Arts & Culture
New Faces
By Peggy Schulz Arts groups in Milwaukee are used to dealing with turnover – it’s the nature of the beast. But the 2008-2009 season will introduce even more fresh faces than usual. Along with a handful of smaller-scale galleries and museums (see Judith Ann Moriarty’s visual arts preview on page 22), at least five major arts institutions in Milwaukee have new leaders on board as a sixth, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, prepares to welcome a new Music Director and a new Pops Conductor in 2009. Roll call Perhaps the most familiar new face to the Milwaukee arts scene is one known worldwide for composing, conducting and arranging – Marvin Hamlisch, the new Principal Pops Conductor for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Hamlisch’s distinguished career is notable for any number of reasons; he has won virtually every music award that exists, including three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards, plus a Pulitzer Prize for his groundbreaking show, A Chorus Line. Hamlisch is an enthusiastic advocate of the power of music to bring people together. “Music can make a difference,” he says. “Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can.” To further propel the momentum for its upcoming 50th anniversary season, world-renowned conductor Edo de Waart will assume his position as Music Director of the MSO with the 2009-2010 season, but anticipation of his arrival is already feverish. de Waart has conducted every major orchestra in the world, and Time Magazine called him “one of the world’s most accomplished and sought-after conductors.” He is currently Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Holland. Wisconsin is not totally new to de Waart: he currently lives in Middleton with his family. But it was far from a default decision. Before de Waart would commit to the MSO, he had to conduct them. “I rehearsed with the orchestra in December for two days. I had a ball. It was fantastic.” de Waart is excited to begin work with the MSO in 2009, but for Milwaukee audiences salivating to see the man in action, he’ll conduct two upcoming concerts: October 31 – November 2 and November 7 and 8, 2008 Like de Waart, Daniel Keegan, recently installed CEO of the Milwaukee Art Museum, has ties to Wisconsin – he grewup in Green Bay. Prior to joining the Art Museum in February,Keegan served as Executive Director of the San Jose Museum of Art in California for seven years, and he was Executive Director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City for three years before that. According to Keegan, “The chance to work here was an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Part of the attraction of the Art Museum is that it’s “an internationally recognized, fabulous collection, and a very talented staff. The opportunity to lead this institution is tremendous.” Keegan already is impressed by the level of […]
Sep 1st, 2008 by Vital Archives
A portrait is an image of a person
J. Shimon & J. Lindemann, Elise at Work, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 2007. Inkjet pigment print from 8 x 10 transparency, 20 x 16 in. Ed. 2/10 What is wrapped up in a portrait? We see so many each day that we never really stop to think about what the creation of a person’s image encompasses and implies. When you make a portrait, whether it’s a marble bust, a painting, a professional photograph, or a snapshot of a friend, you are capturing the essence of a real, live person: someone that lives and breathes, that works and feels and exists in the world. A portrait is an image of a person. Unmasked & Anonymous: Shimon and Lindemann Consider Portraiture brings this most basic and oft-forgotten aspect of portraiture to the forefront of our consciousness. A portrait is an image of a person. Through works of their own and carefully culled works from the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection of photographs and daguerreotypes, John Shimon and Julie Lindemann (with help from hotshot MAM curator Lisa Hostettler) bring us face to face with all of the ambiguities and inherent contradictions of taking a portrait, an image of a person. While there are many threads of meaning to pluck at, perhaps the central theme is in the exhibition’s title. A portrait is an image, and an image is also the conscious projection of a person. An image is a mask we put on to make ourselves anonymous, to prevent others from knowing us. When faced with a camera, either consciously or unconsciously, we put on a face, a mask, that we think hides us. We smile big, or we glower threateningly, or we smirk, or purse our lips. We stand up straighter, or perhaps slump deeper into a hunch. Regardless of the image we are attempting to project, we are projecting an image, and it is this image the camera captures. James Van Der Zee, Distraction, 1930. