Making a mark inside and out at Lynden Sculpture Garden

What do orange construction fences, blue ladders, and fifteen words have to do with art? It’s all about making a mark on the world.

This metaphor underlies two events happening at the Lynden Sculpture Garden (2145 W. Brown Deer Rd.) Sunday, October 24. The Lynden, former home of industrialist Harry Bradley and his wife, Peg, one of Milwaukee’s most significant art collectors, has recently been opened as a permanent art venue. Its sprawling grounds are inhabited by an engaging collection of monumental, 20th century sculpture, and with the opening of Inside/Outside: Eddee Daniel and Philip Krejcarek, punctuated by temporary installations. This exhibition, which also includes a gallery show, opens with a reception from 2 to 4 pm.

Concurrently, from 1-3pm this Sunday, the Lynden hosts the Chipstone Foundation’s first workshop in The Dave Project. This ongoing exploration of enduring words is inspired by Dave the Potter, who was featured in the recent Milwaukee Art Museum show, Theaster Gates: To Speculate Darkly.

In Inside/Outside, Daniel and Krejcarek create and bridge boundaries through sculptural installations, and show work from their respective series, Accidental Art and Architectural Structures. For Daniel, a photographer and active arts educator, the juxtaposition of orange construction fencing in nature suggested a sort of “accidental art,” offering a new perspective on the aesthetic pleasures to be found in the most unexpected places.

The insertion of fencing in the landscape creates an artificial separation of space, something that defines where you stand, and determines where you can go. As a foil, Krejcarek, a professor and department chair at Carroll University, installs blue ladder-like forms in a variety of poses. They reach to nowhere, they bridge the divide, they kiss the sky. The combination of fences and ladders, like static dancers, ask the viewer to reconsider the ordinariness of these objects. Instead of something strictly utilitarian, they rearrange their immediate space, drawing abstract designs on the organic palette of landscape.

While Inside/Outside operates on a contemporary conceptual platform, The Dave Project creates a dialogue between past and present. Inspired by the work of Dave the Potter, a slave in the antebellum South who created now much-valued pottery, this project explores his life and lasting words. Chipstone Foundation curator Luke Beckerdite says, “Dave used fifteen words to make his mark in history. The Dave Project asks the Milwaukee community to consider what they would say if they had fifteen words that would last forever.” Chicago-based poet Orron Kenyetta will lead a workshop at the Lynden Sculpture Garden as the first of five sessions in various venues, which will ultimately culminate in a video of participants and their own immortal words.

The Dave Project continues with workshops in November. Interested participants can email jstepien@lyndensculpturegarden.org for pre-registration. More information on the project and the four November workshops can be found by visiting the Chipstone Foundation on Facebook.

Inside/Outside: Eddee Daniel and Philip Krejcarek continues through December 12, 2010. Daniel and Krejcarek will lead a 90-minute tour of the sculpture garden on Sunday, November 7, with a discussion of selected works in the permanent collection and their installations.