MILWAUKEE, WI.- The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University announced exhibition information about their four Spring 2026 exhibitions commemorating 250 years of America, Robert Rauschenberg’s 100th birthday, and an artist’s 10th anniversary project with local community members. All four exhibitions, with ties to history and social issues, open to the public on January 23, 2026.

This Side of the Stars: Rauschenberg’s Stoned Moon in the Company of Kite, Paglen, & Yi explores the intersection of art, technology, and environment. Defying Empire: Revolutionary Prints from Britain and America challenges traditional, nationalistic narratives of the American Revolution. Contemporary prints and zines in Declaration of draw parallels between the circulation of print media during the American revolutionary period and today’s creative resistance. Let the Real World In imagines different scenarios for building a more just world through the lens of young adults from Milwaukee.

“Along with numerous partners, we are honored to inspire meaningful conversations about complex challenges of our time through our public exhibitions and programs during these significant national anniversaries,” adds John McKinnon, Director of the Haggerty Museum of Art.

This Side of the Stars: Rauschenberg’s Stoned Moon in the Company of Kite, Paglen, and Yi

In the 100th year since the birth of pioneering artist Robert Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008), this exhibition highlights a selection of Stoned Moon prints from the Haggerty’s collection alongside the work of three active artists: Oglála Lakȟóta performance artist, visual artist, and composer Kite; artist, geographer, and author Trevor Paglen; and Milwaukee-based multimedia artist Jason S. Yi. Rauschenberg’s color lithographs spark a conversation about humanity’s technological ambitions across the modern era that is brought into our current moment through these artist’s recent work. Kite’s dyed deer hides embroidered with Lakȟóta geometric semiotics are meditations on black holes, functioning also as sonic scores. Paglen’s sumptuous photographs capture unidentified flying objects both in and beyond Earth’s atmosphere, raising questions about surveillance by human and non-human actors. And Yi’s installation of Red-crowned cranes cast from mulberry pulp, forms a towering column of the endangered birds that have found a resurgent nesting ground in the de- militarized zone separating North Korea and South Korea.

For his large-scale Stoned Moon lithographs, Rauschenberg drew on his experience witnessing the Apollo 11 lunar launch, together with a range of popular imagery and NASA-provided photographs to reflect on a new sense of human possibility brought about by a leap in technological potential. Through their work, the three contemporary artists featured in this exhibition consider the ethics of technological innovation and its varied outcomes. By taking up current issues such as covert surveillance, humans’ relationships with the non-human, and the upspring of new life under repressive conditions, these artists prompt us to reconceive the dividing lines between what we know and what we believe, between human and non-human agency, between our impact on nature and its response.

This Side of the Stars: Rauschenberg’s Stoned Moon in the Company of Kite, Paglen, and Yi is curated by Jennifer Johung, PhD, Professor of Contemporary Art and Architecture, and Director of the Center for 21st-Century Studies, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and Kirk Nickel, PhD, Haggerty Museum Curator of European Art.

Defying Empire: Revolutionary Prints from Britain and America
This exhibition will remain on view through August 1, 2026.

On the eve of America’s 250th, Defying Empire: Revolutionary Prints from Britain and America explores how eighteenth-century British and American prints shaped public opinion, inviting visitors to visualize a passionate, participatory Revolution.

Drawn from the collections of the Haggerty Museum of Art and the Chipstone Foundation, the exhibition brings together works by eighteenth‑century Britons and Americans to frame the period as a site of

transatlantic political exchange including more than twenty prints on paper, a selection of transfer‑printed ceramics, and an eighteenth‑century maple dining table. Visitors will see a creamware jug by Josiah Wedgwood depicting "The Death of General Wolfe," two prints by William Hogarth satirizing a threatened French invasion of England, and Charles Willson Peale's iconic portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

In the eighteenth century, printed images circulated widely to shape debates over democracy, sovereignty, and nationhood. Cartoons, portraits, and landscapes could elicit responses ranging from admiration to outrage and spur viewers to political action. Works produced on both sides of the issues demonstrate how Britons and Americans differed with one another, and among themselves, over imperial authority and colonial resistance. Defying Empire gathers a cross-section of transatlantic public voices engaging in Revolutionary politics including familiar figures such as George Washington, pro- American British politicians, as well as often-overlooked citizens such as politically active women.

