Around town with Bones – 4/8

I can’t figure out why any artist in their right mind would complain “there’s nothing new” in Milwaukee. Balls! I just saw two great Peter Barrickman paintings at Green Gallery, plus at GGWest, the most minimalist piece of art I’ve ever seen: a slender slice of wood painted white and propped in a corner of GGW’s third floor space, which also houses Club Nutz, the world’s smallest stand-up comedy club. You know, when I talk to John Riepenhoff  I feel a real burst of hope for the arts. The people around him are smart and young and energetic. What a tonic. It isn’t that I don’t respect artists who are mature (or old like me), but there comes a time when bi-focals have to give way to firm flesh and sharp eyes and keen ideas. Riepenhoff must be like Dean Jensen was in the olden days, and his adventurous mind reminds me much of Jensen, who is, by the way, a big fan of John and company.

Deb Brehmer is down-on-her-knees sorting through piles of drawings from various Wisconsin-based artists. My eyes like Paul Caster’s stuff, but you can decide from seven participants when the show (Tender is the Line) opens in the Portrait Gallery (Floor 5) on Gallery Night & Day (April 17-18). Her expanded space now includes TWO galleries, the latter to be known as “Gallery B,” with walls being painted blood red as I write. Down the hall, also on floor five, Catherine Davidson has established a new little office with walls of eggplant hue. Her larger venue is on floor two. Jilan Glynn is curating a GN&D exhibit at Soups On.

Does anyone remember Jane Brite, co-founder of Walker’s Point Center for the Arts? Allegedly, she’s the new “art consultant” for the Charles Allis/Villa Terrace Museums. They’ve ground through quite a number of staffers in the last few years, and seem to be very zipped-lipped when it comes to press releases announcing who’s new and who’s not.

I’m really saddened that no one has ventured forth with a guess as to who “Pierre Renee” is. His photographs are hanging in the Riverfront Pizza Bat & Grill on Erie St. I guess no one cares but Mr. Renee, hey? Okay, Stella will sweeten the Pierre pot and buy a veggie pizza for the FIRST person who posts the correct answer in the comment section.

All the stupefying silly-ness over whether or not alderpersons like the public sculpture proposed for Wisconsin Avenue. It’s sort of a low blow to make comments about Bob Donavan’s missing teeth though. Or is it tooth? It should be even more stupefying when “concerned” artists mass in order to voice their ego-driven agendas about the project’s ix-nayers. Real artists will be home making art, but Pegi Taylor will likely be out and about milling around.

Stella says later gator. There’s way more coming …