The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is showing Sameer Farooq's installation "Ascension (for bakers)" at its Art Preserve in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The work went on view on 26 September 2026, and the centre lists it as remaining on view until autumn 2027.
Farooq made the piece during the centre's Arts/Industry residency, using reclaimed Kohler Co. materials, including refractory bricks and found wooden platforms, together with cast mixing bowls, plates and rolling pins. The installation also brings in Sheboygan hard rolls and donuts, fake flowers, vases, mandarin oranges, beeswax candles and cascading paper marigolds.
According to the centre, the work links the shapes of collected bakeware with the Buddhist stupa reliquary. The result is a gathering of vessels, bread forms and tools that honours bakers as sculptors and follows how ideas, objects and food travel between cultures.
"Ascension (for bakers)" extends Farooq's long-term research project "Flatbread Library", which looks at the political and social significance of the tandoor, a large clay oven used across South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa for more than 10,000 years. The project is rooted in the artist's family history: his great-uncle and great-grandfather traded kitchen utensils along the Silk Road. During his residency in Sheboygan, Farooq continued that line through the tools of bread-making, visiting local bakeries and gathering bakeware and utensils from local thrift shops alongside objects from his own collection.
The presentation is supported by the Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, the Frederic Cornell Kohler Charitable Trust, Kohler Foundation, Inc. and the Wisconsin Arts Board.
