Past Tense: Exploring Two Print Portfolios from RAM’s Collection

June 14 – August 5, 2023
at RAM’s Wustum Museum

John Doyle
Aztec Echo from the Builders, The Great Human Race Series, 1982
Lithograph, edition 44/150
25 1/2 x 18 inches
Racine Art Museum, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Russell Schwindt
Photography: Jarvis Lawson

Past Tense was inspired by RAM’s Twentieth Anniversary in 2023 and the concurrent Wustum exhibition, Futures Reimagined: RAM Community Art Show. Whether as a source for memories, inspiration, an accounting of events and people, or lessons learned, both an anniversary celebration and an exhibition with artists considering the future encourage looking at what has happened in the past.

RAM’s extensive works on paper collection includes two print portfolios that address time in different ways—each way connecting place to time and space. The Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio, commissioned in honor of the State’s 150th anniversary, combines the work of various contemporary artists—many of whom have or had connections to Wisconsin. Visually and thematically wide-ranging, the prints reflect artists’ responses to the history and character of the State of Wisconsin.

Selections from John Doyle’s The Builders, The Great Human Race, show how the artist looks at the past as a point on a continuum of civilizations. After intensely studying various societies across the globe, Doyle has visually linked architectural achievements of different eras and cultures to community building.

More About the Exhibition

Exhibition Notes (PDF)

Artists in the Exhibition

Andrew G. Balkin, Warrington Colescott, John Doyle, Michelle Grabner, Susan Hunt-Wulkowicz, Martin Levine, Munio Makuuchi, Frances Myers, Bruce Nauman, Gladys Nilsson, Ed Paschke, Fred Stonehouse, Tom Uttech, John Wilde, and William T. Wiley