Defying Empire: Revolutionary Prints from Britain and America is curated by J. Patrick Mullins, PhD, Associate Professor of History and Public History Director at Marquette University, in collaboration with the Chipstone Foundation and coordinated by Jessica A. Cooley, PhD, Postdoctoral Curatorial and Teaching Fellow.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with the Chipstone Foundation. Support for this exhibition is generously provided by the John P. Raynor, S.J. Endowment Fund and in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Declaration of ______

As Americans nationwide commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Haggerty Museum hosts the exhibition Declaration of, asking what declarations are being made now, and by whom, through contemporary print culture. The show foregrounds the accessible medium of zines (low-tech, DIY publications) and prints sourced from Upper Midwest art collectives and zine distributors. Highlights include Aaron Hughes’s Autonomous Democracy suite from Spudnik Press Cooperative, a project exploring experiments in direct democracy within liberation movements. Art Build Workers contribute banners to be carried and seen at educator and labor organizing events. Nicolas Lampert’s Water Is Life design, created in solidarity with Standing Rock, shows how a single graphic can signal a movement. Presented together, these works situate contemporary print and zine practices within ongoing debates about liberty, rights, and representation.

This founding document of the United States of America asserted the right to self-governance, rejected tyrannical rule of a king, and established that the new government would protect (a select group of) people’s rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this exhibition, the voices and perspectives of artists who are, among other things, parents, immigrants, educators, activists, veterans, authors, documentarians and curators are central to reflecting on the legacy of America as a nation, concept, and identity. By centering historically underrepresented voices, the exhibition reflects on the evolving legacy of the United States as nation, concept, and home, an inquiry that gains particular urgency as the country marks the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary era and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Declaration of is curated Rose Camara, Charles Hummel Curatorial Fellow, The Chipstone Foundation and coordinated by Jessica A. Cooley, PhD, Postdoctoral Curatorial and Teaching Fellow.

Let the Real World In

Let the Real World In is the latest installment of Dutch-born, Chicago-based artist Kirsten Leenaars’ 10- year-long artistic collaboration with a group of Milwaukee-based youth. The video project began as a multi-year summer camp (2016-2020) organized by the Haggerty Museum of Art, in which Leenaars worked with local immigrant and American-born middle school students. The participating students engaged in collaborative performances and candid interviews that reflect their personal histories and experiences amidst growing political divisiveness. Leenaars has continued working with members of this group as they transition from youthful idealism to informed political agency.

For the latest installment of this ongoing endeavor, Leenaars has created a multi-screen video installation and feature film that revisits some of the original project participants, who are now young adults trying to navigate the complexities of civic responsibility and identity. Set in Milwaukee against the backdrop of the 2024 presidential election, the film focuses on the lives of Kam Pickett (21), Hannah Plevin (21), Alanis Salgado (21), and Iman Fatmi (21). Weaving together old and new footage, the documentary reveals the cohort’s present-day struggles as they deal with college, the workforce, and personal ideologies. The film converges on the pivotal moment when Kam, Hannah, Alanis, and Iman, on the cusp of adulthood, engage in one of democracy's most fundamental rights—the right to vote. The camera follows them from intimate living spaces, to public action, to casting a ballot—a singular moment now loaded with expectations, doubts, and the weight of the desire for a more just world.

As Americans nationwide commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary era and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Haggerty Museum’s presentation of this exhibition brings these national observances directly to our community to participate in this momentous chapter of American history.

Let the Real World In is organized by Lynne Shumow, Haggerty Museum of Art Curator for Academic Engagement.