end of World War II, the photographic image had become ubiquitous in everyday American life. Photographs were commonplace in the tabloid press, for example, and in large-format news magazines like Look and Life, where they took precedence over text. The fine art photograph, however, as opposed to the commercial, scientific, or family photograph, was primarily an expression of the artist’s vision, not a simple record of an event.

Ronald Bostrom, Mullen, 1977. Gelatin silver print, 12 ¼ x 10 inches. Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Purchase, through National Endowment for the Arts grant and matching gifts from museum members.

Seen/Unseen

May 11, 2012, to May 26, 2013

Artists throughout history have pictured reality as understood by their societies. Embedded in works of art are assumptions, varying from culture to culture, about the nature of all things. What is reality? Is it objective and understandable, or subjective and elusive? Finite and predictable, or infinite and in constant flux? Philosophers, theologians, and scientists, as well as poets and artists, have traditionally reflected on these questions.