ARTnews, one of the most respected publications in the global art world and art market, has named Sheboygan’s John Michael Kohler Arts Center as the #6 such museum in the United States. The publication conferred that honor while noting that there are more than 35,000 active museums in the United States, and placed the JMKAC soundly between the #5 Getty Center in Los Angeles and the #7 Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
Well aware of the perceived gap between Sheboygan and such urban institutions as #’s 5 and 7, the publication said that “it is well worth traveling to Sheboygan, Wisconsin – population ca. 50,000 – to visit this museum operated by a toilet company.” Among its many attributes, the JMKAC was praised by author Emily Watlington for its Art Preserve – “home to entire oeuvres of various self-taught artists, like Eugene von Bruenchenhein, who crafted for his wife ornate crowns made of chicken bones and fastened miniature thrones from them, too.” The article continued: “Here art and life blur – even on bathroom breaks, since each restroom is its own artist collaboration. Every inch is wonderfully weird.”
The top-10 museum list includes:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Getty Center, Los Angeles
- John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan
- The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
- Dia Beacon, New York
- Menil Collection, Houston
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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