Established in 1967 by the Sheboygan Arts Foundation, Inc., the John Michael Kohler Arts Center is nationally recognized for its concentration on art forms, artists, and ideas that have received little critical attention. Each year, the Arts Center commissions and presents work by contemporary visual artists, filmmakers, dance companies, composers, musicians, and other artists with an emphasis on programming that generates a creative exchange between these individuals and the public. The Arts Center also frequently hosts exhibitions of work by artists who have transformed their homes, yards, or other built environments into works of art, often featuring its own unparalleled collection of works of this kind. In addition, the Arts Center collaborates with Kohler Co. to host Arts/Industry, an internationally renowned residency program providing opportunities for artists to create new bodies of work and public commissions using the technologies and facilities of an industrial pottery. In 2021 the Arts Center opened the Art Preserve, a 54,000-square-foot facility dedicated to the preservation and display of works from artist-built environments.