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, 9 9/16 x 7 9/16 in. Milwaukee Art Museum Purchase, African American Art Acquisition Fund, Photography by John R. Glembin And yet this mask often reveals as much as it conceals. In “The Hanson Brothers,” for instance, one sibling is slightly in front of the other, and both stare directly into the camera, serious expressions that show how seriously they take this business of sitting for a portrait. This seriousness, their gravitas, is affected, though. It is belied by the playful Hawaiian shirt and Captain Hook mustache of one brother, and by the ironic tilt of an eyebrow and the hint of a smirk at the corner of the other’s mouth. Some of the posturing we do in portraiture is unconscious. We become accustomed to having our likeness taken at young ages, inured to the process by the ritual of school pictures. We learn head up, chin down, eyes on the camera but face tilted slightly away from it. We learn sitting up straight and the acceptable ways to cross our arms and hands and […]
Aug 18th, 2008 by Ryan Findley
Photographs by John Heymann
At a Moment’s Notice: Photographs by John Heymann Charles Allis Museum August 6 – September 21 Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 6, 5:30 – 8:30 pm John Heymann, “Lantern, Antelope Canyon, Arizona.” 1999. What a month for admirers of fine photography! The Milwaukee Art Museum unveils a major exhibition August 14 – Unmasked and Anonymous – with a run until November 30. Now through September 28, 100 prints by Stephen Shore will be at the Haggerty Museum of Art, and if that isn’t enough, John Heymann’s show of photographs opens August 6 at the Charles Allis Museum and runs until September 21 as part of their on-going Wisconsin Masters Series. I met with Heymann, who was in town to oversee the installation of his photographs, but the email information he forwarded gave me a generous preview: born in 1947 in our town, he graduated from UW-Madison in 1970 with a degree in comparative literature, intending to shape a career as a poet. A course in photography at UW-Milwaukee set him on a new path. It’s wasn’t long before he departed for Boston to begin an internship with a weekly politically-oriented newspaper. Basically, he learned his craft by hanging out with other photographers, looking at the work of established photographers, and (perhaps most importantly) by “taking photographs every day for years.” Teaching photography in the Boston Community Schools and at shelters for homeless teens heightened his interest in his chosen profession. He keeps that interest fresh by meeting for critiques with two groups of photographers. Decades have passed since his student days. Would the “poet” in him speak through the 50 photographs at the Charles Allis? I already knew that he admired the work of photographers Bresson, Weston, Lange, Winogrand and Friedlander, plus other photographers he knows personally. Heymann’s work has been published in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Downbeat Magazine, and various other media venues. He’s certainly not just another chap roaming about with a camera. John Heymann, “Shadows on a Building, New York City.” 1986. John Heymann is as cool and crisp as his elegant photographs. He came in out of the heat of a blast furnace day and walked me through the Great Hall and floor two where his work is displayed. Friendly and open, he talked about his abstractions – none more lovely than the outstanding “Boatjacks,” a lush color slice of a Maine boatyard. It reminded me of a masterful painting by Klimt. He told me he often studies paintings and extracts from them what he wishes to express in his photographs. Indeed, several of his black and white minimalist depictions recalled paintings of Motherwell or Kline, but are distinctly Heymann. On floor two, an 8” x 12” black and white photograph of a skylight blew me away. On Sunday, you can hear him talk about his work (yes, it is poetic) during a gallery walk-around at 2 pm. It will begin in the Great Hall on the first floor, where his larger abstractions are […]
Aug 5th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
20×20
Photos by Dane Haman Jon Mueller, co-manager of Pecha Kucha in Milwaukee. pecha kucha (n) /puh-CHAH-kuh-chah/ Japanese origin. 1. the art of conversation; 2. noisy chatter; 3. coming August 26 to Milwaukee. Imagine if before facing the auditorium on your big presentation day, you could – without inhibition or shutting your office door – swig from that desk-drawer bourbon flask? Exchange auditorium for watering hole, bourbon swig for beer break and big presentation for a brief one, and what’s left is even better: Pecha Kucha Night (PKN), an idea devised by two Tokyo-based European architects in 2003 that gives the projector + presenter + audience equation a novel twist. Though liquid courage is encouraged, PKN is not about the booze; it’s an opportunity to meet, show ideas to the public, and network — with rules. In other words, “productive socializing,” says Jon Mueller, who teams up with 800-CEO-READ (8cr) colleague Kate Mytty to manage Milwaukee’s only official Pecha Kucha franchise. MEET A bulk bookseller 25 years in the business and division of local independent shop Harry W. Schwartz, 8cr “works directly with business authors to help them customize books, organize