The Milwaukee Art Museum raised $1.2 million at its second annual Art:Forward Gala on Saturday. The funds raised at the event, which the Milwaukee Art Museum hosted inside its Quadracci Pavilion, will support the museum’s contemporary art program. The event honored artist and filmmaker Robert Longo, whose work will be the focus of the museum’s
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Robert Longo speaks at the Milwaukee Art Museum's Art:Forward Gala. Photo by Front Room Studios and courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum.[/caption]
The exhibition will feature Longo’s work from the last ten years. Longo, who is most known for his realistic charcoal drawings, has created many art pieces based on “contemporary global events,” according to the museum’s news release.
At the Art:Forward Gala, the Milwaukee Art Museum also announced it is in the process of acquiring two of the art pieces that will be on display as part of the exhibition, according to the museum’s news release. Both are charcoal drawings and would join two of Longo’s lithographs that the museum already has in its collection.
“I am so very pleased to be able to share with you that thanks in large part to the support extended by key donors, including Sue and Bud Selig, the Museum’s Contemporary Art Society, Pace Gallery and Robert Longo himself, we are in the process of securing two major acquisitions of Robert’s work for the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection,” said Margaret Andera, the museum’s senior curator of contemporary art, in the news release.
One of the drawings, called “State of the Union,” highlights the congresswomen who wore white to former President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2019. The other, called “Three Graces,” depicts a storefront display of wedding dresses that has been punctured by bullets in Donetsk, Ukraine, according to the news release.
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According to the news release, Milwaukee Art Museum supporters in attendance included:
Jeff and Gail Yabuki. Photo by Front Room Studios and courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum.[/caption]