How does one raise the profile of Wisconsin art? “You can’t just say we have a bunch of art in the middle of nowhere. You have to build an experience,” says Milwaukee artist and curator Shane McAdams. “If we build the connective tissue between everyone in the art world, we’ll raise the tide.”
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
That motive drove the ambitious creation of Door County Contemporary, an art fair in breezy Fish Creek created by McAdams and three other Milwaukeeans (Josh Hintz, Shane Walsh and Jaymee Harvey Willms). And it’s working: Last year’s inaugural event attracted 3,400 attendees and 20 exhibiting galleries from Wisconsin and the Midwest. On June 4-7, the ticketed fair returns to the Peninsula School of Art.
The number of galleries will remain the same (in the mix are Milwaukee’s Kim Storage Gallery, Real Tinsel, Portrait Society Gallery, The Green Gallery and more) but with a farther, international reach. “CANADA, from New York City, is a very high-profile gallery on the international scene,” says McAdams. “We even have a Danish gallery (HAGD Contemporary of Aalborg) flying in to participate.” Art publication Bad at Sports will host a live podcast, and artist-in-residence Claire Ashley will add whimsy with four inflatable sculptures.
It’s the tranquil setting of Door County that’s why the fair isn’t in a big city like Milwaukee that’s easier for jet-setters to access. “Collectors like to buy art in concert with some kind of vacation experience,” McAdams says.
The peninsula, shouldered by Lake Michigan and Green Bay, is also a region already rich in established contemporary-art galleries. Fish Creek’s Edgewood Orchard Galleries is home to an outdoor sculpture garden and has been open since 1969. Egg Harbor’s Cappaert Contemporary Gallery, open since 2015, is tucked into an historic 1873 log building and is the working studio of artist Ginnie Cappaert, selling her work and that of other artists. The region’s already attracting art lovers, which McAdams says is perfect for exposing Wisconsin’s “incredible” art scene to an international audience.
Where McAdams hopes strong connections between collectors, artists and gallery owners are forged is at Björklunden, Lawrence University’s blissful 425-acre northern campus in Baileys Harbor. New to this year, the space will lodge attendees and exhibitors and host after-hours parties. “We’ll be able to create a community and engage with each other,” he says. “Our ultimate goal is to create a world that confirms the value of engaging with contemporary art, and to establish it in peoples’ psyches as something that enhances their lives.”
