Book Launch for Stories: Words & Images by Randall Berndt | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center

Book Launch for Stories: Words & Images by Randall Berndt

Celebrate the launch of Stories: Words & Images, a new book of visual narratives by Madison-based artist Randall Berndt, on Saturday, January 17, 2026, at 3:00 pm. This event is presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival and FlakPhoto Projects.

Artist and curator Martha Glowacki will join Berndt in a wide-ranging conversation about his decades-long practice and the interplay of image and narrative in his work. This lively discussion will take place within the Arts + Literature Laboratory gallery exhibition featuring original paintings, drawings, and texts from the book, offering visitors a unique opportunity to experience Berndt's work alongside the stories that bring it to life.

Copies of Stories: Words & Images will be available for purchase following the event. After the discussion, Berndt will sign books in the gallery. Please, join us!

Randall Berndt

Randall Berndt is the former assistant curator at the James Watrous Gallery at the Overture Center for the Arts and was for years the director of the Wisconsin Academy Gallery in Madison, Wisconsin. He received an MFA in painting from UW-Madison in 1969 and has pursued the life of the artist mixed with the demands of the "real world" ever since. Some career highlights include a major award for a painting accepted into the Butler Institute of American Art's 62nd Annual Midyear Exhibition, a 1996 Wisconsin Arts Board Visual Arts Fellowship and participation in the Madison Art Center's 1987 Triennial Exhibition. Berndt's paintings were juried into New American Paintings, Number 29 an exhibition in print published by Open Studios Press, Wellesley, MA, in 2000. In 2006 his paintings and drawings were included in the West Bend Art Museum's group exhibition Up North: Imaging North Woods Culture & Mythology.

Martha Glowacki

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Martha Glowacki received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  She worked as academic curator of the Design Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was Director of the James Watrous Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.  Previous to her work as a curator, she was a lecturer in metalsmithing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Along with her studio practice, Glowacki continues to do independent curatorial work.

Glowacki's work has been shown at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Milwaukee Art Museum; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, among others.  She has been the recipient of grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts.  Her work is in many collections, including the Chazen Museum, the Madison Museum of... Read More

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Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.

Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.

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