Nohl Exhibition artists, events, and “Nite Life”

This year’s Nohl Fellowship exhibition at Inova/Kenilworth will soon close, but there is a flurry of activity during the last two weeks of its run. It showcases the recent work of seven artists who received grants for their work as 2011 fellows, and offers a primer into some of the trends in Milwaukee’s contemporary art scene.

There are a multiplicity of approaches to craft, from Richard Galling‘s painterly play between artist and antihero, and Sonja Thomsen‘s glittering silver, sculptural funhouse puzzle. More saliently, and perhaps serendipitously, many of the works have playful surface values but underlying ideas are serious reflections on time and place. The time may not be our own day but a consideration of the past, as in the work of Nicolas Lampert and Hans Gindlesberger. These artists look back, respectively, to Milwaukee’s civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and war torn Germany of World War II. Closer in space and time are Sarah Gail Luther’s explorations of local neighborhoods, while American Fantasy Classics imagines a whole new, yet familiar, territory in “The Streets of New Milwaukee.”

 

Brad Lichtenstein delves into the contemporary fabric of Wisconsin life and politics with his documentaries, and has received much recognition for As Goes Janesville. The film explores middle class life from the vantage point of Wisconsinites who have faced the loss of an industrial base in their town, and are caught in the political crossfire between business interests and workers’ concerns. A free screening of the film will take place this Wednesday at the UWM Union Theater, followed by a panel discussion with the director.

Other events coming up in the Inova/Kenilworth exhibition space include American Fantasy Classics “Nite Life” on Thursday, Nov. 29. It is billed as an evening of “arts and entertainment, architecture, cuisine, nightclubs, dancing, education, cinema, and friendship.”

Artist Sarah Gail Luther will present “A Guide to the Field Guides” on Thursday, Dec. 6. The field guides describe five locations in Milwaukee, lovingly articulated through hand drawn pamphlets, and represented by physical material in the gallery space. Her work is a dialogue between actions in the city outside, and a fanciful recreation of experience and memory in the gallery space.

This exhibition by the seven 2011 Fellowship recipients closes on Dec. 9, but we can already look forward to the next round. The recipients of the 2012 awards have been announced and will be similarly featured in a show in late 2013. In the Established Artist category, the winners are D.I.Y. documentarian and promoter Faythe Levine, filmmaker Danielle Beverly, and multimedia artist Colin Matthes, Emerging artists recognized with Nohl Fellowships are painter Tyanna Buie, photographer Lois Bielefeld, art impresario Paul Kjelland, and Brad Fiore, co-founder of the Nomadic Art Center.

The 2011 Greater Milwaukee Foundation Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships Exhibition

• Inova/Kenilworth
• 2155 N. Prospect Avenue.
• Gallery and special events are all free.

Exhibition continues through Sunday, Dec. 9.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Wednesday, Nov. 28

• Screening of As Goes Janesville
• UWM Union Theater, 7 p.m.
• 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.

Thursday, Nov. 29

• American Fantasy Classics “Nite Life”
• Inova/Kenilworth, 6 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 6

• Sarah Gail Luther, “A Guide to the Field Guides”
• Inova/Kenilworth, 6pm

For more of Kat Murrell’s coverage of visual arts on TCD, click here.