events, and write about the current and best ideas in business thought.” Clearly much more than merchant, they also print reviews and essays in their quarterly magazine and feature manifestos for change from diverse, yet optimistic, perspectives on their culturally conscious ChangeThis website. “8cr follows business thought and how it changes people’s lives, and Pecha Kucha follows people’s ideas in action,” says Mueller. “There is really a fine line between the two.” Logically, 8cr and PKN aligned, and Milwaukee is now among a worldwide network of 129 (and growing) participating cities. “The amount of work that’s involved would turn many people away from organizing it,” says Mueller, “but we think it’s an important thing to do and we have a lot of fun with it.” SHOW Trademarked and copyrighted by inventive founding architectural firm Klein Dytham, the Pecha Kucha format requires that all slideshows displayed are a standard “20×20” — 20 slides, programmed to automatically advance after 20 seconds on screen — a style that keeps both the speaker and the audience alert and captivated. Synchronizing flow to a fixed timetable is a challenge that is comfortably limiting. “The simplicity is what makes it really effective,” says Mueller. Do the math and that’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds a pop in PowerPoint heaven. But this brevity “can still become an eternity in the wrong hands,” explains Mueller. “Someone basically giving a six-minute commercial, using nothing but charts and graphs, or other typical business type mumblings, doesn’t do much good in any setting,” Brady Street’s stylish Hi Hat Garage included. “I immediately thought the Garage would be perfect,” says Mueller of the space where PKN #1 was held in June of this year. The space offers A/V equipment, a capacity for 160, and an ambiance that most hotel conference rooms lack. The bar’s owner, Scott Johnson, whom Mueller has known personally […]
Aug 1st, 2008 by Amber Herzog
Twombly Tale
Cy Twombly, “Untitled” (1967) There it hangs in Gallery 18 at the Milwaukee Art Museum: Cy Twombly’s “Untitled” (1967). I first saw it three decades ago, and it’s still a thrill. It’s been moved here and there over the years, most recently during the re-hanging of the contemporary galleries. I had a moment of panic when I found it missing from the east wall of the Flagg Gallery, replaced by a really bad painting. “How could they?” I wondered. Was “Untitled” stored in the bowels of the museum? In 1968, the museum purchased this particular Twombly from the great abstract painter’s first solo retrospective at MAM. In those days, I had yet to visit the museum because I was busy raising three kids, studying for a degree in Art Education, and trying out French and Greek recipes on my suburban friends. Years later, around 1980, I decided to leave my tri-level and work as a museum volunteer. Russell Bowman was chief curator, and my assigned space at MAM was in the Cudahy Gallery of Wisconsin Art, tucked into a small room on the first floor of what I now call “the old museum.” I must have discovered “Untitled” during a lunch break. My Art Education training was just getting started and most of the images I’d experienced were in my History of Art book and/or slides projected on a screen in a stuffy lecture room at Carroll College, where I frequently fell asleep wondering if I’d made a mistake in career choices. Only one piece of art hung in my tri-level: a big blue moonscape which I purchased at an art fair. The artist delivered it to my home and together we hung it over my gold brocade couch, a room full of faux Country French furniture and windows draped in fussy brocade drapes. I wonder what ever happened to that painting. The artist died a few years ago, but what I remember about him isn’t the moonscape, but rather the fact that he strolled around summertime art fairs wearing a leopard skin bikini. His work was the total opposite of Twombly’s. By the mid-80s, I had divorced and moved to an 800-sq-ft. home on some Kettle Moraine acreage. I started trying my hand at making paintings and took a modest job as an art teacher in Pewaukee, where the idea of “art” was to give the kids something to take home to hang on the family fridge. When I suggested to the confused administrator that art could be taught to elementary kids, not as a brief cut-and-paste session, but rather by teaching them how to “see” at an early age, he turned pale and replied, “Oh, the parents wouldn’t like it if the kids didn’t bring something home.” “Untitled” was, and still is, the best teacher I ever had. No fuss, no nonsense, no glued-on artifacts dangling, or gold leaf applied to bring on some dazzle. I doubt if there are many viewers who would tap Twombly as their […]
Jul 21st, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Freedom Fighters
