Gallery Night Guide and Beyond

Friday is another Gallery Night, but check out activities spanning the weekend for more art-related events around the city.

art$upport   
Various locations
July 25-27

The Nonprofit Management Fund has organized a multi-day event where participants associated with thirty-five area arts organizations will do spontaneous performances lasting about five minutes or so throughout the city. There is a good deal of chance involved, so viewers likely won’t know where or when these activities might happen. So be on the lookout for arts afoot.

FRIDAY, JULY 26 

Gallery Night is upon us and where will you be? Catch up with this itinerary and find your way through folk, self-taught, electronic, painted, sculpted, printed, projected art and more.

Interface: New Media at WPCA 
Walker’s Point Center for the Arts
839 S. 5th Street, Walker’s Point
Friday: 5 to 9pm; Saturday: 12 to 5pm
Exhibition closes Saturday, July 27

This is the closing weekend for Interface: New Media at WPCA, an exhibition that presents videos and interactive pieces touching on human experiences from the parental gaze to questions of identity and even the capabilities of the human voice. For a sample of the latter, check out John Keston’s Voice Lessons, an interactive piece where the visitor manipulates the onscreen singer’s pitch and vocalizations.

Gerard Sendrey, Visage, 2012. Courtesy Dean Jensen Gallery

Naïves, Seers, Lone Wolves & World Savers XXIII
Dean Jensen Gallery
759 N. Water Street
Friday: 6 to 9pm; Saturday: 10am to 4pm
Exhibition continues through September 1

Folk and self-taught artists are often defined more by the background of their makers than any particular aesthetic, which is what makes these fields rich in their diverse appearance and meaning. Artists in this exhibition represent some prominent names from the United States and internationally, including Clementine Hunter, Sister Gertrude Morgan, and Mose Tolliver among others.

The Beast Within: Images of Animals in Tattoo and Contemporary Art 
Tory Folliard Gallery
233 N. Milwaukee Street
Friday: 11am to 9pm; Saturday: 11am to 4pm
Exhibition continues through September 7

Laurie Hogin, BIKER’S PRAYER I (PRAYER TO ST. AUGUSTINE), Oil on Panel, 6 1/4 x 6 1/4″. Courtesy Tory Folliard Gallery.

Artist Fred Stonehouse has put together an exhibition of tattoo art and contemporary paintings which explore the powerful, sometimes mystical, associations of animals and human qualities. Stonehouse describes the exhibition as an exploration of archetypes and apotropaic forms: “The heraldic nature of tattoos has historically tied its imagery to the symbolism of animals. If one could argue that tattoos constitute a sort of ‘psychic armor’ then this imagery and symbolism seems to make complete sense and the pervasiveness of it in tattoo design is understandable.”

Waste Not: Five regional self-taught artists 
Portrait Society Gallery
Marshall Building, 207 E. Buffalo Street, Ste. 526  
Friday: 5 to 9pm; Saturday 12 to 5pm
Exhibition continues through September 22

One of the broad characteristics that describes self-taught artists is their predilection for working independently. They do their own thing, with or without training, and without concern for commercial appeal. In other words, art is done purely for pleasure or a purpose other than engaging in the glittering vanity fair that sometimes typifies the conventional art world. Not to say that self-taught art is not glittering — that may literally be the case, as in the pop culture-inspired paintings by Romano “Mano” Johnson on view. There is a spirit of unconventionality, eccentric delight, and iconoclastic freedom in the work of these artists. And those are qualities that can also help define the realm of self-taught art.

Patrick Earl Hammie in front of “Night Watch” 68×96″ oil on linen. Courtesy Greymatter Gallery.

Significant Other: Patrick Earl Hammie 
Greymatter Gallery
Marshall Building, 207 E. Buffalo Street, Ste. 222
Friday: 5 to 9pm; Saturday: 12-4pm
Exhibition continues through August 31

One could write a history of art through representations of women in painting and sculpture, but that’s only one side of the story. Hammie takes up the other half, exploring constructions of masculine identity and the historical resonance of the nude figure in art. This is the first exhibition of paintings at Greymatter, and Friday’s opening will also be a reception for the artist.

Stephanie Barenz and Molly Snyder: Pfister Artist and Narrator Collaborative 
Pfister Hotel, Artist-in-Residence Studio
424 E. Wisconsin Avenue
Friday: 5 to 9pm; Saturday: throughout the day
Gallery Night Reception, 9pm in The Rouge

Stephanie Barenz has been settled into the Pfister Hotel as Artist-in-Residence for a couple of months now, and this Gallery Night will be joined by the Pfister Narrator, Molly Snyder. Together, the evening merges the images of Barenz’s paintings and drawings, which highlight a sense of travel and transformation, and Snyder’s written word. Throughout the evening, Snyder will also write haikus and poems in response to visitors’ experiences.

23rd Annual “Remarkable Women Show” 
Peltz Gallery
1119 E. Knapp Street
Friday: 6 to 9:30pm; Saturday 11am to 4pm
Exhibition continues through September 29

The Peltz Gallery continues its annual tradition of highlighting the work of contemporary women artists, drawn from a pool which includes prominent local artists and internationally-known figures. In light of Peltz’s passing this past spring, it is clear that her spirit lives on in the gallery and this exhibition which she was so passionate about.

SATURDAY JULY 27 

Nicholas Grider: The Masculinity Cycle, Part 2: Burden
Inova
2155 N. Prospect Avenue
1 to 4pm

A couple of weeks ago Grider performed the first part of The Masculinity Cycle with a performance inspired by illusionist Harry Houdini. Continuing the investigation of gender roles and questions of endurance, determination, and physical toughness, the work of performance artist Chris Burden inspires Grider’s next endeavor.

SUNDAY, JULY 28 

Jim Dow: American Studies
Aberrance and Artifice: The Norton Collection
New Objectivity in German Art: Highlights from the Marvin and Janet Fishman Collection
Haggerty Museum of Art
Marquette University Campus
13th and Clybourn Streets
Exhibitions close July 28.

It’s the last weekend for three exhibitions at the Haggerty Museum. For an overview of the artists and their work, see the TCD review.