Legends Abound In July
Big themes and names dominate in this month's visual art scene.
Charles Allis Art Museum. Photo by Dave Reid.
I learned this month that a ticket to the Charles Allis Art Museum also gets you in the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, the mansion overlooking Lake Michigan, for free on the same day. The villa’s current artist-in-residence, Celeste Contreras Skierski, has a show comprised of inked portraits and a display of the hand carved stamps she uses to create them. These are the most current works on view throughout the mansion, but a stroll around this gorgeous Italian villa after a visit to Screen Time at the Charles Allis Art Museum is a fine way to spend the remainder of a clear summer afternoon. And here are the other visual art picks for the month of July:
Saint Kate Arts Hotel
Novel Ecosystems
Through July 7
139 E. Kilbourn Ave.
There are currently four exhibitions at Saint Kate that explore the theme Nature and Ecology that run through the first week of July. In the group exhibition entitled Novel Ecosystems, artists Jennifer Angus, Nina Katchadourian, Gregory Klassen, Katherine Clarke Langlands, and a collective calling themselves the Environmental Performance Agency—a playful take on the EPA—attempt new definitions for ecology in a changing world. We are seeing fundamentally altered ecosystems at the most microscopic levels of existence. This group show untangles and reimagines the binds between humanity and our earthly environments in imaginative recreations that invite alternate versions of the world to spring forth from the imagination. Here you will find playful dioramas populated by observant beetles, a Fake Plant series that calls to mind the highest tiers of molecular gastronomy, and beautiful yet unsettling superimpositions of plastic against the clear ocean.
Charles Allis Art Museum
Screen Time until July 21
1801 N. Prospect Ave.
Wednesday-Sunday — 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Screen Time is billed as a group exhibition of “photography and video art in the internet age” but at times seems to fall short of the potential heights this premise might tap into given our acceleration through digital society. I attribute this to the range of dates around which each piece was created, some dating back to 2004. In the 20 years since, our understanding of both screens and time in relation to digital life has morphed and contorted into new shapes entirely and has left those of us who resist a complete digital assimilation reeling in their outmoded confusion. It is then with some ironic understanding that I found the video by William Kentridge, one of the oldest artists in this exhibition, to be the most poignant encapsulation of this evolution. This nine minute and 45 second video questions time, object representation, and the reliability of documentation using, mostly, the artist’s sketchbook, his pen in hand, and what appear to be blown tobacco leaves that cohere in brief pictorials. The show is scattered throughout the Allis mansion, mounted in conversation beside Tiffany lamps and Corinthian pottery from 575 B.C. It makes for an incongruous experience, but it’s worth it for the chance to understand, in a physical manner that demands movement across three stories, how expression and beauty have changed over time. Other standouts in this group exhibition include Otobong Nkanga, Marilyn Minter, and Robin Rhode.
The Alice Wilds
Daniel McCullough: At Night
Through Saturday, July 27
900 S. 5th St., Suite 102
Friday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (or by appointment)
The artist will attend on July 19 for the summer installment of Gallery Night with a reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
At Night is Daniel McCullough’s second solo exhibit at The Alice Wilds in five years. This recent body of work shows the artist expanding his territory and photographic techniques, choosing natural light as a means to underline what occurs between the subject and the camera lens. Each photograph reflects back to the viewer a quality of light that evokes darkness, the post-daylight strangeness the natural world adopts in the nighttime. Within these images, you will find portals—points of focus or absence that lead the viewer out of this realm and into another.
Harley-Davidson Museum
Creating a Legend: Art & Engineering at Harley Davidson
Semi-permanent new exhibition
400 W. Canal St.
Open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Harley-Davidson Homecoming Festival July 25-28
Looking to brush up on your motorcycle history? Want to impress the die-hard bikers at the Homecoming Festival (July 25-28) this year with Harley-specific engineering lingo? The Harley-Davidson Museum just opened their latest exhibition, Creating a Legend: Art & Engineering at Harley Davidson, demonstrating how their iconic vehicles evolve from a concept, into production, and onto the open road. After 120 years in business, it’s safe to say Harley-Davidson has made more than a few illustrious moves within motorcycle culture and design. See how the artists and engineers behind the legendary company use traditional methods like sketching and new techniques like CAD modeling and 3D printing to conceptualize products for a unique vision. While the exhibition will be semi-permanent and remain on display for at least a year, the best time to see it is now, right before the festival that will overwhelm the city with some of the famous Milwaukee-based company’s biggest fans and revelers.
MIAD’s Brook Stevens Gallery
Lois Ehlert: A Creative Life
Through August 3
273 E. Erie St.
Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Lois Ehlert, illustrator of the beloved children’s book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, is the subject of this informal retrospective. MIAD is hosting the largest exhibition of her work to date, which includes artwork used in her Caldecott winning children’s books, which may be familiar to adults and children in attendance. Ehlert’s illustrations eventually expanded onto posters, cards, magazines, toy designs, and promotional materials, demonstrating a robust creative output that lasted until the end of her life. Born in Beaver Dam and living much of her life in Milwaukee, Ehlert is recognized internationally for her work’s bold colors and mixed media textures, nature themes, and her love of plants and flowers. This exhibition curates a lifetime of work from beloved and energetic creative legend whose contributions to inventive and curious childhoods the world over is certainly one to celebrate.
You have many options this month ahead of the next installment of Gallery Night & Day on July 19 & 20. Put that on your radar as well, since the quarterly event is one of your best opportunities to buy original work directly from galleries around town. Summer is the time to art hop and maybe discover new favorites across the city. I’m personally looking forward to seeing what else is on display this month, given the range of talent that seems to be brewing behind closed studio doors.
Annie Raab has been writing about art since 2014 for print and online publications. You can find more of her critical and creative writing at www.annieraab.com. She lives in Milwaukee.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