I’m glad I held off visiting Gilbert & George. The perfect moment to see it at the Milwaukee Art Museum arrived on a splendid July 3. Driving south on Lincoln Memorial Drive, I noticed how every inch of green space was packed with folks waiting for the Big Bang. Words flooded my mind as I cruised past at reasonable 25 miles per: campers, families, balloons, flags, barbeques … “good” words for the day before our day of Independence. George Carlin died in June, and the New York Times wrote a strange obituary, referencing – without listing – the seven forbidden words made famous by the man who took the cause for freedom of speech all the way to the Supreme Court. I found them via a Yahoo search: s**t, p**s, f**k, c**t, c**ksucker, motherf**ker, and t*ts. Bleep, bleep. What nonsense! Carlin added a few more before he expired. What a freedom fighter. I hope he died happy. So here I am outside of the bright yellow portal to the show, wondering if what’s on the other side in the Baker/Rowland galleries will be worth the visit or just another freak show designed to rouse the apathetic. A sign outside the portal cautions that parents with kids better check out the content before entering. “Brace Yourself” is part of the show’s public relations spin. I’m in. My first impression? BIG! But at this point I’m a blind person feeling the trunk of an elephant. My second impression? Why have I let myself get sucked into this s**t? A feeling creeps over me, a feeling akin to waiting for a cold speculum to be introduced into my c**t during a series of gynecological examinations. “This won’t hurt a bit,” the doctor lies. A half dozen other gawkers meander around the galleries, necks craned upward. The place is dead silent. The word “awestruck” comes to mind. I do a quickie tour, buy a catalog, and then settle down to consider what’s in my face – and I do mean in my face. My nose has been rubbed in something nasty and the sting of something – soap? – tingles my mouth. It’s oddly refreshing. What’s this? The title says Dusty Corners No. 13. It’s a 16-panel piece centered with four mirror images of black and white photographs of G&G. The boys (the year is 1975) are conservatively clad in impeccable suits. Their demeanor is oddly Victorian and the effect is that of a “memorial.” Nothing about it is big, bold or brassy. It whispers innocence. The twelve panels surrounding them suggest either the beginning of a long journey or memories of a journey already lost in time. It’s beautiful. Gorgeous. Sublime. This would be the one I’d like to take home. The gift shop has a smaller version for sale, but no, it won’t do. Only this one will do. The Penis, a 1978 work bordered on the bottom edge with a graffiti-like drawing of a c**k spurting j*zz reminds me that t*ts […]
Jul 9th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!
Smoker’s Paradox: Photographs by Mike Brenner Annual Members Show June 20 — July 25 Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, 911 W. National Avenue Opening reception: Friday, June 20, 6-9 pm Mike Brenner, former proprietor of Hotcakes Gallery, has emerged from that grave, and, at age 34, is busy re-inventing himself, most recently in the annual Members Show at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts (WPCA). He sent me notice and a link to his “Smoker’s Paradox” series wherein he seems to be wearing a hunk of pink fluff on his pate while smoking cigs around town. Three of his 8.5”x l1” photographic images (priced to sell @ $20 each, unframed, and $40 framed) will be available. You don’t have to be a smoker to buy them. Last year around this time, 67 artists participated in the exhibition, so Brenner won’t be flying solo. From what I saw online, Brenner’s entire series (three selected for the exhibit) fill two of my basic three rules for what art is: content and consistency. As for the craftsmanship in his photographs, Brenner emailed this to me: “Overall, I’m not super happy with the quality of the final product, but I think an important part of the process is to put ideas out there and get feedback. My camera was stolen when the gallery was robbed a few years back, so the images were taken with a cheap-ish point and shoot digital and I just printed them out on a printer at home because I’m broke right now and couldn’t afford to send them out to be done.” Brenner studied art for a year and a half at Colorado State University, then went on to study photography at MIAD before graduating in 2000 with a degree in graphic design. WPCA – housed in a building that once belonged to Mr. J.L. Burnham, creator of cream city bricks – is a good fit for him. People like to hang out on the front steps smoking cigs and soaking up the local color. Early issues of Art Muscle magazine were produced in the ballroom on the third floor, and over the years, many artists have lived in its apartment spaces. A few have continued to work in the arts. In many ways, the historic venue is like Brenner himself, who is also a gritty survivor. His “Smokers Paradox” photographs set off lyrics from Tex Ritter’s 1947 tune (written by Merle Travis) … I light up a cig and listen to this wafting through my head: “But nicotine slaves are all the same at a pettin’ party or a poker game; everything gotta stop while they have a cigarette.” This past December, Brenner sold out the photographs he exhibited at Miami Aqua. Using the alias “Samuel Baxter,” he even earned a mention on artinfo.com. “What a coup for a kid from Wisconsin to get a blurb for selling $5 photos in Miami,” Brenner says. But whoa, is Brenner really smoking cigarettes these days? He told me he […]
