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The Wisconsin Triennial, or "Midwest Nice"

Lola Lorant
Traduction de Marcia Hadjimarkos
p. 98-115
Cet article est une traduction de :
La Triennale du Wisconsin ou le « Midwest nice »

Notes de la rédaction

Lola Lorant is the 2025 award-winner of TRAVERSES, a scheme that supports art criticism, and which since 2016 has brought together l’Institut français, in partnership with the ministère de la Culture-Direction générale de la création artistitique and the Archives de la critique d’art in order to promote French criticism and theoretical writing. This programme, which conducts an annual call for papers, advocates for the production, publication, and dissemination of a critical essay on an international issue in the visual arts. The goal is to suggest alternative pathways that enable original intellectual projects to come to fruition quickly. The award allows the prize-winners to travel to one or more artistic events of their choosing, to benefit from editorial support from Critique d’art, to have their work published in French and in English, and to ensure that their essays are widely available to an international readership.

Lola Lorant’s interest in the most recent Wisconsin Triennial, presented through 14 September 2025 at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), has revealed a study object of unexpected critical richness. Held in the heart of flyover country, a part of provincial America that is often scorned by the coastal elite, the event seeks to promote Wisconsinite artists’ contributions to the field of international contemporary art. In the context of biennials and triennials whose curatorial positions display strong political engagement, however, this exhibition is characterized by its deliberately neutral attitude. Lorant’s precise examination of the works on show, the MMoCA’s rhetoric and its silences, and the underlying historic and identity dynamics at play, allows her to dissect how, despite its apparent neutrality, the Triennial crystallizes, perhaps unbeknownst to itself, the ideological, social, and cultural divisions that pervade contemporary American society.

Marie Tchernia-Blanchard, Director of the Archives de la critique d’art

Adeline Blanchard, Head of Visual Arts Projects, Department for Artistic Creation and Cultural Industries, Institut français

Extrait du texte

Ce document sera publié en ligne en texte intégral en décembre 2026.

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Installation view of the 2025 Wisconsin Triennial, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 2025. Photo by Mariah Moneda

Wisconsin is reputedly a boring place. People tend t...

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Référence papier

Lola Lorant, « The Wisconsin Triennial, or "Midwest Nice" », Critique d’art, 65 | 2025, 98-115.

Référence électronique

Lola Lorant, « The Wisconsin Triennial, or "Midwest Nice" », Critique d’art [En ligne], 65 | Automne/hiver, mis en ligne le 04 décembre 2026, consulté le 22 avril 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/127556 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15ii2

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Auteur

Lola Lorant

Lola Lorant holds a PhD in Contemporary Art History and is a professor at Université Rennes 2. The artistic scene in the U.S. from the mid-20th century is her main research area. Following a thesis about the artistic transfers across the Atlantic by artists of the Nouveau Réalisme during the Cold War, she now focuses on comparing artistic productions and the discourse they generate with cultural stereotypes, international politics, and environmental thought. Her work has recently been published in the reviews Journal of Global Pop Culture and Théia.

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