AMY STOCKLEIN
Leah Kolb, left, and Mel Becker Solomon took over curatorial duties after Richard Axsom retired last year.
The sleek black Mercedes van pulled up to the front of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, picked up Mel Becker Solomon and drove directly to O’Hare International Airport.
Using their security clearance, the drivers led Becker Solomon through a maze of airport doors and hallways, and eventually to an unmarked door. They quietly entered the airport’s cargo bay, where crates on pallets on forklifts whizzed around at dizzying speeds.
Becker Solomon, 37, MMoCA’s newly appointed curator of the permanent collection, was overseeing the transport of one of the museum’s most treasured pieces — a 1938 painting by Frida Kahlo titled “Pitahayas” — to the Mudec Museum of Culture in Milan, Italy, where it is currently displayed on loan.
The task requires constant vigilance.
“You have to know where [the painting] is at all times; I’m watching their every move as they load it into a pallet. I’m making sure the plastic is sealed properly, that it’s positioned right,” says Becker Solomon, who flew to Italy on a small plane with the painting.
The curator has spent a lot of time with this Kahlo painting, using her detective skills to track its lineage. “Until the 1980s, no one knew where ‘Pitahayas’ was: It was always listed as ‘lost’ or ‘unknown,’” she says. It was actually stored here in Madison, in the collection of the Madison Arts Center (which would later become MMoCA). But no one knew where it had been before it was purchased by UW-Madison professor Rudolph Langer and his wife Louise in 1952. Langer’s family donated it to the Madison Arts Center after he died in 1968.
Frida Kahlo
Mel Becker Solomon uncovered the full history of Frida Kahlo’s “Pitahayas,” now on display in Milan, Italy.
In 2017, Becker Solomon set out to solve the mystery, using the smallest of clues, including storage notes and archival information.
She was the first person to fully trace the history of “Pitahayas” — from its creation in 1938 to its original purchase by a Los Angeles oil heiress, to its eventual purchase by the Langers.
Known as provenance research, this type of detective work is Becker Solomon’s calling card, and she excels at it. This year, her essay tracing the history of “Pitahayas,” along with a digitization of the painting, will be featured in the Google Art & Culture project, an online database featuring more than 32,000 works from around the world; viewers will be able to experience the work virtually, from up close and every angle.
“It’s the best part of my work.” she says.
Leah Kolb, MMoCA’s curator of exhibitions, started one day last summer with a text message from Spanish artist Irene Grau: “Bad news: the painter did that to my car. He’s calling you tonight. He has insurance.” A picture followed, depicting a 12-inch gash on the front-left bumper and wheel well of a red sedan.
Grau sent the message to Kolb during her six-week residency in Madison last summer (much of the material for her current show at MMoCA, “Construction Season,” grew out of this visit.).
It’s part of Kolb’s job to work with artists on the small stuff (mangled bumpers) and bigger things — helping them translate their visions to tangible artworks, which she tackles with energy and a deft touch.
“It’s what you have to to do,” she says. “[Artists] have an idea, and it’s my job to figure out how to make it happen within the parameters of the space.”
And even though Kolb, 34, a Madison native, has been in her current role for less than a year, she’s already curated solo shows by Kambui Olujimi and assisted with an exhibition by the world-renowned artist Jaume Plensa.
Some of Kolb’s best work might be taking place under the radar. A video exhibition currently on display in MMoCA’s Imprint Gallery, “ON EXILE” by José Carlos Texieira, is one example. The stark, arresting video series projects dramatic up-close interviews with people with mental illness, and Muslim refugees.
Part of the show’s impact has to do with the manipulation of the gallery space itself to create an optimal viewing experience. Videos were normally projected on one of the smaller walls in the room, but she felt this wasn’t an adequate platform for the installation.
“The power of José’s work is its emotional impact, which is heightened and intensified when viewers can be completely enveloped by it,” says Kolb. Because the gallery’s largest wall contained a recessed window, Kolb (with the help of MMoCA’s director of installations and facilities Brian Bartlett) created an entirely new, full-size drywall surface. Watching “ON EXILE” from mere feet away, the viewer is surrounded by the sound and images of the video.
Kolb and Becker Solomon, now deeply entrenched in the art world, found their calling relatively late. Kolb, a Madison native, has had a foot in the arts sphere ever since her time at UW-Madison as an undergraduate studying history, and later as a grad student focused on archival administration. “One of the things that I love about dealing with artists is that you get to develop a rapport with them, and you start to understand how they see the world,” says Kolb. “To work with an artist, see a piece change and come together, and then get to witness the community experience — it is really special.”
Becker Solomon didn’t consider entering the art world professionally until spending time in Italy after graduating in 2003 from UW-Madison with a sociology degree. She worked for several years at Epic Systems (“biding my time”) as a project manager before attending the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 2012.
After the 2017 retirement of MMoCA head curator Richard Axsom, who Kolb worked closely under as associate curator since 2012, the museum decided to split his roles between Kolb and Becker Solomon. There’s plenty of work for both of them, it seems.
“I’m a tenacious researcher and I love uncovering something new about a work of art,” says Becker Solomon. “The interpretation of the piece based on this historical research is what drives me — developing a new story to add to the work’s life story that was undiscovered. And the best part is I get to share it with others.”
Editor's note: Isthmus made several corrections to this story. Mel Becker Solomon's name should not have been hyphenated, and her title is curator of the permanent collection. She did not use the MMoCA website in researching the history of the Frida Kahlo painting. And staff at MMoCA knew the Langers had donated the painting to the Madison Art Center, but didn't know how the Langers had acquired it. Although she has curated several significant exhibitions, Leah Kolb did not curate Jaume Plensa's "Talking Continents"; she assisted MMoCA director Stephen Fleischman.