Jun 17th, 2008 by Vital Archives
Born to be free
Free the Galazan 5! Inova/Kenilworth June 13 – July 27 Opening reception: Friday, June 13, 6 – 9pm Gene Galazan left Milwaukee years ago and fled to Arizona. I remember him from the way back days when he and his artist spouse were active participants in Milwaukee art events, so I was intrigued to learn that Inova/Kenilworth will be exhibiting five of his Cor-ten steel sculptures in an exhibit titled Free the Galazan 5! (June 13 – July 27). I found images of the 5! online at the antique and art site of Gary Gresl, who owns the sculptures and is offering them for sale. The spin surrounding the exhibit is pinned to the “story” behind the sculptures: that they were left to languish in a warehouse when deemed to be too “dangerous” and too “abstract” for public consumption. The sculptures, fabricated in 1980 for CETA, a federally funded jobs program, were shot out of the saddle. Here’s an excerpt from an article written by Dean Jensen (yes, that Dean Jensen), in the Milwaukee Sentinel March 2, 1982: “The pieces, fabricated from Cor-ten steel and weighing 200 to 250 lbs. each….are gathering dust in storerooms in the old Town of Lake water tower on S. 6th St., and in a Public Works Department structure in the Menomonee Valley.” The article goes on to note that Galazan was planning a demonstration outside of City Hall, “seeking to free the sculptures he claimed were being held by the city.” A friend of mine who attended UW-Milwaukee recalls Galazan’s parents as being “civic-minded trendy art junkies with a big house on Lake Drive.” They were active in Jewish Vocational Services (his mom ran the JVS pottery department) and were as “sweet as can be,” or so remembers my friend. Of course, most artists have tales to tell, particularly those with bones to pick, and Galazan was (like other artists of his era) highly theatrical. That said, Inova/Kenilworth decided these sculptures and their colorful history would be useful in enlightening viewers about the problems of making art for the “public.” A good example of things gone awry is the current flap surrounding the proposed sculpture memorializing the sinking of the Lady Elgin. Most people involved in the arts will also recall when Dennis Oppenheim’s proposal for the Blue Shirt sculpture was hung out to dry. However, the basic question remains: are these five sculptures worth the effort of pondering, let alone building an exhibit around? Inova curator, Nick Frank, first saw the Galazan 5 during a visit to Gresl’s home, where they sat among weeds and high grasses. He listened to the back story and decided to have all five hauled by truck and placed in Inova/Kenilworth’s vast gallery space. The largest sculpture is priced at $2,000. You can view it and the others at www.greslartmarket.com. It’s a shame that the five are being sold separately. They clearly belong together. Prior to writing this and visiting the gallery, I went online to see what […]
Jun 12th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
A stitch in time
Woodland Pattern Book Center Devotion to Thread 720 E. Locust St., Milwaukee Now – June 13 Reception: Saturday May 31, 5-9pm, with a Gallery Talk at 7 pm Photos by Faythe Levine Woodland Pattern has long been a mainstay of the Riverwest neighborhood, and over the years, it has extended its reach to include the greater Milwaukee area with programming ranging from music to workshops to art exhibits and beyond. The venerable non-profit venue is a mix of hippie, uber-hip and points between. A mural fronting the building reads “28 years of power to the people.” Frankly though, some of that power should have been used to quell the endless, booming chatter of the 20-something woman whose loud mindlessness invaded the quiet gallery where I was trying to concentrate on writing this review. Apparently, she’d just dropped by to chat up the worker behind the desk. Quiet Please! Reviewing the work of 15 artists is all but impossible, and I felt myself pulling away from examining each of the approximately 40 pieces. That changed as I circled the room. The lone work I gave a zero rating was “We Other Victorians” (Xander Marro), primarily because it was a bad fit with the other works. A quilt of sorts, with an edgy motif, the colors were heavy, and, well, depressing among the mostly pastel threads used in the balance of the work. That said, I understand it satirizes the dark creepy era of Queen Victoria, so perhaps it was included in the exhibit to add a note of contrast. Jenny Hart’s 23”x36” wall-hung wonder “Pink Forrest (Flattery plus Charm)” is, even at the lofty price of $2,300, what I most wanted to take home. Ms. Hart hails from Austin, Texas and her exquisite naughty threads stitched on sleazy orange-pink satin fabric conjure the balls-out flavor of Western kitsch. If your grandma has a really