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25-582: The Lynden Sculpture Garden was the estate of the late Harry Lynde Bradley and Margaret (Peg) Blakney Bradley. Harry Bradley, an inventor and industrialist, founded the Allen-Bradley Company with his brother Lynde in 1904, building it into one of the state’s most successful manufacturing concerns. Harry married Peg in April 1926, and in 1928, they purchased property about 10 miles north of downtown Milwaukee and named it "Lynden." The Bradleys took

50-674: A Danish plum tree, seven varieties of birch trees and Kentucky coffee trees. Urban remained on the staff and resided in the apartment in the barn until his death in 1991. Further plans to construct a botanical garden on the site were derailed by the outbreak of World War II. In 1962, Peg Bradley—already an experienced art collector—began collecting the contemporary monumental sculptures that secured Lynden’s international reputation. She collected actively until her death in 1978. The collection includes sculptures by Alexander Archipenko , Henry Moore , Barbara Hepworth , Clement Meadmore , Marta Pan , Tony Smith , Mark di Suvero and many others. After

75-553: A fourth generation gardener, to supervise the crew and the planting of the garden beds and trees. Trained in Germany and the United States, Urban observed that when he first saw the acreage behind the house it consisted mainly of corn fields with horses, sheep, goats and 13 oak trees. Over time, nearly 4,000 trees were planted on the property—several varieties of elms as well as Norwegian, Austrian and Scotch pines, Norway maples,

100-666: A pop song created with musicians Evan Gruzis , Nicole Rogers, and Richard Galling, which was launched simultaneously on the websites of eleven museums, including the Serpentine , London, and the Hammer , Los Angeles. After attending Brown University , Robbins was employed in the early 1980s by Andy Warhol , George Plimpton , and Diana Vreeland , during which years he educated himself about art by interviewing emerging artists such as Richard Prince , Jenny Holzer , Keith Haring , and Allan McCollum . Robbins began exhibiting his art in

125-474: Is an American artist and writer who was one of the first to investigate the art world 's entrance into the culture industry . For three decades, in artworks and writing David Robbins has promoted a frank, unapologetic recognition of the contemporary overlap between the art and entertainment contexts. His work Talent , eighteen "entertainer's headshots " of contemporary artists including Cindy Sherman , Jeff Koons , Jenny Holzer , Allan McCollum and others,

150-639: Is open year-round. In addition to its permanent outdoor sculpture collection, Lynden hosts a number of temporary exhibitions and performances each year. Some of these are drawn from the Bradley Family Foundation collection, which includes paintings, works on paper and small sculptures. Others feature works by contemporary artists. Inside/Outside was the theme of the Lynden Sculpture Garden’s 2010-2011 gallery exhibition program. This series of temporary exhibitions, which began in

175-486: Is widely credited with announcing the age of the celebrity artist, and The Ice Cream Social (1993–2008), a multi-platform project comprising a TV pilot for the Sundance Channel , a novella, installations , ceramics, and performance, has been cited by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as pioneering the "expanded exhibition." In its totality The Ice Cream Social represents an emphatically American version of some of

200-481: The Situation Comedies (1994–2003), he emptied his comedy of all narrative and topicality, creating objects that explored comedy as a subject in itself. Robbins is also known for the theory and practice of what he refers to as "alternatives to art." Concrete Comedy is his term for a kind of non-fiction comedy of objects and gestures that surfaced in the early decades of the 20th century, first evidenced in

225-529: The "independent imagination" to apply art's experimentalism to mainstream forms such as commercial film and television. Robbins was an early contributor to REALLIFE Magazine , Purple magazine, and Art issues . His books include Concrete Comedy ; The Velvet Grind: Essays, Interviews, Satires 1983–2005 , which collect several of his early interviews; a novella, The Ice Cream Social ; High Entertainment ; The Dr. Frankenstein Option ; Foundation Papers from

250-733: The Archives of the Institute for Advanced Comedic Behavior ; and The Camera Believes Everything . In 2020 Accrochage , three scripts combined to make a single narrative arc and formatted as a book, was published in Berlin. Video work includes Lift (2006), which screened at the New York Video Festival; The Ice Cream Social (2004), winner of the Sundance TV Lab competition; and Something Theater (2009–present),

275-482: The Monument , an international exhibition of contemporary sculpture and performances by Tobias Madison & Kaspar Müller (Switzerland); Hannah Weinberger (Switzerland); Nicholas Frank (Milwaukee); Michelle Grabner & Brad Killam (Chicago); Lucas Knipscher (New York); John Miller (New York) & Richard Hoeck (Vienna); David Robbins (Milwaukee); and Anicka Yi /Matt Sheridan Smith (New York). Since opening to

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300-469: The alterations to the barn, the bathhouse, and a diving pier and slide. Several decades later architect David Kahler designed an addition at the west end of the house for an indoor swimming pool, providing more space for the Bradleys’ growing art collection. In 2009 the board of the Bradley Family Foundation elected to open Lynden to the public. This required an extensive renovation of the house and some of

