MOWA REVISITED

Earlier this week I returned to the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend to do a little more photography.  It was a brighter day and I spent some time trying to capture the building's exterior and interior architecture.  I also took photos of some of the artwork that I had not shot on my first visit.  I also found myself taking photos of some of the abstract artwork not as art per se but simply for its abstract quality.  The same can be said for some of the interior architectural detail.  I plan to show these abstract shots in a subsequent post.

Here is a photo of the main entrance, which incorporates the sign for the museum, something I should have done the first time.

And here's a photo of the building's most distinctive architectural feature, the very acutely angled corner  at the north end.

I took essentially this same shot on my first visit.  The sun was out this time, providing more contrast, but I 'm not sure this represents an improvement overall.

Here is another attempt to capture a sculpture hanging on the interior of this triangular space.

I was in a bit of a hurry to take the following photo of the museum's lobby area, as I wanted to include the visitor in the shot.  As it was, I took the shot without much thought or preparation.  The bright light streaming through the window deceived the camera's light meter, and the shot was significantly underexposed for the walls, as well as for the visitor.  However, in post processing I was able to bring out the walls and visitor without blowing out the light from the window.  The result, I think, gives a nice sense of the space.  The low benches add to that sense.

The following is a small section of a much larger piece of folk art.  The entire piece included a number of bird "families" positioned on different levels of the overall framework of the piece.

A major challenge was the artwork behind this sculpture.  If I had positioned the camera far enough from the bird sculpture to include the entire work, this would have brought into play the artwork behind.  By getting much closer to the subject work and opening up the aperture, I was able to make the depth of field much shallower, effectively blurring out the art behind the birds.  In short, this was the best I could do.

In my first post I included the following very large painting (15-20 feet across), and I made the comment that the some of the figures had a zombie-like aspect.

Here are a couple of close-ups to support that comment.

This really is a remarkable piece of art, not just for its sheer size, but for the emotion it conveys.

And, speaking of emotion, here is a detail from another highly charged piece.

This person is in deep trouble.

John