This fall, the Milwaukee Art Museum will present Darrel Ellis: Regeneration, the first major museum exhibition showcasing the breadth of Ellis’s practice, which combined photography, painting, printmaking, and drawing. Through his work, Ellis examined themes including domestic life, selfhood, and stereotypes of Black masculinity and anticipated current artistic interest in appropriation, archive, and personal narrative. Co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and The Bronx Museum of the Arts, this expansive presentation features over 120 works and objects that offer an intimate view into the work and practice of an artist whose life and career were cut short by his death from AIDS-related causes at age 33.Darrel Ellis: Regeneration will be on view in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts October 20, 2023–January 14, 2024. 

“Darrel Ellis is a prime example of someone whose work expands the possibilities of contemporary art,” said Marcelle Polednik, Ph.D., Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.  “This exhibition continues the Museum’s commitment to championing the work of artists who deserve to be recognized for the contributions they have made to the field. As the only Midwest venue for this impactful survey, we are excited to share Ellis’s long under-recognized career with our visitors.”  

Ellis’s work garnered critical acclaim and was featured in more than 20 group exhibitions in New York and Europe, including the 1989 exhibition Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing organized by Nan Goldin at Artists Space. Following Ellis’s untimely death, his work was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s New Photography 8 exhibition in 1992. Since that time, his work has received scarce attention. Bringing a new curatorial perspective to his oeuvre, Darrel Ellis: Regeneration is the first museum-organized monographic exhibition of the artist’s highly original body of work.  

“Ellis created new works from his father’s photographs through darkroom manipulation, reframing—or as the exhibition’s title suggests, regenerating—narratives around family and identity,” said Ariel Pate, Assistant Curator of Photography, at the Milwaukee Art Museum. “This significant exhibition offers an opportunity to look closely at Ellis’s distinctive studio practice and understand how he thoughtfully transformed photographs taken by himself and others to create profoundly deep and personal works.”  

Darrel Ellis: Regeneration is curated by Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa, chief curator emeritus at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Leslie Cozzi, curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Additional research for this project was provided by Bronx Museum Curatorial Fellow Kyle Croft. 

Exhibition Highlights include: 

Self-Portrait after Photograph by Peter Hujar, 1989, a self-portrait by Ellis inspired by a photograph taken by Peter Hujar.  

Untitled (Mother, Father, and Laure), 1990, an example of Ellis’s analog photographic experiments re-interpreting his father’s negatives.   

Untitled (Katrina Styling Susan’s Hair), ca. 1985–1988, which pays homage to the domestic scenes of 19th-century French painters such as Édouard Vuillard and embodies Ellis’s efforts to reinscribe Black families into the traditions of Western art history.  

Untitled (Woman with Leopard Skin), ca. 1988–1991, an experiment with color photography and color film that demonstrates Ellis’s innovative approach and openness to new materials.  

Programming 

Member Preview Day 

Thursday, October 19, 10 a.m.–8 p.m. 

Members explore the exhibition before it opens to the public 

Haberman Local Luminaries 

Thursday, October 26, 6:15–7:15 p.m. 

Meet notable local figures from the queer and HIV/AIDS activism communities in the gallery as they share their viewpoints on works in the exhibition.  

Sponsored by: Milwaukee Art Museum’s African American Art Alliance and Photography Council 

Expert Series: Curators Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa and Dr. Leslie Cozzi 

Thursday, November 30, 6:15–8 p.m. 

Hear about the experience of organizing this first comprehensive museum exhibition of Darrel Ellis’s work from the curators. Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa is chief curator emeritus at The Bronx Museum of the Arts; Dr. Leslie Cozzi is curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Sponsored by: Milwaukee Art Museum’s Contemporary Art Society and Photography Council 

Gallery Talks with Ariel Pate, assistant curator of photography 

Thursday, November 2, noon–1 p.m. 

Friday, December 1, noon–1 p.m. (Part of World AIDS Day Commemoration)  

Saturday, January 13, 1–2 p.m. 

Darrel Ellis: Regeneration, World AIDS Day Commemoration 

Friday–Sunday, December 1–3 

Join us as we observe World AIDS Day (December 1), the internationally recognized day dedicated to raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, remembering those who have died, and celebrating successes around prevention and treatment.  

Screening: Everyone I know is Sick, 60-minute loop 

Friday–Sunday, December 1–3 

Experience six short videos the arts organization Visual AIDS commissioned for a Day With(out) Art 2023, a global day of mourning and action founded in response to the AIDS crisis and its impact on artistic communities. The videos portray experiences spanning from HIV to aging, inviting viewers to understand disability and illness as common experiences rather than exceptions to the norm.  

Gallery Talk 

Friday, December 1, noon–1 p.m. 

Tour the exhibition with Ariel Pate, assistant curator of photography. 

Special Edition Slow Art Saturday: On Grief 

Saturday, December 2, 10:30–11:30 a.m. 

Explore one of Darrel Ellis’s works of art in depth during this program that encourages presence and promotes well-being. Join educator Nakeysha Roberts Washington of Genre: Urban Arts in the exhibition for this engaging, shared experience.  

Drop-In Tour: Grief/Honoring World AIDS Day 

Saturday, December 2, 2–3 p.m. 

Consider the theme of grief through a tour of relevant works in the collection. 

Catalogue 

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by the exhibition’s curators, Dr. Antonio Sergio Bessa, chief curator emeritus at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Dr. Leslie Cozzi, curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Additional essays are authored by Dr. Makeda Best, deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, who examines Ellis’s practice in the context of historical and conceptual photography, and by photographer and friend Allen Frame, who creates a timeline of Ellis’s important relationships with other artists. Together the exhibition and catalogue offer the most extensive scholarly examination of Ellis’s work and enduring influence to date.  

Sponsors 

Supporting Sponsors: Joseph Pabst and John Schellinger 

Community Sponsor: Vivent Health 

Contributing Sponsor: 
The Cream City Foundation Valentine Fund 

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

The Milwaukee Art Museum extends its sincere thanks to the 2023 Visionaries: Mark and Debbie Attanasio, Donna and Donald Baumgartner, Murph Burke, Joel and Caran Quadracci, Sue and Bud Selig, Jeff and Gail Yabuki and the Yabuki Family Foundation