Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kohler's New Art Preserve
From Mary Nohl's tools to chicken-bone thrones, Kohler's new Art Preserve houses works from 'artist-built environments'
by Jim Higgins
In Sheboygan's new Art Preserve, surrounded by hundreds of objects created by the late Mary Nohl, a visitor will find her wall of weathered tools, a neatly organized array of implements that cut, scrape, bore, file, rasp and alter wood and other materials. The tool wall is an artifact that puts the work back into artwork.
Since the 1980s, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, led by the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler, has collected and studied "artist-built environments," from Nohl's house and yard in Fox Point to sculptor Nek Chand's rock garden in Chandigarh, India. It has saved works from erosion and destruction. The Kohler has also stimulated scholarship about these transformative artists.
But acquiring more than 25,000 pieces from art environments by 38 artists has created a challenge for the Kohler that these artists would be familiar with: What do you do with all that art?