Critically Acclaimed “Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography” Opens at Milwaukee Art Museum Oct. 23

Co-curated by MAM’s Kristen Gaylord, the landmark exhibition reveals how 180 years of pictures has made the hidden industries behind trendy life seen.

MILWAUKEE, Wis.,— Aug 20, 2026—The Milwaukee Art Museum will current Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography, on view Oct. 23, 2026, by means of Jan. 18, 2027, within the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts.

Following its debut on the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the exhibition involves Milwaukee amid important nationwide acclaim. The Washington Post known as it “a smart, bracing show” providing the “clearest view of America,” whereas The Wall Street Journal praised its examination of “the massive industry and the difficult tradeoffs essential to U.S. energy development.”

Spanning 180 years of pictures, Beneath the Surface explores how photographers have labored to make seen the mining and drilling that energy trendy life but typically stay unseen. From early historic photographs to putting modern works, the exhibition traces how artists have frequently developed new methods to image the expansive but elusive actions of extracting, transporting, and processing pure sources throughout the United States.

The pictures reveal landscapes reworked, communities affected, and the labor and programs behind the supplies and applied sciences used day by day. They additionally chart pictures’s ever-changing function, whether or not selling industrial growth and discovering magnificence in equipment or analyzing social points like environmental injustice, labor circumstances, and local weather change.

At the center of the exhibition is a revealing paradox: Photography has been a principal medium for documenting useful resource extraction whereas relying on extracted supplies for its personal creation. Silver and copper had been important to early photographic processes, simply as copper, lithium, petroleum merchandise, and different supplies stay integral to digital cameras, smartphones, and modern printing.

The Milwaukee presentation will embrace roughly 140 works, starting from daguerreotypes and stereographs to photobooks, documentary photographs, conceptual tasks, aerial pictures, and large-scale digital prints. Together, they show how photographers have repeatedly tailored the medium’s applied sciences and visible methods to signify industries that unfold underground, throughout huge networks, and over lengthy durations of time.

“Photography has shaped public understanding of resource extraction for nearly two centuries, central to both depicting and critiquing the processes that enable our contemporary world,” mentioned Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts on the Milwaukee Art Museum. “Beneath the Surface highlights how, even with this most challenging of subjects, artists have innovated time and again to reveal the scale of these activities and their repercussions for peoples and lands across the United States.”

Gaylord co-curated the exhibition with Diane Waggoner, performing head and curator of pictures on the National Gallery of Art. Gaylord oversees the analysis, preservation, acquisition, and presentation of MAM’s pictures and new media collections. Before becoming a member of the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2023, she was affiliate curator of pictures on the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and held a number of curatorial roles on the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her latest MAM exhibitions embrace Currents 40: Widline Cadet and Erin Shirreff: Permanent Drafts.

The exhibition’s themes have specific resonance in Wisconsin. The state’s historical past consists of the lead mining that contributed to its “Badger State” nickname, processing and transportation of pure sources contributing to the native financial system, and an ongoing legacy of Indigenous management in defending Wisconsin’s lands and water. By connecting these regional histories to a broader nationwide story, Beneath the Surface invitations guests to rethink the programs and supplies embedded in on a regular basis life.

“Beneath the Surface reflects the kind of ambitious, nationally significant scholarship that defines the Milwaukee Art Museum’s exhibition program,” mentioned Dr. Kim Sajet, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum. “The exhibition asks us to look closely at the materials and systems behind modern life while demonstrating photography’s extraordinary ability to make complex histories visible.”

Building on MAM’s Leadership in Photography

The Milwaukee Art Museum was among the many first American establishments to gather pictures and at present holds practically 4,000 pictures, in addition to a rising assortment of time-based media.

Beneath the Surface shall be put in within the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts, the Museum’s dynamic house devoted to pictures, movie, video, and light-weight installations. Since its institution in 2015, the Herzfeld Center has been house to cutting-edge exhibitions that includes artists who form, push the boundaries of, and increase pictures and media arts. The middle gives a devoted setting for authentic scholarship, important assortment presentation, and encounters with artists advancing the chances of image-making at present.

This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art in collaboration with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

The exhibition is curated by Kristen Gaylord, Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts on the Milwaukee Art Museum, and Diane Waggoner, performing head and curator of pictures on the National Gallery of Art.

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Support

Leadership sponsor
In reminiscence of Christina L. Balk

Supporting sponsor
Anonymous

Contributing sponsors
Dr. Shaheda Govani and Neil DeKarske
Milwaukee Art Museum’s Photography Council
Christopher E. Olofson
The Ruttenberg ’52 Collection

Exhibitions within the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts are sponsored by
Herzfeld Foundation

The Milwaukee Art Museum extends its honest because of the Visionaries for his or her assist of the exhibition program.
Debbie and Mark Attanasio
Donna and Donald Baumgartner
Murph Burke
Bill and Sandy Haack
Chris Harned and Elizabeth Quadracci Harned
The Helmerich Trust
Kenneth and Alice Kayser
Joan Lubar and John Crouch
Jeff and Gail Yabuki

Visit

Beneath the Surface is on view October 23–January 18, 2027, within the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts.

Programming
Oct. 22: Member Opening
Oct. 29: Expert Series
Nov. 5: Curator-led Gallery Talk
Dec. 3: Haberman Local Luminaries
Dec. 11: Curator-led Gallery Talk
Dec. 12: Slow Art Saturday
Jan. 16: Guest Gallery Talk with James Kieselburg

Admission
Adults: $27
Students, seniors (65+), navy: $20
Kids 12 and below: Free, because of an nameless donor
Wisconsin Ok–12 lecturers: Free with legitimate college ID or pay stub
Members: Free

Thursday Nights at MAM
Every Thursday, admission is pay what you want from 4 to eight p.m.

Museum admission consists of entry to assortment and exhibition galleries and the Art Studio, which is open Friday by means of Sunday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and Thursdays, 4–7 p.m. Memorial Day by means of Labor Day.

Membership
Members take pleasure in free admission, unique applications, and particular entry all year long. Learn extra at mam.org/membership.

Experience the Burke Brise Soleil
Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the Museum’s iconic wings open each day with the Museum, shut and reopen at midday, and shut at 10 p.m. The wings are illuminated nightly from sunset to 10 p.m.; motion is climate allowing.

Media Contact

For extra data or to request hi-res photographs, please contact:

Cortney Heimerl
Milwaukee Art Museum
[email protected]
414-940-0490