A guide to Winter Gallery Night

The inaugural Gallery Night of 2011 is upon us, and here at TCD, we couldn’t be more excited. The shows opening to the public this weekend are an intriguing pastiche of social activism, interactive experience and personal exploration, peppered with new interpretations of classical forms and styles. With so much to do and see (and with temperatures dropping into the single digits), TCD has compiled a short list of our picks for Winter Gallery Night, sure to sate your artistic cravings and keep you warm on Friday night. Check out our events calendar for more Gallery Night goodness.

Stay warm, and enjoy!

Third Ward

Merge Gallery
Marshall Building
207 E. Buffalo, Suite 204
Roots of Mind: Thoughts and Memories
5-9 p.m.

Roots of Mind: Thoughts and Memories is a social statement installation of the merged works of Valerie J. Christell and Tori Tasch, exploring the mind and its processes, healthy and unhealthy. Thoughts and memories relative to mental health disorders, including dementia and multiple personalities, as well as the impact of therapy, are examined through this installation that merges photo collages, artist books, and sculpture in a space transformed by branches and root systems reflective of the brain’s inner structures and processes: the veins and neural network.

Through root-like and vein-like materials, connections symbolic of these structures are made between the pieces in the installation. Within the merged installation, Christell presents her concepts through photo collage and sculpture and Tasch presents her reflections through artist books and prints.

Portrait Society Gallery
Marshall Building, Suite 526
Winter Chapel by Linda Wervey-Vitamvas and Boris Ostrerov: New paintings
6-8 p.m.

 

Linda Wervey-Vitamvas is a sculptor who works with minimal porcelain forms. Her “Chapel of Bones” is white and minimal, with a curtain of bone icicles in front of an altar where 40 candle-holders in the shapes of pelvic bones will light the room. Glass shelves line the walls and hold hand-made bones that cast shadows to the floor. A clock, also constructed of various bone shapes, keeps immortal time on another wall.

Gallery A will feature new paintings by Boris Ostrerov. In this new body of work, Ostrerov explores smaller scale color compositions that take the forms of mounds or piles of lines. They are lyrical and abstract, yet each one, depending on the shape, arrangement, color or density of the thick lines, suggests a totally different set of conditions and mood.

Luckystar Studio
Marshall Building, Third Floor
The Modern Landscape
6-10 p.m.

After 11 years in the business of art, the dynamic duo behind Luckystar realized that they’ve never hosted a show devoted to landscapes. And so The Modern Landscape was born.  The show features selected works from three painters. Amy O’Neill’s series highlights “areas of quiet and sometimes neglected spaces filled with things we’re not suppose to notice: abandoned buildings and unkempt sidewalks.” Tom Berenz  “focuses on the battle between man and nature and its powerful force is a major focus of this series,” and Mike Fredrickson’s work could be described as realism with a touch of POP!

Katie Gingrass Gallery
241 N. Broadway
WHITE
5-9 p.m.

All the colors of the rainbow are held in the white wavelength of light, just to be broken down and let free. White in art, however, serves as possibility, anticipating multitudes of layers or additions in any conceived form. The latest exhibition at Katie Gingrass Gallery, WHITE features artwork created exclusively in shades of white. Creating art under such restrictions allows for the in depth exploration of all other aesthetic and compositional boundaries. This exhibition will present those possibilities which are further examined when color is disregarded. Includes work by James Aarons, Sarah Budensiek, Katherine Dube, Susan Dwyer, Kristin Haas, Brian Mancl, Jeff Margolin, NewBreed Furniture Network, and David Schaefer.

Hot*Pop
213 N. Broadway
The Plush Team in Candyland
7 -9 p.m.

What happens when a guild of internationally recognized plush artists descend upon Milwaukee in winter for January’s Gallery Night? Candyland! See works created especially for Hot Pop Gallery by members of the Plush Team. Plush Team artists have been featured in galleries all over the world, including: Schmancy in Seattle, Chromeo in Vancouver, Gallery Hanahou in NYC, StitchWars, Bear & Bird Gallery in Miami, and many more.

Numerous Plush Team members are featured in STUFFED Magazine. Enjoy musical treats and an amazing candy buffet with samples of Plush Team favorites sent to Milwaukee from all over the globe.

MIAD -Frederick Layton Gallery
273 E. Erie St.
Visual Analogies and Inquiries: The Work of Michiko Itatani and Birgitta Weimer
TINY: Art from Microscopes at UW-Madison
5 -9 p.m.

