The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University will present three exhibitions featuring the permanent collection "Construction Fence" by Keith Haring and others inspired by its concept. "Current Tendencies IV: Topography Transformed," "Out of the Vaults: Keith Haring" and "On View(s): Highlights from the Permanent Collection" open on Thursday, June 18 and run through Sunday, August 30.

An opening reception with the "Current Tendencies" artists will be held on Thursday, June 18 at 6 p.m.

In "Current Tendencies IV: Topography Transformed," six regional artists were invited to create new, site-responsive works for the Haggerty Museum of Art’s fourth installment of its biennial "Current Tendencies" exhibition series. Portions of Keith Haring’s "Construction Fence" acted as the conceptual and physical core of the exhibition with work by the Wisconsin artists – bauenstudio (Marc Roehrle and Mo Zell, Milwaukee), Derrick Buisch (Madison), Keith Nelson (Milwaukee), Shane McAdams (Cedarburg) and Joseph Mougel (Milwaukee) – presented in fluid constellations. The integrated group exhibition explores a set of material, visual and conceptual affinities that can be loosely tied to Haring’s practice and to notions of topography – the natural and man-made characteristics or qualities of the land.

This exhibition and accompanying programs are supported in part by the Marquette University Women’s Council Endowment Fund, the Nelson Goodman Endowment Fund, a grant from the Milwaukee Arts Board and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin, a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP).

In "Out of the Vaults: Keith Haring," "Construction Fence" – an iconic piece in the Haggerty’s collection and significant early work in the artist’s career – serves as the point of departure for the artists participating in "Current Tendencies IV: Topography Transformed." In 1983, the museum’s founding director invited then-emerging artist Keith Haring to create a mural on the fence that enclosed the construction site of the museum. This series of paintings on plywood is an early example of Haring’s large-scale, site-specific public art projects.

This exhibition is supported in part by the John P. Raynor, S.J. Endowment Fund and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In "On View(s): Highlights from the Permanent Collection," paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures that depict or interpret landscape will be displayed as a complement to the themes explored in "Current Tendencies IV: Topography Transformed." This permanent collection exhibition includes various artistic representations of the social, cultural and political qualities inscribed in or derived from land. The interconnected, symbolic qualities of place – perceptions, experiences, memories and histories – inform this installation.

This exhibition is supported in part by the Lillian Rojtman Berkman Endowment Fund and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.