awful tourist pillow from 1940’s Texas, you’ll get my drift. Kristin Loffer Theiss from out Washington way stitched three lovely heads (perhaps family members?) in black on white material. They reminded me of loose line drawings, or threads unspooling from a bobbin gone wild. Faultless to a tee, they are marvelous in the way that Jean Cocteau’s line drawings are marvelous. Orly Cogan contributed five works, one priced sky-high at $10,000. But what a piece it and her four others are. Surely she must know the work of self-taught Chicago artist Henry Darger (you can see his scroll drawings in the Milwaukee Art Museum folk collection); if not, it’s a real coincidence that her figures resemble Mr. Darger’s “Vivians,” sweet little girls with less than sweet attitudes who now and then sprout penises. Look here at this one: a lady, quite naked, playing ring toss with her naked partner, the object being to toss the ring over his waiting penis. These are delicate sensational works, none more so than “Bittersweet Obsession” where girls snort blow and, wearing nothing but fishnets, crouch while eating cupcakes. The thread work […]
May 29th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Milwaukee International
It’s a little late to be posting any coverage of last weekend’s Milwaukee International, and I don’t have much to say for myself – besides that I’ve been thinking about it, sorting out the hour or so of art I saw and the subsequent hour or two of beer I drank at Polish Falcons. There’s a lot to say about Milwaukee International, and it deserves more careful coverage than it’s received. Timelier coverage, too, but that’s another matter. The show (which you can read more about here and here if you need background) was fast and low. It was crowded and god-awful hot as the gallery lights beat down on the exhibition hall, normally reserved for weekly dartball league, which is a game I had no idea existed until Andrew Swant told me about it. The choice of venue may have been in celebration of Milwaukee blue-collar/polka/bowling culture, but make no mistake, it was also completely tongue-in-cheek. This is an art movement — and more widely a cultural movement — that celebrates the unexpected, the kitschy, the almost-condescendingly but incongruously sincere appreciation of low-fi, low-brow, low-cost, low-maintenance. Yes, friends: Milwaukee International is an expo of the best hipster art from around the world. I felt like I was walking through an issue of The Believer, live outtakes from Me and You and Everyone We Know and a Riverwest rummage sale – all at once. Photos by Faythe Levine Mano Izquierda from San Juan presented large, colorful portraits of Magic Johnson, Cookie Monster and other artifacts of the recent past, leaving out sticky notes and writing utensils for viewers to participate in the installation. There were a lot of adorable, poorly-drawn sketches of everything from plastic forks and knives (in what was actually a compelling selection of works on “obsessive consumption” by Kate Bingaman-Burt at the Paperboat Gallery booth) to men and women in their underwear and folks looking mopey to legions of scary, miserable, wobbly-faced troops (presented by Hiromi Yoshii from Tokyo, whose sat miserably by, surrounded by flickering, despondent TV sets piled on cardboard boxes; a groaning post-apocalyptic work that reminded me of a less fluid and exuberant Kristopher Pollard, whom I saw in attendance a few minutes later). The Green Gallery presented a clock made out of tostadas (for $2,000, it can be yours). Perhaps the ultimate in garage sale style was the riotous installation of “Milwaukee Artists 1946-1956″, representing derivative mid-modern works from Milwaukee’s “Layton School” period. The editorial edge classifies such works as “the zenith” of our city’s artistic achievement. Photographs from gallery openings in the era were scattered across the bar; a graph on a nearby wall tracked Milwaukee’s art in a thick red line, with the ‘80s and ‘90s were labeled merely “Drugs” and an arrow crashing below the graph’s threshold where “Milwaukee International” appears. It’s an obvious stab of cheeky sarcasm and a statement about what makes art what it is, who gets to decide and how we all assume that we’re living […]
May 25th, 2008 by Amy Elliott
Before da show
Milwaukee International Polish Falcons Beer Hall 801 E. Clarke Street, Riverwest Friday May 16 (5-9pm) Saturday May 17 (Noon-9pm) It’s Thursday, 1 pm, May 15. Tomorrow at 5 pm, the doors open to reveal the Milwaukee International art fair. I’m standing in the middle of the chaos at the Polish Falcons Beer Hall at 801 E. Clarke Street, deep in the soul of Riverwest, here to give you a taste of what it takes to ready 28 art spaces for exhibitors from as far flung as San Juan (Puerto Rico, not Capistrano), Tokyo, Glasgow, and yes, even M’waukee. Bowling will rumble from the Falcon Bowl in the building’s bowels. It’s the fourth oldest bowling alley in America; Liberace would love it. A distinct air of beer wafts through the hall on the first floor. Groups of volunteers hump booth walls to and