The highly praised Culture in Transition series continues for a sixth year at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with an extraordinary dual exhibition of visual art inspired by science. Organized by Tandem Press in Madison, TINY is a unique exhibit of photographs and models generated by the research science faculty of UW-Madison is diverse and breathtaking, revealing  aspects of our world rarely seen.Visual Analogies and Inquiries: The Work of Michiko Itatani and Birgitta Weimer features work by two of the most accomplished artists working in the genre of visual art informed by aspects of scientific theory.

Downtown

The Pfister Hotel
424 E. Wisconsin Ave.
Artist in Residence: Katie Musolff
5-9 p.m.

Visit the Pfister Hotel for Katie Musolff’s final Gallery Night show as AiR. Musolff’s paintings of hotel staff, as well as a few works in progress, will be on display in the artist’s studio. Meet Katie Musolff, and also view a special exhibit she has prepared called Nature in Milwaukee, featuring works by Michael Kutzer and Mary Agnew. Stick around for a post-Gallery Night reception in the Rouge Ballroom from 9-11 p.m.

Gallerie M at the InterContinental
139 E. Kilbourn
2011 Pfister Artist in Residence Finalists
5-9 p.m.

Featuring work in oil, acrylic and charcoal, the six finalists for the Pfister’s 2011 Artist in Residenc — Anthony Suminski, Kate Pfeiffer, Jeremy Plunkett, James Zwadlo, Shelby Keefe and Stephen Ohlrich — will have original work on display, and will also be present to meet at greet the public.

Walker’s Point/ Bay View

ArtWorks for Milwaukee
706 S. 5th St.
Work by ArtWorks youth apprentices
5-8 p.m.

On Gallery Night, ArtWorks features pieces created by youth apprentices in various 2010 programs. The Positive Influence Project gives accolades to Milwaukee residents who make a difference in the community. Apprentices had to identify a “person of positive influence” from their neighborhood and approach that person about being the subject of their mixed media portrait. Safe Messages Murals creates powerful anti-gun/gang/drug messages through stunning arrays of color and mixed media. This project focused on Crime Strategy Initiatives that leverage youth-led interventions designed to positively influence youth.

 

Sky High Gallery
2501 S. Howell Ave.
Polaroids: Photographs by Amanda Marsalis
7-10 p.m.

Sky High Gallery presents work by Los Angeles based photographer Amanda Marsalis, offering an intimate look inside successful woman’s world. Her career as a photographer would make most envious of her travel schedule — one that takes her to all ends of the world on a regular basis. Just last year she counted 56 flights, more than one a week.

This show will feature her personal work all shot on Polaroid 600 film, which is no longer being made. Marsalis comments often about her stash of dead stock quickly getting very small. The Polaroid’s are then drum scanned and made into archival pigment prints. The photographs in her exhibit will range in size from 11″ x 11″ to 30″ x 30″. In addition to the prints Sky High Gallery will have copies of Lost At Sea on hand throughout the exhibit for $15.

Sparrow Collective Gallery
2224 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
Go West, Young Woman
6-9 p.m.

Go West, Young Woman features mixed media work by UW-Milwaukee student Jessica Bublitz, combining ideas of collecting, personal narrative, pop culture, and the compulsion to travel through collage, photography, and printmaking.  Together, the work speaks about her own history but one that is shared by many others. Through her pieces she hopes to bring attention to what she feels are important subjects yet are often overlooked.

524 W. National Ave.
Landfill: Work by Ella Dwyer and Makeal Flammini
6-11 p.m.

Landfill is a one-night-only exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Milwaukee artists Makeal Flammini and Ella Dwyer. Flammini reflects on her fragmented and partial memories of childhood kicks to the head, greasy Los Angeles producers, bizarre friendships and first loves. Dwyer creates fantastical animals in a bizarre world of pattern and color. Cellist Crystal Rauch, formerly of The Barrettes, will provide musical accompaniment throughout the night.

East Side

INOVA/Kenilworth
2155 N. Prospect
5-8 p.m.

The INOVA/Kenilworth gallery opens three new shows for Gallery Night: Jeanne Dunning’s  Me Not Me, a series of short video re-enactments of doctor-patient interactions; Matthew Girson’s Neither Plenitude Nor Vacancy, new work based on themes of blindness and boredom and Ernesto Oroza’s Statement of Necessity, works featuring photographs, texts, prints, drawings and video from Cuban contemporary artist and designer.

Green Gallery East
1500 N. Farwell Ave.
A Person of Color: a mostly orange exhibition
6-9 p.m.

From curator José Lerma: “I wanted to curate a show in the manner that I would make a painting. I thought orange would be a nice warm color to have in Milwaukee in the middle of January.”