The Milwaukee Art Museum expansion is being financed primarily through private donations. Of course, as generous as donors such as Peg Bradley and many others have been over the years, if you look hard enough you can always find some public funds supporting art education programs and special exhibits. And if you look hard enough in any art museum, you can always find art that will bother somebody. You don't encourage great art by setting narrow limits. Even in Milwaukee, a world class art museum has to consist of more than a really great beer stein collection.
Art has power, including the power to shock.
But, hey, all that know-nothing rabble marching in the streets of New York City to protest art just shows how backward all those East Coast rubes can be. Nothing like that could ever happen in Wisconsin. None of our politicians would ever pander to public ignorance just to pick up a few votes. Just to be safe, though, maybe we should fit all those glass walls of that spectacular new Calatrava art museum with window shades and keep them pulled down.