From Shane McAdams, Curator in Residence at Saint Kate:
I was introduced to Paul Yank and his extraordinary work upon moving to Cedarburg, WI, in 2012. At the time, I was commuting between Brooklyn and Wisconsin and very slowly absorbing the magically strange flavor of the Wisconsin scene: the grottos, the Layton School, the curb-and-basement subculture in Milwaukee, the spirits of the Northwoods—scenes and stories that felt more organic and accidental than the hyper-professionalized and commercially optimized New York scene; qualities that took years to fully understand. Each time I ran into Yank’s work, its power hit me a little more viscerally, until I finally internalized its singular vision and reflection of that Wisconsin Thing.
Paul Yank (1931-2020) left an incredible legacy as a beloved mentor, talented printmaker, and master sculptor. His ability to think and create three-dimensionally reveals his true genius. Yank’s early career was dominated by large-scale sculptural creations, while in his late career, he focused on printmaking, using the technique and process as a vehicle to continue realizing his three-dimensional inspirations. Both sensibilities are on display here at Saint Kate, along with his teeming and profound imagination and craftmanship, all of it resounding in a manner that helped change my own thinking about how art influences us as seers and feelers.
