Image: Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee
The Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University has reported nearly 5,000 visitors for its Spring 2026 exhibitions and public programmes, which examined American history and civic engagement through the political power of print. Developed with partners including Marquette’s Departments of History and Political Science, the programme was presented during the 250th anniversary year of the United States and drew audiences from the university, Milwaukee and beyond.
The spring presentation brought together four exhibitions. ‘Defying Empire: Revolutionary Prints from Britain and America’, curated by J. Patrick Mullins, used period prints by artists including William Hogarth and Thomas Cook to question traditional, nationalistic accounts of the American Revolution. The museum’s review described 18th-century revolutionary prints as forms of mass communication that shaped public opinion across a broad section of society, including women and working-class audiences.
The contemporary exhibition ‘Declaration of ____’, presented in partnership with the Chipstone Foundation and curated by Rose Camara, placed current print practices and zines in dialogue with the circulation of revolutionary-era print media. Its programme included workshops in which participants made pages for a community publication. The Haggerty said the zine format was subsequently taken up by campus partners including an English writing symposium, CURTO’s Justice in Action and Raynor Library.
The other spring exhibitions extended the museum’s focus beyond print. ‘This Side of the Stars: Rauschenberg’s Stoned Moon in the Company of Kite, Paglen, and Yi’ considered intersections of art, technology and the environment. It also featured work by Oglála Lakȟóta artist, composer and scholar Kite, whose practice combines Lakȟóta ontologies and machine-learning technologies. The museum said it acquired Kite’s ‘Opening, opening, opening, opening, opening, opening, opening, opening, opening’, described as the first work from that body of work to enter a museum collection. ‘Let the Real World In’, an ongoing collaboration led by artist Kirsten Leenaars with young Milwaukee participants, explored possible futures for the country through the perspectives of young adults.
Education formed a substantial part of the semester. More than 2,500 students attended over 125 customised gallery sessions connected to courses in literature, science, nursing, theology, engineering and other disciplines. A Global Art History course, offered on campus for the second time in more than 10 years, reached its full enrolment of 30 students and addressed artistic traditions, cross-cultural issues and the ways objects generate meaning in relation to histories and perspectives. The museum also reported weekly meetings by approximately 35 members of Marquette’s Art Club.
Public activity included a Community Zine Festival attended by 140 people, as well as the panel ‘Making Zines, Making Change: A Conversation about Collaborating, Publishing, Selling, and Archiving DIY Art’. At ‘Declarations in Print: Community Zine Day’, speakers traced connections between colonial pamphlets and underground zines, while hands-on sessions introduced screenprinting, banner-making and digital zine production. The museum reported that more than 330 people attended its spring opening reception and that overall spring event attendance rose by 75 per cent compared with the previous year. The Haggerty Museum of Art is free and open to the public six days a week at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