fro, a few sporting white hoodies emblazoned with the art fair’s logo. You can purchase a hoodie or a tee for $24 and/or $10 respectively, and they come in really big or really small sizes. A visiting artist from Glasgow made them. “Somebody from Ralph Lauren called me to ask if they could buy some,” says Tyson Reeder, who operates The General Store art venue. “I’m not kidding,” he adds. A huge tray of food arrives from their neighbor across the way (The Riverwest Co-op). It’s almost time to chow down and take a break. Last year the walls were donated for no charge. This year, there may be a slight charge if the fair turns a profit. Booths for non-profit venues rent for $200; for-profits pay $400. All things considered, it’s a deal. So far the group has taken in $4,000 for this year’s extravaganza. Last year they took in $2,000. But they’ll be lucky to clear a grand, and if they do, it rolls over into their next project. No one is getting rich. Everyone is getting happy. From the editor: The walls were paid for, NOT donated, as the organizers of Milwaukee International have made clear in the comment posted below. The generous sponsorship of Thomas Blackman Associates in Chicago assists with the walls, but the are paid for, and nearly all of the booth rental fees charged by MKE INTL go toward wall rental and lighting fees. We regret the error. VS The volunteers and those who donate supplies seem to take pride in being “emotionally invested” in the Fair. Green Gallery proprietor John Riepenhoff lectures at UW-Milwaukee. His subject? How to start an art gallery. He should know. Nick Frank dashes by in a red hoodie. He’s sporting a “new” and rather elaborate growth of facial hair. I remark that he looks like a fugitive from a Goya painting. We move to a corner near the long dark bar where a guy from Cuba show his art. “We almost got a fellow (first name “Valentino”), a taxidermist, but he changed his mind,” said Frank. I asked him about the accusation that local galleries […]
May 16th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
Body Heat
The Milwaukee Public Museum opened Body Worlds on January 18, positioning it as a limited engagement. According to their website, it’s the most highly attended touring exhibition in the world, and promises, in a P.T. Barnum kind of pitch, that you’ll “see the human body like never before.” Before visiting the 200 authentic organs, systems and whole-body displays, I determine not to be sucked in to the show-biz hype. On April 23, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Body Worlds had surpassed expected sales and might net the Museum as much as $2 million in revenue, which would make it the Museum’s most successful and highly attended show of all time. As a grand finale, the exhibition will stay open for 63 hours straight before closing on midnight June 1. Depending on whose side you’re on, the MPM extravaganza is either a marketer’s dream or a marketer’s worst nightmare. In any event, the many incarnations of Body Worlds and its imitators are cranking heat. The temperature rose when ABC’s 20/20 aired an investigative report on the source of the touring cadavers. The New York State Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation (and issued subpoenas), as has the Chinese government, following an allegation by someone said to be part of a bodies black market that sold Chinese corpses, including executed prisoners, for $300. Dr. Gunther Von Hagens, Body Worlds head honcho and the inventor of the plastination process which sucks out fat and body fluids and replaces them with liquid plastic, tried to soften things by saying he “had to destroy some bodies” as he suspected they were execution victims. Apparently folks are packing an Ohio exhibition (Bodies: The Exhibition) entombed at the Cincinnati Museum Center, where museum officials claim everything is above board. My sister writes from Kansas City that a similar exhibition (another rival of Body Worlds) is installed in a small museum space in the historic Union Station. She isn’t going to see the stuff because to her mind, “it is voyeuristic.” I too hoped that the MPM exhibition wouldn’t trigger any peep-show tendencies. My father was a forensic pathologist, and by the time I was a young adult, I’d had it with his dinner table discussions of organs. He was generous with his body, though; when he died he willed it to the University of Kansas for medical research and spent time floating around in a brine tank with a numbered tag attached to his toe. Hopefully a medical student benefited when they hooked Father with a long pole and pulled forth their personal cadaver. But the science of medical dissections as practiced today, thanks to Von Hagens’ ongoing development of plastination, may soon disappear. As I write, I’m reminded of a former Wisconsin physician who, when last sighted, was working for a Cryogenics firm in Arizona. His job was to sever the heads from the corpses of those wishing to find everlasting life via a process similar to freeze-drying. The late baseball player Ted Williams […]
May 14th, 2008 by Stella Cretek
