In the small second-floor Mayer Gallery at the Chazen Museum of Art, the five strikingly contemporary digital inkjet portraits by Dennis Miller that depict human sensory organs hang on a wall only a few feet across from a dozen of Leslee Nelson’s old-fashioned embroidered linens.
Figuratively, you can situate most the rest of the huge show of new art by faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in between those two extremes.
Variety in both technique and subject matter is what once again recommends this extensive survey show, which has taken place every four years or so since 1974. Visitors are sure to find things they love, like, dislike and hate.
That is as it should be in the experimental environment of a world-class public teaching institution that was ranked last year as 13th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. An art school, after all, encourages the faculty to learn from the students, and each other, as much as it encourages the students to learn from the faculty.