Derrick Adams @ Milwaukee Art Museum - Our Time Together - Large-Scale Mural Installation

Derrick Adams: Our Time Together

Large-Scale Mural Installation

Milwaukee Art Museum

Derrick Adams (American, b. 1970)

Our Time Together (detail), 2021 

Inkjet print on vinyl. 1130 in. x 179 in

Commissioned by the Milwaukee Art Museum

© Derrick Adams

Artist Derrick Adams in his Brooklyn studio  

Photo courtesy of Derrick Adams Studio 

A commissioned large-scale wall mural and sculptural installation was unveiled October 29 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Created by Brooklyn-based artist Derrick Adams, Our Time Together is a 93-foot work that reframes historical Black narratives.  

“In Our Time Together, I highlight Milwaukee by representing commercial and social spaces known within the Black community,” said Derrick Adams. “These dwellings, and those who occupy them, are essential to the cultural, political and creative growth of American society, which is then spread out to a global audience. The installation reflects my respect and admiration for the perseverance of Black Americans in their pursuit of happiness and speaks to transformation, belonging and normalcy.” 

Inspired by Victor Hugo Green’s The Negro Motorist Green Book, a traveler’s guide for Black Americans during the Jim Crow era, Adams celebrates the rituals of everyday Black life and leisure. The monumental wall mural includes references to important sites of Black culture in Milwaukee including Gee’s Clippers, Coffee Makes You Black and the Wisconsin Black Historical Society, combined with vernacular photographs from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and dynamic figures that Adams created. By referring to sites of intergenerational congregation, ordinary moments and pop culture, the imagery references a richer and more nuanced understanding of Black life in America, beyond historical trauma. 

“Through his monumental wall mural and sculptural installation, Adams underlines the importance of commemorating—and archiving—ordinary daily activities as central to shaping community and collective identity,” said Lisa Sutcliffe, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts, Milwaukee Art Museum. “We’re honored to share and support this site-specific commission, which celebrates Black-owned businesses and culture, and asks important questions about the role of media and visual imagery in the construction of identity and cultural value.” 

The Green Book was revolutionary in its day as a travel guide that listed Black-owned businesses, restaurants and lodgings that were safe for Black travelers in the 1930s through the 1960s, during the height of the Jim Crow era of racial segregation.  

Derrick Adams visited Milwaukee in 2018 and 2019 to explore sites of importance in the Black community, including the Wisconsin Black Historical Society. He also met with Black artists and business owners, researched places listed in the Green Book, and viewed an archive of civil rights era photographs from local newspapers. Derrick Adams has stressed the importance of archives to Milwaukee, where none of the historic Green Book sites still exist. For Adams, pointing to the significance of these archives is a vital form of honoring Black innovation, Black stories and resilience in the face of adversity. 

On view through 2024, Our Time Together is the first in the Museum’s On Site series to activate the East End. The exhibition series, which began in 2001, invites contemporary artists to make new works that respond to a specific location within the Museum. Artists previously featured in the series include Chakaia Booker, Liam Gillick and Andrea Zittel. 

“On Site: Derrick Adams allows the Museum to take a different approach in programming. We have three years to explore the amazing themes of this commission: to gather together, archive Black everyday experiences and histories, and honor Black-owned businesses and service industries,” said Kantara Souffrant, Curator of Community Dialogue, Milwaukee Art Museum. “I want to use this time to co-build with community partners, organizations, and Black artists, to create events and opportunities together that help us strengthen Milwaukee’s arts ecosystem and promote a more unified community.” 

The Milwaukee Art Museum extends its sincere thanks to the 2021 Visionaries: Donna and Donald Baumgartner, Murph Burke, Joel and Caran Quadracci, and Sue and Bud Selig. The Visionaries support the Museum through annual sponsorship of three critical pillars within the Strategic Direction: Art Relevant to the Community, Robust Community Programming and Expansive Hospitality.  

Critical leadership support for Our Time Together has been provided by the Presenting Sponsors: Bader Philanthropies, with support of community engagement and installation activities, and the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Contemporary Art Society, with support for the commission and acquisition of the work. Generous Supporting Sponsorship is provided by the Herzfeld Foundation. 

