The sound of Milwaukee

I spent the better part of today in "the Genuine American City" and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I worked on my personal statement on the ninety-some minute bus-ride over. When we arrived at the Milwaukee Art Museum our group of twenty or so went in separate ways, and I wandered the museum by myself. The major exhibit was "Masterpieces of American Art, 1770 - 1920: From the Detroit Institute of Arts," which was okay, but less focused than I think an exhibit should be. Grouping works based on where they currently reside seems foolish and unenlightening. After finishing my pass through those galleries, I set off in search of 20th century Italian Art, particularly any work by Medardo Rosso, but I was unsuccessful in achieving my specific goal and only moderately successful in achieving the more general one. Like the Art Institute of Chicago, this museum largely ignores Italy after the time of Carravagio. My searching did yield the unexpected pleasure of conversing with one of the museum guards named Ivana, a 22-year old art education student at UW-Milwaukee. She's from the Czech Republic, and encouraged me to visit Prague as soon as I have the chance. Ivana was most certainly one of the most knowledgeable guards I encountered, but she was trapped in the "Folk and Self-Taught" art section, which we both disliked. I think she was happy to have a little conversation.

At one, we boarded the bus and headed over to a dumpy little part of town for reasons unknown. I stuck with Eva (with whom I've now shared two art history courses) and her friend Rachel, and we ate at a Greek place called Apollo's. I had a good gyro and reasonable balavá. We wander the area for a while but found little of merit, so we walked back to the museum area, stopping it at a Borders and an Old Navy along the way. I used my time at Borders to begin reading Stephen King's The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, which has me tingling with anticipation. I was not disappointed by what little I had a chance to experience. We got back to the museum in time to watch it close its wings, and then we bussed home again.