2007-11 Vital Source Mag – November 2007
John Riepenhoff 5 Q
It’s not easy being green, which is why John Riepenhoff, owner and curator of the Green Gallery, established the third-floor Riverwest venue expressly for fresh, emerging artists in 2004. An art school graduate and painter himself, the now-25-year-old could relate. Riepenhoff is interested in social interaction between artists of all media. The space currently hosts a monthly Movie & Masala night for neighborhood filmmakers and sponsors a culturally conscious residency program to align local and global artists, launched by the Institute of Quotidian Arts and Letters this past spring. Between a hectic show opening and a weeklong trip to London’s Frieze Art Fair, John squeezed in our five questions. Keep up with him at thegreengallery.tk. What paved your way from art student to gallery owner/curator? Even as a student, I would question for what and for whom art was made, so exploring the gateway from the artist’s hands to the public arena was a natural progression. Running a low-maintenance space — using a model similar to DIY rock house venues — eased my start, and the playfulness of the artists I exhibited directly elevated the gallery. The more artists and gallerists I met locally and nationally, the more I realized the significance of the Milwaukee art community; that still motivates me to continue the Green Gallery project, and to experiment with methods of showcasing art and encouraging local artists. How do your personal tastes and values guide the Green Gallery cut? The artists who show are ones that surprise me; they are making art that says “things are exciting right now” in a new way, or they are creating interesting situations that don’t yet have a venue but should. They are commenting on the conditions of art and popular culture in a way similar to a writer by critiquing aspects of experience and history, and by offering some alternatives. I like these traits in people, too. I like the meta. What are the highs and lows of your role? I get to meet so many creative and amazing individuals, and get to be a part of their lives. Some of my all-time favorite artists are real people that I helped reach a broader audience! Supporting and empowering artists by stimulating discussion and exposing their ideas to receptive audiences is a real high. Building, sanding, painting, cleaning and fixing the space are all of the lows that make the highs feel better-deserved. What makes Milwaukee a good home for art? In Milwaukee, people can find time for their own projects without having to pay inflated rent that many of the (other) art centers around the country indoctrinate. The art community here is small enough that one can find help for his or her projects in friends and acquaintances, as well as find other projects that might be a perfect showcase of her or his talent. I like to think that we Milwaukeeans can commit to our own personal voices without being distracted by the pettiness of mainstream […]
Nov 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
The Art of Work
By Kerensa Edinger Milwaukee already has an art museum that in itself is a feat of engineering, but a museum dedicated to the art of engineering is another thing altogether. It may seem an anomaly, but we now have one of those, too. The new Grohmann Museum, on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), is home to Man at Work: The Eckhart G. Grohmann Collection, the largest and most comprehensive of its kind. From agriculture to alchemy, coal mining to tax collecting, the approximately 700 paintings and sculptures display the vast breadth and evolution of human industry. With few exceptions, the artwork comes from the private collection of Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, an MSOE Regent, Milwaukee businessman and avid collector. Grohmann grew up in Germany, where he would often visit his grandfather’s marble processing business and quarry in Silesia (now part of Poland). In watching the stonecutters and sculptors toil to select and transform their raw materials, he developed an admiration for the beauty of work. To Dr. Grohmann, work is an essential, evolving aspect of human progress. Currently the chairman and president of Milwaukee’s Aluminum Casting and Engineering Company, which makes high-volume aluminum components for the automotive industry, Dr. Grohmann began his extensive art collection in the 1960s. Grohmann and his wife, Ischi, have long contributed to scholarships for MSOE students and donated funds to buy the property for the Kern Center, MSOE’s health and wellness facility, just a block from the museum. In the same philanthropic vein, Grohmann donated his collection for the purpose of establishing a museum and provided the funds to purchase and renovate the building that would house it. Constructed in 1924, the three-story, 38,000 square-foot concrete structure was home first to an automobile dealership, Metropolitan Cadillac, and then later occupied by the Federal Reserve Bank until 2004. To fit the needs of the Federal Reserve Bank, the building had relatively small windows and secure, anonymous entrances. MSOE purchased the structure in 2005; demolition and renovation began in September of 2006. Uihlein-Wilson, the project’s architects, kept the small windows –ideal for allowing in just enough light to preserve the delicate artwork – but replaced the corner of the building at Broadway and State with a glass cylindrical atrium capped by an open metalwork dome. Soaring over the museum’s entryway is the 700-square-foot mural, its two hemispheres, Vulcan’s Forge and Great Minds of History, linked by a spinning celestial wheel. Vulcan’s Forge reinterprets The Element of Fire, a 16th-century painting by a student of Francesco Bassano that depicts the Roman god Vulcan forging arrows for his son Cupid while Venus, combing her hair with one breast demurely bared, looks on. For his mural, the German artist H.D. Tylle lifted these primary figures from their cluttered, gloomy backdrop and set them against a simple landscape of rolling hills and blue sky. He used live models and new costumes to paint the figures, transforming the placid, stylized originals into striking creatures of flesh and blood. The […]
Nov 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
