John Michael Kohler Arts Center
About John Michael Kohler Arts Center
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in downtown Sheboygan includes eight galleries, two performance spaces, a café with additional children's menu, a museum shop with a wide variety of souvenirs and even children's toys, and a drop-in art-making studio. Among its program offerings are community arts projects; artist residencies; presentations of dance, film, and music; a free weekly summer concert series; classes and workshops; an onsite arts-based preschool; and approximately twelve original exhibitions of the work of self-taught and contemporary artists annually.
Even the bathrooms at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center are art installations and they have won national awards! The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is free to visit with free parking and free access to the social art studio.
About the Art Preserve
John Michael Kohler Arts Centers' Art Preserve is an experimental space, housing over thirty-five artist-built environments. A walk through the building provides a variety of display methods; some collections are meant to feel overwhelming while others are intended to be immersive and transportive.
You may wonder, what is an artist-built environment?
This term describes a unique form of art making that significantly transforms a space. These artist-built environments are site-specific and may include sculpture, painting, found objects, among other forms. At the Art Preserve, these artist-built environments are presented together, if possible, to evoke the integral qualities of the original site.
The Art Preserve building itself is a work of art and a must-see when visiting Sheboygan, WI! It spans approximately 56,000 square feet, is over three stories, and includes more than 37,000 square feet of dedicated gallery space with visible storage, education area, library, a study collection, and archive room. The Art Preserve sits on 38 acres adjacent to protected property owned by Glacial Lakes Conservancy.
Exhibits & Events at John Michael Kohler Arts Center
@ City Green + @ The Art Preserve
The JMKAC Levitt AMP Music Series is held Thursdays on the City Green (with the exception of Wednesday, July 3rd) as well as during the Midsummer Festival of the Arts. There will be live music, free art-making, food trucks, and a beverage tent. Free to the public.
Lunch Break: Arts/Industry in Between celebrates that powerful exchange between artists and associates of the Kohler Co. - mechanics, engineers, technicians, mold makers, and many more - through artwork made in the factory. Art objects made by associates while on break from their duties or after hours are also shown.
Artists featured include Ann Agee, Michelle Grabner, Patrick Earl Hammie, Sarah Khan, Tom LaDousa, Jack Earl, Beth Lipman, Karen Massaro, Richard Notkin, Risa Puno, Nirmal Raja, David Ross Harper, Laurel Roth Hope, and Timea Tihanyi, among others.
This solo exhibition of work by Willie Cole features newly commissioned sculptures alongside a selection of work spanning over three decades. Home Assembly highlights Cole's refiguring of familiar and frequently discarded objects to confront and demand attention from his audience. By using craft and household objects in his artworks, Cole spreads awareness of women's and enslaved peoples' labor that has been ignored or under recognized and is integral to the history of the United States.
Stay tuned for details for 2025!
11am-4pm
100 Artist Booths • Live Music • Exhibitions • Demonstrations • Art Making • Food Trucks
Overlapping the Levitt AMP Sheboygan Music Series in July is the Midsummer Festival of the Arts on the grounds of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center and Sheboygan's City Green. This is a FREE event with live music performances, hands-on art making, demonstrations, food, and a hundred artist booths featuring paintings, photographs, jewelry, wearables, wood carvings, ceramics, glass. leather goods, textiles, and more.
Free Admission
John Michael Kohler Arts Center Photos
Contact John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Just 4 minutes from Blue Harbor Resort in Sheboygan, WI.
ARTS CENTER: 608 New York Avenue | Sheboygan, WI 53801
Just 7 minutes from Blue Harbor Resort in Sheboygan, WI.
ART PRESERVE: 3636 Lower Falls Road | Sheboygan, WI 53081
jmkac.org
920-458-6144