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Updated Post 14-11-2023

Rineke Dijkstra @ Milwaukee Art Museum

Rineke Dijkstra 
Rehearsals
Milwaukee Art Museum
Through January 1, 2017

RINEKE DIJKSTRA

Marianna (The Fairy Doll), 2014

One-channel HD video installation, surround sound;19 min. 13 sec., looped.

Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery.

© Rineke Dijkstra

The Milwaukee Art Museum presents the recent video installations of internationally acclaimed artist RINEKE DIJKSTRA (Dutch, b. 1959) in Rehearsals, in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts. Two video installations—Marianna (The Fairy Doll) and The Gymschool, St. Petersburg—will make their museum debut in this Milwaukee-originated exhibition organized by Lisa J. Sutcliffe, curator of photography and media arts.

Rineke Dijkstra filmed the two video installations featured in Rehearsals in Russia; the works examine the intensive rehearsals of young girls. Marianna (The Fairy Doll), a single-channel video never shown in the United States, presents a touching portrait of a ballerina as she practices for an audition in the prestigious Vaganova ballet academy. The Gymschool, St. Petersburg, a three channel video, highlights the flexibility and strict discipline of a group of young rhythmic gymnasts. Both videos, which Rineke Dijkstra produced for Manifesta, the European biennial of contemporary art, in 2014, reveal complex layers of determination and fragility as the girls attempt to conceal their emotions and perfect their crafts.

Over the past 30 years, Rineke Dijkstra has produced a sensitive and eloquent body of photographic and video work. In her large-scale photographs and video installations, she is particularly interested in moments of transition, especially adolescence, a time when individuals build their own identities and begin to present themselves in the way they wish to be perceived. Known for her acclaimed photographs of bathers—adolescents Dijkstra met on beaches from Poland to South Carolina—her subjects range from teenagers to mothers who have just given birth, bull fighters fresh from the ring and military recruits. In contrast to her earlier videos of visitors and dancers in nightclubs, Dijkstra’s recent videos capture young girls who have dedicated their lives to practicing incredible athletic routines. She does not concentrate on the final, polished performance but, rather, focuses on what is in fact a more impressive feat: the repetition, resolve, determination and constant practice that it takes to become a truly gifted performer. As the girls attempt to conceal their personal emotions, Dijkstra finds beauty in the moments of imperfection when they reveal their humanity.

Accompanying the Rehearsals exhibition is The Lives of Other: Portraits from the Photography Collection. This presentation of works from the Museum’s photography collection explores the interest many photographers have had in understanding how people present themselves to the world. The exhibition is organized thematically and includes an important new acquisition, Rineke Dijkstra’s Almerisa (1994–ongoing), purchased through the Christine A. Symchych and James P. McNulty Acquisition Fund. The work is an 11-part series that follows the transition of a young Bosnian refugee as she adapts to life in the West and grows from a girl to a woman with her own child.

“This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view Rineke Dijkstra’s video installations in the context of contemporary and historical portraiture,” said Lisa J. Sutcliffe, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s curator of photography and media arts. “Marianna (The Fairy Doll) and The Gymschool, St. Petersburg reveal Dijkstra’s continued interest in examining the nature of transformation by closely observing the act of rehearsal itself.”

Both exhibitions are sponsored by the Herzfeld Foundation and on view through January 1, 2017.

About RINEKE DIJKSTRA: Short biography

Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra (b. 1959, Sittard, The Netherlands) studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Her work has appeared in many international exhibitions and biennials including the 1997 and 2001 Venice Biennale, the 2005 Sharjah Biennial, and the 1998 Sao Paulo Biennial. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam organized a large overview of her work, Rineke Dijkstra: Portraits, in 2005, which traveled to Jeu de Paume in Paris, La Caixa in Barcelona and Fotomuseum Winterthur. In the United States, a major retrospective of her work was organized in 2013 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize in 1998. She lives and works in Amsterdam.

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