325-399: The art context as material for comedy. He actively promoted what he termed the "comic object"—an object made with sophisticated comic rather than aesthetic intent. In later works such as The German Reunification Public Sculpture Competition (1991) and The Ice Cream Social (1993–2008), Robbins looked at political content through a comic lens. In other works of the same period, such as

350-448: The art world in order to discover how his imagination performed when not formatted to produce art, and began using the term "independent imagination" in place of "artist." Subsequently relocating to Milwaukee he aligned his work with contexts and formats historically forsaken by the avant garde, positing the suburb as a frontier for art production and creating TV commercials for galleries. In 2016 he produced "Theme Song For An Exhibition,"

375-645: The billion-dollar sale of Allen-Bradley to Rockwell Automation , which swelled the Foundation's assets from around $ 14m to around $ 290m. His adopted daughter, Marion Bradley Via, lived in Virginia, and died in 1993. His daughter Jane Bradley Pettit , a philanthropist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died in 2001. David Robbins (artist) David Robbins (born 1957 in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin )

400-760: The brother of Lynde Bradley , was the co-founder of the Allen-Bradley Company and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation . He "became deeply involved in conservative causes", with "a strong sense of anti-communism animat[ing] his political beliefs". He was a founding member of the John Birch Society . He supported Robert A. Taft for the Presidency in 1952, and Barry Goldwater in 1964. The Foundation, however, remained relatively small-scale until twenty years after Bradley's death, with

425-724: The exhibition strategies employed by artists associated with relational aesthetics . His work is in many museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum , New York, MAMCO , Geneva, and Moderna Museet , Stockholm. Progressively evolving away from the prevailing model of the professional contemporary artist, in his books High Entertainment (2009) and Concrete Comedy: An Alternative History of Twentieth-Century Comedy (2011) he identified and advanced other categories of imaginative endeavor. In 2000 he withdrew from active participation in

450-426: The first comprehensive consideration of materialist comedy. The book was published in 2011 by Pork Salad Press. His other "alternative to art," known as High Entertainment, argues for a category of imaginative production that balances art's emphasis on form-discovery with entertainment's emphasis on accessibility. Born of the new production and distribution opportunities of the digital era, High Entertainment encourages

475-426: The grounds. The house has been transformed by Uihlein-Wilson Architects using sustainable building practices. The newly created public spaces include a conference room, a large classroom/studio, a gallery and a glassed-in function space overlooking the large patio. Lynden opened to the public on May 30, 2010, offering tours ( docent -led and self-guided), educational programs, temporary exhibitions, and performances. It

500-779: The mid-1980s in New York, where he was closely associated with the neo-conceptual Gallery Nature Morte . In contrast to the Pictures generation (his immediate predecessors who maintained a critical distance from the mass advertising and entertainment imagery that fascinated them), Robbins pioneered an approach to art that unapologetically embraced entertainment culture. His first solo exhibition , The David Robbins Show (1986) featured "guest" collaborators such as Richard Prince, Clegg & Guttman, and Jennifer Bolande. He gained wider recognition for photographic works such as Talent and The Art Dealers' Optical Tests (1987), which treated

525-517: The nearly 40 acres of flat farmland and, with the help of Chicago landscape architects Langford & Moreau, created an English country park with gently rolling hills, trees and flower beds. The lake and the rustic bridge spanning the water were designed to match Harry Bradley’s memories of the municipal grounds in Kansas City where he swam as a boy. In April 1934 the Bradleys hired Carl Urban,

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550-544: The public in 2010, Lynden has presented performances by Eiko & Koma , the Echo Park Film Center Filmmobile, WildSpace Dance Company, Nora Chipaumire , Present Music , Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group . 43°10′34″N 87°56′13″W  /  43.1760°N 87.9370°W  / 43.1760; -87.9370 Harry Lynde Bradley Harry Lynde Bradley (January 5, 1885 – July 23, 1965),

575-760: The summer of 2010, featured pairs of artists working in the gallery and on the grounds of the sculpture garden. Inside/Outside provided a series of opportunities for artists to reframe the permanent collection and to re-present it—and the individual works in it—to the public. This established the basis for ongoing engagement with Lynden and its collection. Exhibiting artists included Kevin Giese and Linda Wervey Vitamvas, Eddee Daniel and Philip Krejcarek, Shana McCaw and Brent Budsberg, Kevin Schlei and Lynn Tomaszewski, and Amy Cropper and Stuart Morris. The series culminated in Dressing

600-558: The work of German comedian Karl Valentin and French artist Marcel Duchamp , and was subsequently recurringly manifested culture-wide, in fashion, architecture, music, film, television, art, advertising, and design. In November 2006 Robbins' "Concrete Comedy" essay appeared in Artforum magazine. From 1996–2006 he taught a course in the subject at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago , during which period he wrote Concrete Comedy: An Alternative History to Twentieth-Century Comedy ,

625-415: The works had been purchased, Peg would sit on her porch to direct the location of wood models constructed by the staff as she chose sites for the sculptures. Some of the artists travelled to Lynden to assist with the siting and to assemble their work. The original farmhouse, built in the 1860s, was enlarged to accommodate Harry, Peg and their daughter Jane. Local architect Fitzhugh Scott provided drawings for

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